I've been working with this concept of repair of the world, holding up the world, and maybe even improving the world. This gourd gave me the chance to explore this concept anew and look at how women hold up the world in their own way.
All of the figures in this piece are young, brown women wearing red dresses.
Here's a close up of two of the figures. Other than skin tone and the red dress, each figure is unique in hair style and body posture. The piece is an acknowledgement of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Indigenous women are trafficked at a higher rate than the general population of women. Murders are not investigated thoroughly due to the unnecessary complexity of how the United States interferes in Native affairs. My question to the world is: when do we care about someone other than ourselves? When do look at a seemingly outside problem and connect it to our own lives? When do we stop being complacent?
Carving away this much gourd creates small pieces that you can work with for other objects. Turtle was a joy to create. As I collect other gourd pieces, I may make other Turtles or animals.
Turtle stands up on her flippers and seems to enjoy life.
Over the summer, I worked on a project with Berkeley School Volunteers. Within the Berkeley school system, there's a program called the African American Success Project at Longfellow middle school. The project was to create a website and uplift the voices of young black people. My role was minor and administrative, but rewarding none the less. I hope you'll scroll down and watch the video and listen to the voices there. There will be more videos coming from this project.
Time to flip the Senate and get Jon Ossof and Raphael Warnock seated. Time to pressure Joe to appoint Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior. Scout and I created a postcard for Joe that we'll mail close to the inauguration. Enjoy!
