The Vase Complete
Growing cottonDoor of no return
The door of no return was essential for this narrative as it marks the displacement and disorientation that comes out of the Trans*Atlantic slave trade. While the past cannot be changed and the stolen people can't be returned, this image of this door marks a horrendous beginning.
Slave ships on the angry ocean (inspired by JMW Turner's The Slave Ship)
It was important for me to incorporate in some manner the voyage across the Atlantic and in doing so I drew upon the painting by JMW Turner titled The Slave Ship. This painting depicts a few boats daunted by a giant wave. Faith's sunflowers (inspired by Faith Ringgold's The Sunflower Quilting Beess at the Arles)
This carving appears right below the horrors of the slave trade as a reminder of hope. It depicts the same sunflowers on one of Faith Ringgold's quilts. Ringgold, a well-known Black fiber artist, makes quilts that immortalize Black history. I also discuss this carving in the Black textile lifecycles chapter.
Ceramics in the soil
In the soil under the sunflowers and cotton plant, I interspersed broken and worn down ceramics. Pottery in the soil here serves as a reminder that the impact of enslaved people isn't just intangible, but that it also exists in the Earth. Read Clay as a memory for a deeper dive.
Hungry cotton plant growing in the sun
In addition to the cotton vine itself, I wanted to have a depiction of cotton on the vase itself. I showed its large tap root, and curved the very end of it into a spiral, signalling that this cotton plant is one of my own creation, not the same plant that my ancestors toiled over. The plant is shown to be greedy, sucking nutrients out of the soil and demanding all of the sun. Refer to the Growing cotton chapter for more information about cotton.
Faucet with large water drop
This image is meant to make the viewer question water as a regulated substance. In many cases, like that of Flint, Michigan, those supposed to cleanse our water do not do their jobs and Black people end up suffering. Woman leading a group following a river
The woman leads the group as they follow a river. This image has lots of negative space and invites the viewer to imagine a future to fill it. For more information on this picture see the last section, Ending with a beginning.see growing cotton to view more in depth photos of the cotton vine
This page has paths:
- Of Cotton, Clay, and Water: A Black retelling of the Anthropocene narrative Evelyn Logan
- Clay as narrative/law Evelyn Logan