My Eve

 

This Artwork is interesting and unique. It is very "A'free'can A-mere-I-can" full of Afro flavor and icons.  Bright and colorful, joyful and playful, the images are deeper than surface in the many levels of the conversations "EVE" evokes. Adam is agitated somewhere in the background (as usual).  EVE has some new opinions about "that apple story." 

 

Eve resurrects the importance of mothering.  A revolution needs to happen and mothers can make that revolution just by how they raise their children.  In this series of work I challenge A’free’can Women to get back to the paramount job of mothering and then reach out to Adam, our children of the Diaspora, and our sisters of evolutionary bloodlines.

 

This is the most exciting and yet challenging work I've ever done.  It makes me proud but the charge requires that Art be more than a pretty picture.  Art is undeniable in its ability to affect change. This course of action has a conscious goal and a meaningful, long overdue purpose.

 

 

The Mission:

 

Eve,

U’ve been sitting much too long!

Used and abused

Oppressed and enslaved

Murdered and mistreated

But U forgot--U are the mother!

Yr children are really just acting out!!!

Let them see the true power of a Mama’s love!

 

We can beat that snake.  Just let the Art do its part.

The True Story of Eve

(or…It’s as easy as A-B-C)Black  Woman,

 

Black Woman, Black Woman,

Where are you today?

 

In Yr march towards tomorrow

Have Yr steps taken U backwards?

Well they should!

Back into Yr Mama’s legacy\

Her hard work

And her wisdom

Her dedication to U

 

Trying to make U/Trying to take U

To the places she’d never been.

Trying to make U a Sheroe for our Nation.

 

She lead U to freedom

Made sure U read

Battled 4 the best for U

And labored 4 Yr glory

 

But enough of the elders & the ancestors

What of U my Sistahs?

Where R U 2 day?

Caught up in a web?

In a rat-race hell?

Struggling to B free?

Struggling to B She--She-- She--

Sheroes for Yr children

Sheroes to our Men

Sheroes to our God

She-rose for ourselves

But that divine perfection

Tempered with that permanent pain

Her story

Her Story

Herstory--not his

 

Eve*,  my dear

Mother of all  mothers, 

Stand up

And

B

Crowned. 

 

 

*EVE is truly DINQNESH, the mother of all mothers found in the excavations of Ethiopia.

The Mother of all Mothers

 

I reached out and grabbed my sistahs and we agreed to reclaim our crown--U know, the one they didn’t want to give us but finally admitted was ours--Mother of the Globe--who knows, perhaps the Universe…

 

It took a journey.  First we had to pour libation and then we went through some  “Hair-Raising Times.”  We had to free ourselves so we painted our feet and threw our tears into the river until the salt created the seas.

 

Fortified and magnified we stepped back into that Garden and got EVEn’ .

 

We found ourselves and our crown

put it on: Proud A’free’can A’mer’I’can Woah-men--the Daughters of Dinqnesh !

 

Yet, this reminds us of the work we  still must do.  We’ve got children to raise, Adam to right , and that damn apple needs cookin’!  We’ve got a snake to charm and a “better book” to write.

 

Mother Nature created us--the Goddess herself.  We, the Daughters of Dinqnesh--the Mothers of all Mothers! (AKA Eve)-must roll up our sleeves, and get to work!

The Crowning of Eve

 

I am on a special mission now.

 

In 2005 the Spirit swooped in and threw me on the path of Eve.

On my birthday I was able to begin the series with a glorious residency--

I became a “Fellow” at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

 

Now, I am working to complete the paintings and simultaneously create the Garden of Eve'n. The Garden of Eve’n is the first stage of the ultimate “EVE” experience.  In “The Garden of Eve’n” viewers will be able to leave/leaf their dreams and be-liEVE-ing on the trees as they enter.  Inside the garden they can relax on an elongated soft sculpture graffiti snake

slithering with the temptations that make Amerikkka so potent. 

Then, they get to redefine sin on the ultimate apple,

throw their sorrows into a river of tears

and dance away the pain

in a collaborative and therapeutic performance piece.

 

The originals to the series are only the eye candy.

They each reflect our individual vs. group dynamics

as they work in modules to become one holistic piece. 

 

Because the works are each very special it would be great if they could be collected by individual patrons of meaningful significance.

In 2007 I opened the exhibit of EVE.  Thanks to filmmaker Ada Babino the story of the Eve-olution into Dinqnesh was put into a video.  To view it go to:

 

As the video explains the work continued to grow and the two chief mentors in this process were Francine Haskins and Aziza Gibson-Hunter.  The three of us took a journey in Dinqnesh and ended with a small but meaningful exhibit, Songs for our Mothers at Roxanne’s Artiques.  Out trio expanded to a road trip of 7 BADC artists and one Young Master in a show in Oakland’s Joyce Gordon Gallery, “Conversations in Dinqnesh.”

 

Presently the work continues quietly in the spaces in my heart waiting for the (ultimate) Mother to naturally guide me.