Thursday, October 9, 2014

Flying into Fate: the Flow of Migration in 3 Paper Sculptures

     The beauty of the movement of humans and animals are governed by natural, sociological or emotional needs.   The three following works are all thematically related by the theme of migration.  




"Chasing Rabbits in the Southern Sky" 10/9/2014

 The size is 12 1/2 Square, using handmade paper, rice paper and acrylic canvas paper.


     


"Flying to Bujumbura"  (May 2014)

 In April I began with another symmetrical face, which I spray-painted black, using a canvass paper.  The painted image beneath the original became the basis of this work. 
Listening to ethnic music of Africa and Kronos Quartet's Pieces of Africa, the elements
began to take shape.
(Burundi is the native home of a friend in college, who told me how much he longed for the fragrant, lush beauty of his childhood homeland.)  The size is 12 x 18, made of tag-board, canvass paper, National Geographic map, paint.  

     


"Black Molly Goes to School, circa 1963-64"

       In my junior year in high school, schools were integrated for the first time, with one black girl joining each class (although blacks composed 1/3 of the population).  This work was made, honoring Carolyn Greer, the young miss who,  with kindness and a brave heart, faced our class, fed on a diet of Jim Crow, and was the first black student to graduate from North Caroline High School, in Denton, Maryland, in 1965.
  It is titled, with a bit of a fishy pun, Black Molly Goes to School, circa 1963-64, subtitled Integration gives America Wings of Freedom.  Size is 12" x 20" using a variety of paper stock and blue masking tape.