KINSHIP Collage

About The Artwork

KINSHIP is a 40x36 mixed media work on canvas made with found black and white photos including daguerreotypes, carte de visites, cabinet cards, snapshots, photo booth pix, and tintypes. Most are from the 1850s-1950s. Each was copied and hand-colored with acrylics, photo dyes, pens, paint pens, and/or markers. Photos were then enlarged, cut out, and glued to the stretched, painted canvas. The handmade KINSHIP nameplate is carved 1/2 inch painted pine. It is attached with velcro. The portraits move from women of the 1800s at the bottom to modern women at the top. Most of the older women in the bottom rows were born into slavery. They were photographed in the 1930s as a WPA project. One generation builds a firm foundation for the next. KINSHIP pays homage to the kinship and strength of women of color. The surrounding names were all used on slave ships. All but one is a woman's name. Many slave ships were named after the daughters and wives of the ship's owner. The exception is JESUS, a 700-ton ship owned by Elizabeth I, and one of the early transports. JESUS OF LUBEC was sometimes referred to as THE GOOD JESUS. His nautical namesake was leased to Captain John Hawkins. (His family coat of arms includes a chained slave on it.) The ship was one of the first British slave ships to reach the Americas with a cargo of hundreds of humans. Lubeck was the city where it was built. It joined fleets of slave ships from Portugal, Spain, and France. The flowers represent plants from Africa including cotton and forget-me-nots. The improbable clouds are a reminder of ones unseen by the chained captives in the hull of the American-bound ships.

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