I created this 4″ by 4″ work for the Morill Mini silent auction benefiting the Justin Morrill Homestead in Strafford, VT. Whle not typical of my work, it feels important to me in this time to use any platform I can to address the current awakening to racial injustice that is happening.
What follows is my artist statement about the piece:
During this time of social and political unrest, I find myself shocked at how ignorant I have been of the lived reality of my black neighbors and friends, and at how easy it has been for me to be this ignorant. I’m shocked and ashamed at my misperceptions and profound ignorance of the history of our country, and it makes me wonder about the history of our region: what else am I willfully ignoring?
Most images of summer in Vermont evoke an idyllic country landscape. I wonder: what history are we not seeing when we look at these images? To address this theme, I created a print of a barn on a hillside casting a shadow of an American flag over the field. The flag is concealing a history of black Americans in Vermont, the people whose stories I have never heard. The flag is unraveling to reveal the parts of our human story that are refusing to remain hidden, ignored and overlooked.
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