Fun
Lorna Simpson, Wow
Dear Kay,
There are times when I’m stunned by the riches available to us on the internet.
I’m thinking today about the power of a link.
Take this week. I got this email from The Paris Review.
I scroll down the email and see an astonishing collage of Black women’s faces, with a link to “Reimagining Black Futures,” an essay by Sasha Bonét, a writer in New York. She writes:
Since seeing Ahmaud Arbery murdered, each day after homeschool, my daughter and I meet on the living room floor with images that I’ve found and copied from my father’s photo albums as we quarantine at his home in Texas. There are the faces of my grandmother and her sisters in the country standing grounded and barefoot on dirt roads, my face as a girl racing against the Houston heat to consume a melting ice cream cone in nothing but my panties, moments of Black joy captured in faces that I do not know but recognize all the same. We cut these faces out and put them in the wild on mountaintops, in gardens where they exchange breath with the trees, and in the sky. Using faces of the past, my daughter and I become the architects of Black futures. The practice of collaging has carried me through this grief-heavy quarantine, a meditative motion on nights when I cannot sleep.
Her sentence grabs me: “Using faces of the past, my daughter and I become the architects of Black futures.”
Bonét then writes about the artist Lorna Simpson, who is the one who created the astonishing collage of Black women’s faces.
It turns out that Lorna Simpson, a Brooklyn-born artist, has been making these collages, from old copies of Ebony and Jet magazines, for a long time.
My next link took me to a current online exhibition of her work, “Give Me Some Moments.”
Thanks to the internet, I’ve had the chance to spend time with this artist in a way I might not were it not for that link. Even if Simpson’s large-scale paintings are diminished when seen on my computer screen, I do get to see them. And add her to my bucket list of art to track down once we can travel again.
Thanks to the internet, I get to sit in Lorna Simpson’s studio and listen to her talk about what she does. The video above is from a few years back.
And here’s a conversation from last fall with Lorna Simpson and Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation. She is amazing. He is chatty. Excellent for listening while knitting.
This time of isolation has meant that galleries and art museums are under extreme stress. But every gallery and museum in the world is trying their hardest to connect with us. Go look up your favorite museum—you’ll see what I mean. You’ll be amazed at what can happen when you click a link.
Love,
Ann
Thank you Kay fo introducing us to the work of Lorna Simpson! I felt a similar awakening when virtually experiencing the ‘quilt paintings’ of Bisa Butler, demonstrating what you say about the power of a link (from CBC Radio in Canada).
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/tuesday-june-23-2020-ricky-martin-bisa-butler-and-more-1.5623400/quilted-portraits-by-bisa-butler-celebrate-the-fabric-of-black-life-1.5623466
A post full of riches this morning! Guess what I’ll be doing during my Tour de Fleece spinning? Thank you for bringing Black artists to our attention – but for you, I would not have known about Lorna Simpson.
Let me mention another Black artist I just met – Rosie Lee Tompkins, a quilter who was subject of a New York Times article a week ago. The Berkeley Art Museum has links so you can go look – and you should!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/arts/design/rosie-lee-tompkins-quilts.html
My mother lives in the Bay Area and I’m hoping I might be able to see the Tompkins quilts in person. Meanwhile, do you know the work of Faith Ringgold? She may not currently be working with fiber, but at one time she made “story quilts.” I learned of her through her first book for children, “Tar Beach,” illustrated with sections and paintings from the quilt of that title. It’s the story of young Cassie Louise Lightfoot and her dream of flying. I have shared it with preschoolers, mainly, who respond to the magic, but it raises questions for older children, too. The text is brief but includes a page about the union that Callie’s father, an ironworker, can’t join, in those days when “colored” was in common use.
Another book I love, the memoir “Train Go Sorry” includes a scene of author Leah Hager Cohen’s father reading Tar Beach with a group of Deaf elementary school students, in English and sign language.
Tar Beach is so beautiful and sad! At one point, I bought a box of cards with art by Faith Ringgold, the cards had a couple scenes from Tar Beach and I needed to get the book immediately.
Thank you for sharing Ann! Isn’t it amazing the art we can see thanks to the internet. It’s not all about tearing people down.
So fascinating! Thank you for finding and posting such interesting content!
Thank you so much for posting this. I am forty minutes into the conversation between Simpson and Darren Walker, and I am so glad to have it in my life already. I’m really looking forward to learning more about Simpson’s work.
Love the music.
You are SO right. For years I’ve connected with many artists and museums on twitter, and since the pandemic arrived, the way museums have stepped up their role as educators and educational resources has been nothing short of phenomenal. “There’s so much here,” they say. “Please help yourselves. And please tell us how to make that easier for you.” Not just art museums. Archaeology, sciences, history. There’s so much there.
I’m still staying home for all but the most essential stuff, even though numbers look good in the region where I live. I have a safe home, i live with the humans and fur friends I love the most, I have a job I can do 100% from home. So, I’m good. But this week, I have been missing museum trips hard. These links look amazing, and now I’ve got to do more online checking on my small local museums too. They really need our support.
OMG the ladies with their heads on fire! Whether it’s anger or just working so hard your head overheats (state health dept worker here) I LOVED these. Thank you very much.
I share her sentiment about “the process”. I remember when my cousin was mentoring me through my first knitting project 30 years ago. It was a baby sweater riddled with mistakes, She was looking for a way to gently critique and said “Have I ever told you what a great quilter you are?!?” (my previous passion). I laughed and told her it didn’t matter, because it was the process that got me. Many years and many skeins later, it still is.
Thank goodness for snippets, as I would have otherwise missed this and the wonderful rabbit hole I just went down!