Affirm Black Women Portrait Series: Zora Neale Hurston
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” - Zora Neale Hurston
On an unbearably hot day in August 1973, Alice Walker, future Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction, stood in a snake infested field and called out the name of the spirit she sought - ZORA! Walker took a step forward and sunk into a rectangular patch of ground. She had found the unmarked grave of Zora Neale Hurston - “‘A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH’ NOVELIST, FOLKLORIST, ANTHROPOLOGIST” read the epitaph on the gravestone Walker made soon after.
Due to Walker’s pilgrimage the once celebrated star of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, and her out of print books were raised from obscurity. Hurston’s novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” has now become one of the most assigned books in U.S. literature classes. In 2018 Hurston’s very first book, “Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo,” based on her 1927 interviews with Oluale Kossola, one of the last survivors of the U.S. Atlantic slave trade, was published - at last.
View the complete Affirm Black Women portrait series here
Excited to announce a collaboration with the Portland Stamp Company to create a series of limited edition artist stamps!
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” - Amanda Gorman
Going epic for this next portrait. At 36” x 48” it’ll be my largest portrait painting to date.
“White folks. When racism happens in public - YOUR SILENCE IS VIOLENCE.” - Leslie Mac
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” - Amanda Gorman
Sneak peek at a new portrait. This will be painted in acrylic on a smooth gessoed wood panel. Acrylic is still a relatively new medium for me and it feels like turning my brain inside out.
“Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.” - Cicely Tyson
“We cannot afford to be tired or cynical. The cost is too great to let someone else write our story or erase our progress.” - Stacey Abrams
I’m more comfortable behind the brush or camera rather than the subject but my good friend, fellow artist, and remote coworker Alex Kujawa challenged me to post an #ArtVSartist.
Introducing the Phenomenal Black Women Memory Matching Game! Your favorite portraits and inspirational quotes are now an interactive educational card game.
“…I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building— ‘Equal Justice Under Law’—are a reality and not just an ideal.” — Ketanji Brown Jackson