Saving the Artworks of the South: Deep Investment and a Drone


BIRMINGHAM, Ala. “I am the ancestral magician of all 400-year-old Africans in America,” he said. Joe MinterIn her half-acre garden overlooking the two largest African American cemeteries in the south, she examines the intense outdoor artwork she has created from waste over the past 32 years. “They gave me the privilege of being their spokesperson,” he added, pointing to the tombstones.

In 1989, Minter defined receiving God’s word as “gathering what was thrown, putting it together, and putting my words on it.” Since then, the artist, now 78, has been building mechanics and a tribute to previous jobs in construction and auto repair. “African Village in America.” It is a series of improvised sculptures that bear witness to the history of the Diaspora and civil rights, the contributions of Blacks, and the events that shaped the country.

For decades, Minter has been bringing visitors to its doorstep through its cacophonous installation, with its two-metre talking bar adorned with colorful lanyards and swinging bells. They included the art collector Bill ArnettBrought there by the artist in 1996 Lonnie Holley, Minter’s friend.

“I call Bill the pioneer — no one else has taken the sword,” Minter said of Arnett, who died last year. Minter is an early champion of the work of Black Southern artists, including Holley Thornton Dial, Purvis Young and Quilts in Gee’s Bend, Ala.created by Arnett Souls Growing in the Deep In 2010, with a collection of 1,300 pieces belonging to more than 160 artists, 57 of these artworks are landmark gifts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art In 2014 – including Minter’s 1995 titled anthropomorphic shovel, rake and chain ensemble “Four Hundred Years of Unpaid Labor.” Since then, through a collections transfer program led by its president, Maxwell Anderson, the foundation has facilitated the purchase of more than 500 works by underrepresented Black artists at two dozen institutions.

But were they doing enough? “It’s starting to feel imperative,” Anderson said, “that this money directly benefits artists whose labor is “never compensated to match the true value of these objects.”

The nonprofit Souls Grown Deep Foundation has expanded its mission by investing directly in Alabama communities through partnerships and grants, where artists like Minter and Gee’s Bend quilters talk about the issues they live, work and struggle with, and talk about their deepest personal concerns. .

For Minter, that worry is the fate of his work when he died (he had just lost his wife Hilda earlier this month.)

“I can hear the bulldozer coming,” he said, referring to the destruction of many courtyard environments. Holley after a battle with the Birmingham Airport Authority in 1997. “I was waiting for someone to protect it.”

With $45,000 funding from Souls Grown Deep, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa this summer, using advanced geospatial technology designed to map rivers in three dimensions, to document every square foot of the “African Village in America” ​​for people to experience the installation in virtual reality. .

Eric Courchesne, the university’s director of geospatial services, explained the dimensions of drone flights from top to bottom; a view from inside the space; and how the installation relates to the neighborhood. The second phase involves filming a review narrated by Minter and cataloging the artworks for publication on a website.

“God looks down like a drone,” Minter said. “I want him to see progress and be able to say ‘Well done’.

Kinshasha Holman Conwill’s photo.The deputy director of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture feels that the long-running debate in the museum space over whether artists like Minter or Holley should be classified as locally or self-taught has “really stifled the possibility of these voices being heard.” said. “What Souls Grown Deep does is raise the voices of these artists and give them their rightful place in American art history.”

It’s a two-hour drive south from Birmingham to another place of pilgrimage, Gee’s Bend, which develops the astonishing tradition of patchwork quilts characterized by bold asymmetric geometries and unexpected color combinations of denim, velvet and vintage fabric. Since “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” Opened in 2002 with Arnett’s advocacy at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and toured 12 other institutions — Michael Kimmelman described the quilts as “some of the most miraculous works of art America has ever produced.” In his review for “The New York Times”—Gee’s Bend has become a worldwide phenomenon and brand.

Yet the small isolated community identified by the Alabama River (renamed Boykin in 1949) still has a poverty rate of over 55 percent and a median income of $12,457, according to 2019 U.S. census data. It is difficult for visitors to leave money behind as there are no shops, gas stations or restaurants.

Over the past year, Souls Grown Deep has invested more than $1.1 million in community startups aimed at creating economic opportunities in Gee’s Bend. Nineteen quilters market their products in stores. Etsywas founded in February with a $100,000 grant from Souls Grown Deep and funding from its partners Etsy and more. nest. In the first six months, from quilt sales ranging from $50 to $20,000, artists received 100 percent of the proceeds, totaling more than $300,000.

“I can sit at home, use my hands and work at my pace and look for money to come,” said Stella Pettway, one of several quilters who gather at the Welcome Center near the ferry port. After her regular salary as a substitute teacher came to a sudden halt with the pandemic, she discussed getting a bank loan she couldn’t repay. Now, thanks to quilt sales, she’s been able to buy herself a car and a computer for her grandson.

Also, licensing and art gallery sales, facilitated by Souls Grown Deep and Nest, have brought quilters $400,000 in the past 12 months. (New York dealer Quantitative Beauchene sells historic Gee’s Bend quilts for up to $60,000.)

Mary Margaret PetwayA quilting master who was elected chairman of the board of Souls Grown Deep in 2018 said the foundation’s efforts have made a world difference here.

“We are not a wealthy community,” he said, “but I have learned that we are rich in artisans, like an artists’ colony.” “Everyone got a taste of the cake,” she said, although some duvets did it better than others. “We’re trying to open this place up to more people every day, the younger the better.” She passed on the tradition she learned from her mother at the age of 11 to her two children. Lucy T Pettway, his work is in museum collections in New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Richmond, and Toledo.

Community-made signs fade with reproductions of Dotting County Road 29 running from Alberta to Gee’s Bend. 10 quilts featured on US postage stamps in 2006. However, stamps do not give the names of artists like stamps. Loretta Pettway, Mary Lee Bendolph and Jessie T. Pettway who is still alive

Souls Grown Deep worked with design firm pentagram Raising the sign to provide information about each quilting machine and now creates an expanded cultural trail that can attract tourists visiting the civil rights icons in nearby Selma and Montgomery. Former Museum and National Monument for Peace and Justice It opened in 2018.

More than $100,000 of his foundation, Dr. “People can experience not only the art of Bend, but also the racial injustice and history of Bend,” said Anderson, who has dedicated additional beacons, including the church where King promoted voting rights in 1965. Before the walk from Selma to Montgomery.

Also history on tour Freedom Quilted Bee Building is a women’s sewing cooperative founded in 1966 that had contracts with quilters to sell linens and bags for stores, including Sears, until the 1990s. Recalling that she was at nursery there while her mother and aunts were working, Elaine Williams started a nonprofit with $250,000 from Souls Grown Deep to begin reviving the long-abandoned building as a heritage center housing workshops, a library, and a cafe.

Williams plans to build tourist accommodation and an event space on the 13-acre property. (with high attendance Gee’s Bend Quilting Retreats now held in Mississippi due to lack of local facilities.)

Just making the Freedom Quilting Bee building habitable would be a big undertaking. Scattering sewing machines on a bright red floor, the structure has suffered extensive water damage and mold. But Kim V. Kelly, a community activist living in Camden, Ala., thinks the concept is sound.

“Elaine wants to entice people to come and see some quilts, learn a bit of history, and buy something,” Kelly said, “don’t worry, why did I come back here again?”

Souls Grown Deep’s largest community investment, $600,000 to Black-owned clothing company pasholeased and retrofitted two buildings in Alberta and Gee’s Bend for the production of its online collection of Gee’s Bend clothing. “I should be able to build something that really helps with social inequality in America with all the companies I work with,” said Patrick Robinson, Paskho founder and fashion industry veteran, who designed first-round asymmetrical tops with the opposite hand. – Stitch inspired by the aesthetic of the ensemble.

It hired more than a dozen skilled tailors from Gee’s Bend in July, starting at $16 an hour.

“When I get there, women start telling me what I need to change in everything they do,” she laughed, “and they’re allowed to do that.”

He expects the sewing capsule, which cost his company about $250,000 to set up, to become profitable in October after three months of operation. “Gee’s Bend is a huge attraction for our customers,” Robinson said.

While women may not receive a percentage of royalties, Paskho may be a beacon for other businesses.

Breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty in the South is incredibly difficult by any measure, according to Conwill of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. But Souls thinks Grown Deep’s effort “lies to lie in the notion that these are challenging conditions that can never be changed.”

Unlike the old days, he added, “the challenge won’t be a lack of will.” “The challenge will not be a lack of respect.”



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