The show is happening!!!
Just Applied for a Grant to Support This Work.
So recently I applied for the first round of consideration for a Creative Capital grant. I have to admit the first time I applied I thought I did a good job writing about the project. I did not. #growth right?! I feel like my process and the way I think about my work has greatly improved and there is always more growing to do… The proposal I submitted is concerning my project, The New Slave Matrix. A four part project concerning the prison industrial complex and my family’s experience with the justice system. The application was actually a series of several questions. I compiled them and I thought I’d share.
The New Slave Matrix: The Stages of Loss In Reverse
The New Slave Matrix investigates the impact of America’s unyielding appetite for incarceration and the re-configuration of a system that commodifies the human body: slavery.
Why is there such complacency with 1.5 million Americans in prison?
If we recognize our justice system isn’t just, why aren’t inmates given voice as a marginalized population? Are we convinced (like Americans during the Antebellum period) imprisoning millions Americans is normal and necessary?
The New Slave Matrix: Stages of Loss In Reverse explores these questions.
Slavery is defined as “the condition in which one person is owned as property in involuntary servitude.” The New Slave Matrix doesn’t require conventional ‘work’. Over 4,000 companies profit from the prison industry. The annual cost to families for phone calls, emails, and commissary purchases totals more than $2.9 billion. The Prison Industrial Complex is an industry, dependent on bodies occupying a space: prison.
The New Slave Matrix is a multimedia project investigating the impact of America’s unyielding appetite for incarceration and the re-configuration of a system of body commodification: slavery. It interweaves stages of grief with personal narrative and socio-anthropological research illuminating how families, like my own, navigate connection staccattoed by years of incarceration.
Combining visual media and performance alongside billboards, projections, and film, The New Slave Matrix consists of interactive public experiences to engage and educate viewers. The project uses the stages of grief- shock, denial, anger + frustration, depression, decision, and integration- to illustrate the trauma of families separated by incarceration and the loss of an individual life that ‘could’ve been’.
The New Slave Matrix asks what does it take not only to survive and thrive, but also hold family together.
The primary goal of The New Slave Matrix is to broadcast the connection between prisons and profit as a public message. The presentation of a deeper understanding of what this means from a human rights perspective can be a catalyst for change. This project is meant to be shared publicly, not only in art and gallery spaces. Various components of this project will meet people where they are via projections, film, and billboards in public spaces.
The New Slave Matrix is a message from the Emergency Broadcast System.
The New Slave Matrix is my family’s story.
My brother Darrell has been in prison a decade. My Mother navigated cancer and witnessed her son struggle in the net of the ‘justice’ system simultaneously. Over the years, we have spent thousands of dollars for travel, emails and phone calls. Darrell purchases basic needs from the prison commissary managed by corporate entities. My desire to share my family’s story and spotlight the correlation between prison and profit fuels this current work.
As an artist, I focus on concepts that connect us all: faith, metamorphosis, storytelling, redemption, and rebirth. Artists like the Guerilla Girls have greatly influenced me; their presentations of statistics on billboards tell a story, are accessible, and influenced my public projections regarding the importance of voting.
I believe art activism can be a voice for those the public has been told to ignore. I am my brother’s voice.
The intended outcome for this project is to change minds. The New Slave Matrix is a call for education, accountability, and change. Another goal is connecting with the incarcerated as well as their support networks, demonstrating they are seen. Additionally educating and engaging those who are ignorant regarding the profiteering motivations of the Prison Industrial Complex is essential. The final objective is challenging lawmakers to eliminate opportunities for inmate exploitation by corporations and creating laws offering redemption for those who’ve committed a crime.
The goal of all of my work is to engage community not a gallery. The context of art is humanity. Lawmakers, sociologists, and voters are my focus; those who create the laws, those who study social impact, and those who vote for representatives that potentially create legislative solutions.
To provide arts access, education, and engagement independent of traditional art venues is a core component of my work. Public art often bridges the chasm between art education and access. Using a park, a library, retail or otherwise designated public space will assist in reaching as many people as possible.
TalkTalkConvo Explained
Here’s a little more about TalkTalkConvo my current project in progress.
Along Florida State Road 301
I often took 301 to go back and forth to school at University of Florida. But before that, I’d travel with my Granny to Tampa to visit family. There were all of these places we’d stop for things along the way to bring my Aunt Minnie and cousins. Pecans and oranges at the top of the list. The Orange Shop with its own orange grove is still going strong. The place we stopped to get pecan brittle and patties has seen better days but not more interesting ones…
The Name Is the Frame
A name is a sort of frame for a picture. For me Thorn, my artist moniker, (which actually is part of my name) is the perfect frame for the picture that is my artwork and advocacy work. Because I received resistance with the various types of artwork and advocacy work that I do (for the incarcerate,formerly incarcerated, and equitable public art access) I began to embrace the resistance. Interestingly enough, I was listening to the book The New Jim Crow and heard a couple thoughts on ‘Gansta Rap Culture’ in what I feel is the proper perspective: “there is nothing abnormal or surprising about a stigmatized culture embracing their stigma”. It is all in an effort to find the positive in the negative. That describes me accurately for sure: definitely always trying to find the positive in all situations.
The Past Couple of Weeks Have Been Splendidly Art Filled...
It Starts With a Show.
I just realized how wonderfully filled with art the past couple weeks have been. So many art adventures! Since we’ve all (at least partially) reemerged from our pandemic cocoons, I too have begun going to more art shows since they’ve re-begun in earnest. There are very few things I find better than a good art show. I remember in college, my most favorite part of the on campus shows was the artichoke dip…I mean talking to the artists :) Also, any opportunity to wear a sequin y’all.
A couple Fridays ago I had the opportunity to go to the opening of the Deborah Roberts opening at the Cummer Museum. I went on many a field trip to the Cummer so it holds a special place in my heart. Deborah Roberts work is such a breath of fresh air for me as her collage work is very different from my own. It is also on a very large scale versus my ‘intimately sized’ pieces. I met and caught up with awesome folks which is definitely one of my favorite parts of any show: the people.
Meeting + Greeting.
The next great part of my week came when I had the opportunity to meet the rest of my Community Foundation grant cohort. I love going to Community Foundation meetups. Those folks always make sure the refreshment and company are good! We are all so radically different in our practices and how our art manifests. Meeting with and talking with other artists always gets me more excited about how I uniquely view the world as a practicing creative and how I can support others in their work.
Auditions.
So I had about six auditions over the past couple weeks. I’m sure others might have higher numbers and I’m still proud; it is a personal best for me :) They give any actor/actress the change to be imaginative and inventive and silly, tape yourself while doing it and submit yourself for consideration to do the aforementioned things and get paid. Genius. Auditions in the mainstream world are simply like an interview. Just an opportunity to see if you will be a fit for their project, just as someone might see if you’d be a fit for their company. For the record, I don’t think I’ve ever had six interviews for a regular corporate job before. Like I said personal best. I got to be a lawyer y’all…and a couple other things.
Gotta Love a Lecture.
One of the grantees from my cohort happened to be giving a lecture on her current body of work. Christie Holochek and I worked together when I was a member of Art in Public Places. Christie was one of the people who asked me to apply for one of the open spot on the committee. She and Tony Allegretti (the Executive Director at the time) felt like I’d be a good fit. I had no particular designs on public art. I definitely would’ve considered myself a community advocate at the time. Little did I know I was soon to become an art advocate as well…but I digress. Christie’s lecture was excellent. To gain a deeper insight into a body of work in the artist’s own words, it opens up a new world. Christie also engages in layered work and assemblage. I thought Christie was primarily a painter. It’s such a wonderful thing to discover new things about people you’ve known for a while.
Last But Not Least.
La piece de resistance is a Friday and Saturday duo of days spent with Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat Pray Love (and the ridiculously long list of other books she’s written) fame. Friday evening was an interview/chat format and Saturday was a writer’s workshop. I was so looking forward to it and didn’t even know why. I guess because since I was initially asked to write a screen play about my family’s experience with my brother being incarcerated, I’ve inhaled everything I could concerning writing and have been trying to absorb all I can. I went to hear Elizabeth Gilbert speak simply wanting to hear her share of her experiences, not as an established super fan of some kind. I’d only just begun to read one of her more recent books, Big Magic which I did indeed love after 5 pages.
First I’d like to say this woman is so funny. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to a conversation with her and another writer. It was like we, the audience, were simply listening to two friends chat. Then the writer’s lab was like some ‘finding yourself’ seminar. It was based more in the world of mindset and facing fears that come alongside expressing one’s creativity as a writer or any expression of creativity honestly. I didn’t necessarily enter a super fan but I definitely left one, not necessarily of her talent (and yes of course that is amazing too) but just a super fan of her as a fellow human and an even bigger fan of how she engages people. She is a wonderfully made effervescent spiritual geyser of a spirit. The pictures are of her striking a series of poses so that we could all satisfy our insatiable cultural need to take pictures and post them. Then we could put our phones away without feeling as if we missed a thing. Meeting her was the perfect culmination of an artfully made two weeks…of course not my last dynamic art fest but definitely the best string of art happenings I’ve had the privilege to participate in in a long time.
The New Slave Matrix: Inhumanity + Profit in the US Prison System
The New Slave Matrix: Inhumanity + Profit in the US Prison Sysytem
So often artists become their own subject matter. There comes a time when sharing your own story is the only way to educate others. This was tough I have to say…When my brother initially went to prison it coincided with my mother’s cancer diagnosis as well as other oh so traditional familial drama. If nothing else I have more than enough to ruminate on for many an art piece for decades to come. Also what I hope for is to give another perspective for those who look at those who look at those who are incarcerated and the tragic United States epidemic of mass incarceration as a black and white issue.
#TheNewSlaveMatrix is a project that focuses on the #prisonindustrialcomplex the profiteering that happens on the backs of #American citizens and it’s overall affect on family. The first phase of this is to share phone calls between my Mother, brother Darrell, and I on a range of topics. This project is something that has been kind of rattling around in my spirit for the past couple years. Deciding to ask my family if I could share our story as part of this project just happened a few months ago. I express gratitude to them for allowing me to share.
Though I’m sharing my brother’s first days at the first facility where he was held, Santa Rosa Correctional, this wasn’t our first recorded conversation, it is the most logical starting point.
Please #share my brother’s story, our story. It is the story of millions of Americans that goes unheard.
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Listen to his story:
I Just Recently Received a Grant to Do My Project TalkTalkConvo!!!!
Grants Make the (Art) World Go Round…
The Things They (And I) Carried, Stored, and Reorganized.
At the moment so much is on my mind. Really at the top of the list: Recycling and rebirth. How to use certain things, how to move forward…in a number of ways.
There are some things that crossed my path in the past couple of days to I believe, remind me of where I’ve been and where I want to go. So much, too much on my mind.
A Time for Rebirth.
I happened upon this picture today. It was as if the Universe wanted to remind me that as so much is challenging us right now, this time of the year is also synonymous for rebirth, regrowth, change, and renewal. Also a good time I think to think of the things that connect us and bring us together.
Our Humanity.
I’ve been thinking of my brother Darrell recently and all that he’s been going through in the prison system. I’m always working on a project and also working on an article about how he was placed in solitary confinement two weeks ago with the intention that the prison want to leave him there for 30 days. The United Nations refers to this as torture. He’s such a good person. I hate the fact that he’s there for some people means that he deserves to be there… which means they have no idea what it’s like to not be able to afford your own lawyer. Here he is. The one that taught me about comics:
What We Leave Behind.
Also literally thinking on recycling. I think of so many things at once these days 🤦🏾♀️ I feel like my brain will explode sometimes. Just thoughts on what I’ve saved for collage, sculptures, paper maché, printmaking, and such. Trying to determine if I need to keep it or reorganize it. Recently sent off a package and I realized all of the packaging was recycled minus the mailing labels and tape. I was shipping a print. So I made the portfolio, the brown packaging wrap, the envelope for the personal note I sent.
I’m guessing this is a mood. A legacy mood.
Virus No. 1: The Conversation We Need To Have
More Than Six Feet Apart.
This is the first art related essay I’ve written since the complete reopening of Florida. Kinda sorta post pandemic, but not really post anything because at this moment I know someone who is in a hospital ICU struggling with Covid. Not so post pandemic after all. I’ve not felt as troubled about Covid-19 and the variants (though this is horrifically troubling) as I have been about who we’ve become as disgruntled, reluctant, and resistant hermits. During the height of the pandemic, between baking bread, sidewalk chalk drawings, and at home workouts we’ve had too much time to find new things to separate us. We’ve been creative in creating new hurdles for each of us to jump over to prove we are (and I cringe inwardly and outwardly as I write this) ‘woke’. I really hate that word now. Unfortunately for all our newfound ‘understanding’ and additional ‘respect’ of each other, we all seem to talk and truly connect less. I guess it’s because we all know each other so well? Probably not though.
The fear that I have now is of a world where learning how to use chopsticks, lighting incense, doing yoga, and learning how to wrap your head might be characterized at misappropriation where at one point it was seen as making an attempt to understand and experience another culture. I digress though. We need a drum circle and an exorcism to get through a full conversation on race and culture.
The Hardest Art Description I’ve Ever Had to Write…
This is by far one of the hardest work reflection/summaries I’ve ever had to write.
To say that racism is difficult to discuss is an understatement. I personally believe it is even more difficult to discuss among various minorities that may encounter racism. Unfortunately one aspect of racism that isn’t often discussed is the racism that some minorities inflict upon other minorities. I can only speak about my personal experiences but I can also say that most of these issues are universal.
When we address racism and other discrimination we often do it in pieces. We have to remember that those of European heritage/white people aren’t the only individuals that commit acts of harmful racism; even though those acts of racism have had long lasting effects and are pervasive, they aren’t unique in their nature.
We all believe harmful, racist, discriminatory untruths about each other. We have all ingested and digested this racism. But do we perpetuate the stereotypes, the hurt, and strain? Or do we, community to community, work together to find solutions and common ground?
A Different Kind of Tower of Babel.
My concern about how we interact as humans at the moment leaves us in either an echo chamber or an individual silo. Addressing these individual untruths as unique, independent, and seemingly separate issues (Asian and Jewish hate crimes, African Americans experiences with police brutality and the justice system, church and mosque shootings for example) will end up leaving us where we all started: segregated. We must address racism as the cancer it is: You don’t remove it one piece at a time, you cut it all out. If we don’t focus on what unifies all of these challenging issues none of us will truly be communicating. Finding solutions that could positively affect us all will become an impossibility.
The pandemic year has among its highlights some of the most horrible acts of racism.These acts among other things are what inspired Virus No. 1: The Conversation We Need To Have. This piece - a 3-dimensional wooden unicorn puzzle- addresses particularly painful racist encounters that I hadn’t discussed with many people concerning my time in San Francisco. Recently, I ended up in a conversation with two other women, also of minority backgrounds: Filipino-American (Lissette), Mexican-American (Eve) where I discussed these experiences. Until my conversation with these two women I didn’t realize how traumatic this time in my life had been.
Trauma From An Unexpected Place.
A number of years ago, pre-pandemic in San Francisco I spent most of my time looking for affordable housing (otherwise known as homeless) I went to many properties shown to me by people of many different backgrounds. I noticed that each time I was shown a property by someone of Chinese descent there was an attempt to convince me I either didn’t want the space or I was told that it had already been rented right after I was shown the apartment. Another experience involved my mother and I walking through Chinatown. My Mom was hot and a little dehydrated. We stopped in a restaurant to get her some water. We were ignored. We went into another place and no one would serve us. After we found my Mom water and shelter from the heat, I was troubled by a huge ‘what if’. What if my Mom had passed out? Who would’ve helped us in Chinatown, if anyone? Eve talked about how as a very light complexioned Mexican American she was often mistaken for white. Two things often happened to her, she said: white people spoke with her in a disparaging way about other minorities and she was often told by other Mexicans she wasn’t ‘Mexican (or dark) enough’. Lissette spoke to us about her strained relationship with her parents because of derogatory views they’d expressed about other people of color.
As humans we have such a long way to go in an effort to evolve to become better humans. The key is to at least begin the journey down that long road by talking to one another and having tough conversations. Racism to me is the first and most pervasive human virus and no one really seems to be working on a vaccine.
Abandoned Places (and Things) + Overwhelmed Spaces
I saw some things on a short walk in Orlando.
Art Changes Things...
An Art Endeavor
The Aesop Project started as an art endeavor I was working on with a group of artists I’d worked with in the past. The Republican National Convention was on its way to Jacksonville. One of the artists I’d worked with previously called me up and said she felt like we needed to do something; something to present Jacksonville artists to the world. She was hoping to use the spotlight that would be shined on Jacksonville to showcase us as artists. I agreed but added that the political nature of the timing couldn’t be escaped. I didn’t want us to squander an opportunity to speak up on several important cultural, civil rights, and human rights moments that had taken place over not just the past year but spanning the entirety of the Trump administration (and further back honestly). I felt we should speak on these issues specifically and not generalize and coalesce into a unity/kumbaya moment. Not that there is no place for it, but it is simply wasn’t the right time. It is because America has eschewed discussing the difficult things, talking around race and other important topics, I believe that we are where we are right now.
…art changes things is my point. It not only changes spaces and surfaces but it also changes perspectives, mindsets, and relationships.
To make a very long and overly dramatic story short, the rest of the group disagreed and in the most disrespectful of ways. I thought it ironic considering they wanted a show of unity. Sad. Considering at that point I’d already shared a number of my project ideas with the group.
Still Compelled
Though a little salty, I still felt compelled to continue forward to complete a project that spoke to current events. I still wanted to work collaboratively with an art crew, so I reached out to other art friends whose work and ideas I’d loved over the years but hadn’t had or created the opportunity to work together and a few folks said yes. Some felt, I’m guessing, that to create artwork in this way would be too political, polarizing, or negative. I didn’t take their desire to not participate personally, simply a manifestation of the culture we live in. People are so often ostracized for their personal opinions; right, wrong, or indifferent. I understood. None of those designations really matter though. To stand up and use your voice for what is right is never a comfortable position. This election is like no other I’ve ever seen. There is no sitting on a fence this time. There is no decision not to participate. We are in a fight for our democracy. This isn’t about politics at all.
My biggest reason for facilitating this collaborative project is because I truly believe that art changes things. I believe that when artists approach a problem or concern they see things from such a unique perspective.
This project to me and the way I have chosen to disseminate the message isn’t about speaking in an echo chamber with those I know who already agree with me, it is about reaching out to those who may be looking at things with an obscured viewpoint.
Dissemination Is The Way
The ways I’ve chosen to share what Aesop has created:
Asking people to share the first video of a video diptych, I Can’t Believe This Is Happening with their friends, family, and network.
Projecting I Can’t Believe This Is Happening on abandoned and dilapidated structures (intentionally symbolic of how we’ve abandoned who we say we are as Americans) also changing these spaces where we project the video with art. Which is also kind of my thing.
Live-streaming I Can’t Believe This Is Happening on Facebook and Instagram
Asking others to join the movement to not only vote in this election but to be more engaged civically and as humans.
There are other things I’m doing as well, but I digress, art changes things is my point. It not only changes spaces and surfaces but it also changes perspectives, mindsets, and relationships.
See for Yourself
Take a look at “I Can’t Believe This Is Happening”