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Category: slavery

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Picturing modern-day slavery

Day’s Work: “I remember every client, every face.  It is like a horror movie.” From Bought & Sold: Voices of Human Trafficking, Kay Chernush.
Slavery is officially illegal in all countries, but there are still an estimated 20 million to 36 million slaves worldwide.
Debt bondage, often spanning generations, is the most prevalent form of slavery today, and is most common in Southeast Asia. Another common form is forced labor, which includes child labor and prostitution. Last but not least are forced marriages, including marriage-by-abduction. Chattel slavery, where people are treated as the personal property of an owner and bought and sold as a commodity, is the least prevalent form of slavery today.
From Borderless Captivity, Kay Chernush.
ArtWorks for Freedom is a non-profit that describes itself as using “the power of art in the global fight against modern slavery and human trafficking.” This organization was founded by freelance photographer Kay Chernush.

Her current show with ArtWorks for Freedom, “Bought & Sold: Voices of Human Trafficking,” is up until May 17 at New York University’s Kimmel Center 8th Floor Gallery. Many of the images verge on the obscene, but don’t blame the artist. Human trafficking itself is obscene, and an honest artist can only depict that. 

Chernush’s assignments have taken her around the world for U.S. and international magazines, Fortune 500 corporations and both nonprofit and governmental agencies. Her photos of human trafficking have been shown in eight major exhibitions.
From Borderless Captivity, Kay Chernush.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Voiceless, almost

This 5-gallon stoneware storage jar, incised “March 4 1857 Dave” on shoulder, sold at auction for $39,550.
Yesterday I mentioned in passing that the banjo is credited to American slave laborers, who made themselves skin-and-gourd stringed instruments of a type similar to those left behind in Africa. That image of singing in the depths of slavery stayed with me all day. The urge to create is our common humanity made visible. Creativity itself is what separates us from all other orders of creation.
The ceramic disk that is the pendant in this Chokwe wood-and-raffia necklace could be considered the currency in which slave lives were valued. It was made in Europe specifically for the slave trade. It resembles the cross section of a white snail’s shell, a symbol of spirituality and leadership in 16th-18th century Central African cultures. 
Sadly, the Negro Spiritual (and its influence through almost 200 years of music) is the major part of what is left of the American slave’s artistic heritage. There were slave artisans working in the Americas, of course, but their work is generally either anonymous or missing.
Early American Powder Horn, dated 1777, used during the American Revolution by a former slave named Prince Simbo.
Among them was one “Dave the Slave,” or David Drake, as he styled himself after the Emancipation.  Born around 1801 on a plantation in South Carolina, he made large jugs, which he often adorned with short poems. At the time it was generally forbidden for African-Americans to read and write, making his occasionally-seditious poetry a peculiarity.
For example, “Follow the Drinking Gourd / For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom,” is an instruction telling his users that the Big Dipper points north.
He has no biography other than his work; we don’t know the date of his death any more accurately than the date of his birth. But from his own hand, we do know that “Dave belongs to Mr. Miles / Wher the oven bakes & the pot biles.”
Face jug by an anonymous Edgefield, SC slave potter.  Many of the slaves in Edgefield have been identified as belonging to an 1858 shipment of people from Kongo. These people used spirit containers called nkisi in divination. It’s possible that the face jug derived from that tradition.
Dave the Slave was unusual because we have a name to attach to a body of work. He worked in Edgefield, South Carolina, a pottery center due to its clay soil. Slave owners like Benjamin Franklin Landrum and Thomas J. Davies hired out their slaves as workers at the kilns. Unsigned pottery from Edgefield is identified by the name of the kiln owners; the artisans are for the most part undocumented.
Portuguese trader figure from Benin. Dahomey (Benin) sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery. By 1750, the king was earning an estimated ÂŁ250,000 per year selling slaves to European traders. This little figurine was originally part of a larger set.
But to add insult to injury, Dave’s jugs are now valuable collectibles, selling at up to $40,000 each. 

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Make your own fun

Sampler from Salem, MA, 1791.Needlework was one of the last traditional crafts to vanish; girls were still taught to embroider into the 1960s.
One would have to be blind to not notice the current trend in adult coloring. Of the top ten sales positions on Amazon, threeare adult coloring books (and one is a guide to decluttering).  
19thcentury fretless banjo. The banjo was invented by American slaves, fashioned out of gourds strung with gut strings. Talk about making your own fun in a stressful situation!
Evidently, coloring is nostalgic, it’s stress-relieving, and the end result gives a sense of accomplishment. I wouldn’t know; I never liked to color as a child.
Carved whale bone whistle, 1821. This was carried by a ‘Peeler’ in the London Metropolitan Police Force.
Our ancestors played musical instruments and sang. They painted in watercolor, they did tole painting and needlework. They did scrimshaw and macramé. They whittled birds, made toy furniture and tin sculpture. They kept diaries.
Quilters in Crenshaw County, Alabama, late 19th century.
To some degree, you can lay the blame squarely on our economic success: we are accustomed to buy, not make, our own fun. But three generations of us have also been raised in schools which are rigid and unyielding. Our schools viciously stamp out creativity, and our art and music teachers are at the bottom of the heap.
Whittlers in Shelbyville, Tennesee in 1968. Many of the best stress-busting crafts were ones done in community.
And now we have a nation which seeks release through coloring.

Adult coloring books are a symptom of a culture that has forgotten how to entertain itself. And that’s a problem.
Mid-19thcentury hair-wreath. It was a time of gut-wrenching infant mortality and limited photography. 

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.