April 2021 – Towing Silver: Kim Davison's Travels

North Carolina State Capitol (April 2019)

My true mission for stopping in Raleigh was to see the state capitol building. I’ve been trying to see as many as I can while I’m traveling. Some are what you might expect to see, with columns and domes,

like the Kansas capitol building in Topeka,

or the Montana capitol in Helena,

and the Michigan capitol in Lansing. They all follow the mold.

Some are more unusual, though.

While the Nebraska state capitol in Lincoln is actually quite amazing, the exterior reminds me of a train station.

The Oregon state capitol in Salem was derided by critics for what looked to them like a paint can on top.

Louisiana’s state capitol in Baton Rouge is another capitol that breaks from tradition. It could be that they were all built in the 1930s in the Art Deco style that makes them so different.

Anyway, I wanted to see what North Carolina had to say for itself.

It turns out that they want to have it both ways.

They have a modern building that they use for actual governmental activities.

They also have the old capitol, which is used mainly as a museum, although the governor and the immediate staff have offices on the first floor.

I arrived in the Capitol district, parked and started looking for the Capitol.

I do like maps that tell me where I am. Maps are most useful if you can locate yourself on it.

Hmm…Maybe I’ll check out the Legislative Building later.

That’s more like what I had in mind!

I walked around a bit, trying to get a good photo of the facade.

Holy moly! Would you look at those inscriptions?! I do believe Polk’s epigraph is accurate, although not necessarily laudable. The other inscriptions are definitely more in the range of opinion.

Interesting.

Anyway, I had located a door and I walked up to see if I could get in.

I happened upon a photo shoot.

Lucky me! I found the entrance and The Capitol is Open! (Many times, I have trouble finding the entrances or they are not open for visitors.)

This is an interesting sculpture of George Washington.

Even more interesting is the history of it. It was commissioned in 1815, sixteen years after Washington’s death. Thomas Jefferson decided that Antonio Canova should be the sculptor and that Thomas Appleton, American consul in Livorno, Italy should handle the negotiations. I suspect that part of the reason for selecting Appleton might have something to do with the fact that he owned a plaster copy of the marble bust of Washington by Guiseppe Ceracchi that Jefferson recommended as a model for the head.

The bust can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, if your travels take you to New York City.

Canova started work on the statue in 1817 and finished it in 1820. Governor Miller requested that the United States Navy transport it from Italy, and it arrived in Boston in July, 1821. It finally arrived in Raleigh in December.

After a citywide fire in Fayetteville in May of 1831, the state decided to protect the wooden roof of the state house with zinc sheets. On June 21, workers accidentally set the roof on fire while soldering nail heads to the zinc.

The state house and Canova’s statue were both destroyed.

So, how do we have this statue, if the fire destroyed it?

A plaster replica was sent by the Italian government in 1910. You can see it at the North Carolina Museum of History. A marble copy was sculpted by Romano Via in 1970, and that is the one that I took a picture of.

Actually, I took several photos.

I do enjoy looking up into the domes that most state capitols seem to favor.

Around the rotunda, they had niches with busts of people they wanted to memorialize.

William Alexander Graham, who served in the General Assembly, the U.S. Senate, the Secretary of the Navy under Millard Fillmore, the State Senate and was governor. Oh, and he was in the Confederate senate. After the Civil War, he was elected to the the U.S. Senate, but couldn’t present his credentials because North Carolina was not readmitted to the Union until 1868.

John Morley Morehead served several terms in the General Assembly before being elected governor in 1840. While in office, Morehead supported the public school system, adequate care for the blind, deaf, and mentally ill, improved waterways and harbors and the construction of a cross-state railway system.

According to the plaque with the statue, his efforts were rewarded by election to serve as president of the North Carolina Railroad.

In 1862, he represented North Carolina at a failed conference to avoid war and was later elected to the Confederate Congress. According to the plaque, “Though he died shortly after the close of the war, many consider him “the Father of Modern North Carolina.”

Matt Witaker Ransom was a general in the Confederate Army and a Democratic U.S. Senator between 1872 and 1895, as well as attorney general and a member of the House of Commons prior to the Civil War. He was also appointed by President Grover Cleveland to serve as Minister to Mexico.

Samuel Johnston was born in Dundee, Scotland, although he grew up in Edenton, North Carolina. As you can probably tell from the hair and the attire, Johnston’s role in North Carolina goes back to the American Revolution. He was a delegate to the first four provincial congresses and contributed to the first state constitution, and later served as governor. He was chosen to serve as one of the state’s first two U.S, Senators.

This was back before Senators were directly elected by the voters, which didn’t happen until 1914.

After his stint in Congress, he returned to North Carolina and was appointed to the state Superior Court.

So, what does it look like North Carolina is trying to say about itself with their art choices so far? I’ll let you decide for yourself. Let me mention that the four busts were created by the same artist – Frederick W. Ruckstuhl – between 1909 and 1911.

There were many more plaques in the rotunda, but I’m not going to share them all. They honored the thirteenth, fourteenth. fifteenth and nineteenth amendments, as well as a few more that pertained to the American Revolution, and this one that commemorated the Edenton Tea Party.

I wrote about it when I visited Edenton the year before this spring 2019 trip. You can read about my visit here.

In case my previous comments about the artwork came off as harsh, I do give the people of North Carolina credit for trying to offer information that would allow visitors to develop a more complete understanding of the state’s history.

If you’re interested, you can also read the autobiography of Friday Jones, who was one of the enslaved people who built the Capitol.

You can buy it on Amazon or you can access it here, if you would like to read it for yourself.

The portrait on the banner is of a person who did not help build the Capitol. This is because Lunsford Lane had purchase his freedom by the time the Capitol was under construction.

You can also read his narrative here or order it online.

You might be wondering why there is a wheelbarrow full of wood in the building. Historic records show that more than 300 cords of wood were used during a regular legislative session, which ran from November to March.

A cord of dry firewood measures eight feet wide, four feet high and four feet deep and weighs over a ton.

The enslaved African Americans used wheel barrows with iron-rimmed wheels to cart the firewood up to the legislative chambers. That would be 600,000 of wood muscled up those stairs. I wonder how much a single load weighs.

The orange oval at the bottom of the banner says, “This wheelbarrow is loaded for a trip up the stairs. Can you lift it?”

I’d say that is a rhetorical question, as the wheelbarrow looks securely fastened to the wooden base.

I went up the stairs. there were some displays that may have been interesting. Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t good enough for me to study them well.

While looking around, a tour group showed up. It looked large enough for me to sneak in – so I did.

This is the House of Representatives, which was first known as the House of Commons. It was in this space in May 1861 that delegates from across the state unanimously voted to secede from the Union.

It was also in this space, once built and maintained by enslaved laborers, that Parker D. Robbins served two terms as one of North Carolina’s first African-American legislators.

Representative Robbins was an interesting person. He was a free Black and owned a 102 acre farm in North Carolina before the Civil War. After the War broke out, he went to Norfolk, Virginia and enlisted in the Union Army. He attained the rank of Sergeant-Major.

Robbins was one of fifteen Blacks to be elected to the North Carolina General Assembly in 1868 and served two terms. He was also a representative to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention. He was postmaster of the town of Harrellsville, North Carolina and held patents for a cotton cultivator and a saw sharpener.

By State Archives of North Carolina Raleigh, NC

Lillian Exum Clement was the first woman elected to serve in any state legislature in the southern United States. The nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920. Her term began in 1921. She defeated two male opponents in the primary election and then won the general election in a landslide, 10,368 to 41.

This is the Senate chamber, where Abraham H. Galloway served.

He was born into slavery in 1837 and escaped to Canada in 1857. He returned to North Carolina in 1862 to become a Union spy.

After the war, he traveled across the state, advocating equal rights and helping to organize the 1865 Freedmen’s Convention. New Hanover County chose him to attend the 1868 state constitutional convention and elected him to two consecutive terms in the NC Senate., where he supported women’s suffrage and labor rights. He died unexpectedly at the age of 33 while still in office. Six thousand people attended his funeral, an event the Christian Recorder called “the largest ever known in this states.”

I walked back out to the rotunda.

and looked down on The Father of Our Country.

There were a variety of other meeting rooms.

The details were simple yet elegant.

I guess it’s time to go upstairs.

Here’s the view from the spectators’ gallery of the chamber of the house of representatives,

and a similar view of the Senate chamber.

Ooh! We’re going to see the office of the State Geologist! I do like rocks!

Our tour guide gave us a brief look at the office.

That’s some nice woodwork. (I like wood, too.)

And now on to the library.

The guide told us that bills were wrapped up in paper and tied up with red tape. I guess the one she’s holding isn’t quite done yet.

There is plenty of storage above the lower stacks.

It does frustrate me when people feel the need to deface things. Well, Jack J. is now part of the historical record.

The tour ended and I went out to explore the rest of the grounds.

The landscaping and spring flowers were lovely.

This memorial is to Zebulon Baird Vance, Confederate military officer, 37th and 43rd Governor of North Carolina. What did he do between his first and second terms as Governor? Among other things, he was a U.S. Senator.

Ah! There’s a person I recognize. Another memorial to George Washington, this one was the work of Jean-Antoine Houdon. It cost $13,454 when it was dedicated on July 4, 1857. In 2021 dollars, that would be $409,615.

Here we have another governor memorial. Charles Brantley Aycock was North Carolina’s 50th Governor, and he served from 1901 to 1905. He was a strong proponent of the white supremacy campaigns of that period and was one of the leading perpetrators of the Wilmington Insurrection or 1898, in which whites took over the city government by force, the only successful coup d’état in U.S. history.

(Let’s keep it that way.)

This statue is of Charles Duncan McIver.

He was the founder and first president of the institution now known as The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

This statue is of Ensign Worth Bagley, who was the only U.S. naval officer killed in action during the Spanish-American War.

What do you suppose this large monument is for?

Yes, “To Our Confederate Dead.”

With cannon standing at the ready.

This 32 pounder naval cannon was taken in June of 1861 when the Navy Yard at Norfolk was abandoned by the Union. It was presented by the U.S. War Department in 1902.

I thought this shot of the cannon’s trunnion was interesting.

I appreciate that it was important to them to honor the women of the Confederacy, too.

Augustus Lukeman created the statue in 1913,

and it was formed at the JNC Williams Inc. Bronze Foundry in New York.

This statue is of Henry Lawson Wyatt. He died in the Battle of Big Bethel, one of the first skirmishes of the Civil War, making him the first enlisted soldier from North Carolina to die in battle.

His comrades in arms are also honored on the plinth. I like to take note of when memorials were created and by whom. Notice that Wyatt was honored but the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1912.

What do you suppose these last three memorials have in common, beside the Confederacy?

They were all removed June 21, 2020.

For more information on the removal of the Confederate monuments, you can click here.

Look up!

I thought that was an interesting planting. I did look up. I noticed that the day was lovely and still young. So, I got on with my explorations.

I wandered about a bit more,

Grabbed a bit of lunch.

I poked my head into a few museums. I won’t bore you with the details of what was inside. I was running out of time and energy for looking at things. (If you’ve stuck with me this long, I’ll bet you are, too.)

Let me just share a few more statues that were in front of museums.

This statue grouping in front of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences shows Rachel Carson sharing the wonders of the natural world with children.

The North Carolina Museum of History has a trio of statues greeting you at the entrance.

Frederick Augustus Olds was the founder.

I like how he invites people to enter.

Does the key he’s extending represent knowledge that unlocks understanding and power?

Thomas Day was a free African American who was a woodworker.

I appreciate the effort at inclusivity by including Braille text on the sign.

This statue is an artist’s representation of a member of the Saura tribe around 1600.

In these statues I passed, there were six figures.

Ratio to Male to Female – 3:3
Ratio of White to Non-white – 3:3

You can’t say that the people of North Carolina aren’t trying to offer a more balanced approach.

With that, it was time to head back to the campground to get ready for the next day’s adventures.

Raleigh? Really! (April 2019)

April 2021

Time really flies…or it doesn’t.

2020 has kind of evaporated. I don’t know about you, but there were a whole list of things I had hoped to accomplish during the Covid lockdowns.

I managed to spend some quality time with Cora.

I planted my first real garden.

I amused myself by taking photos of each day’s harvest.

Then, I had to learn how to can all of what my garden grew.

I have managed to avoid contracting the disease, and that is a Good Thing.

I am healthy. I am vaccinated. I am rarin’ to go! But, what to do about all those adventures I had in 2019? I am going to see how many I can reasonably record, and then declare a victory.

First things first: How much of what I did can I even remember? And, can I even remember how to write a post that anyone will want to read?

I guess we shall see.

Well, when I left off, I had just visited Frank and Debbie in Asheville, NC. My next goal was to visit the state capitol in Raleigh. I ended up camping at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds.

It felt like old home week! Here I was, nestled in with all the Airstreams! In fact, one of the ‘Streamers was a person I had worked with at Amazon back in 2014. What a small world!

My first activity was a visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art.

While the exterior was a bit austere, the collections were outstanding.

I snapped a lot of photos while I was there. In going through them to decide what would help tell the story of my visit, I have to admit I was overwhelmed. I’ll share a few, but if you are at all interested in art, I recommend that you make time for a visit if you find yourself in North Carolina.

(Actually, I’m sharing a few more than a few. But, there are so many more that I still have in my files.)

I mean, I was taken by their attention to details – like the trash and recycling receptacles.

And how the trash receptacles complemented the chairs, which complemented the walkway with complemented the building.

Even the drizzle added an artistic feature!

Anyway, the first building I entered was dedicated to African art.

There were the things you expect to see when you visit a museum of African art, like this 19th century prestige vessel from Ghana,

or this piece of jewelry,

or this mid 20th century women’s ceremonial skirt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But they had some textiles I had never seen before, like this velvet from the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From what I understand, the base cloth is woven by the men and the decorative elements are added by the women using an embroidery technique that adds a looped pile. The ends are cut leaving dense areas that are similar to velvet.

This photo taken the edge gives you a different view of the work.

Incidentally, the ceremonial skirt and the velvet are both made from raffia palm leaves. I would love to know how they process those fibers!

They had more recent textile-like work, as well. This piece is called “Lines that Link Humanity” and is by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. It’s made from discarded bottle caps and liquor packaging. You all know how I love recycled things. Some day I’ll do a post about my sculptures made from plastic bags, videos, newspapers, minutes from meetings and magazines.

Oh, what the heck! No time like the present. Here are some of my works of art.

And now we return to the North Carolina Museum of Art.

This is a work of art by Ethiopian artist Elias Sime. It’s made from recycled materials, such as buttons, batteries, bottle caps, clothes, dismembered computers and cell phones. This waste is shipped from all around the world to Addis Ababa and it is sold in huge open air markets.

This work of art is actually quite large. It’s made up of six panels and overall measures about 5’3″ by 20′.

This work of art is by Senegalese artist Viyé Diba. According to the artist, blue is the symbol space and liberty. It’s created from recycled wood and cotton strip-woven cloth.

I have to admit, though, my favorite part of this part of the museum was the children’s section. And, luckily for me, there weren’t any children there that day.

I didn’t have to share!

The system worked kind of like a kaleidoscope. You selected the pieces that interested you and then played around with them until you liked the results.

And play I did!

I was so glad no one else wanted to use it.

It was just mesmerizing!

I could easily see myself wearing some of these designs.

Or maybe a rug?

I just had a fantastic time playing with the system!

I was really taken with Bill Viola’s 2000 work, “The Quintet of Remembrance.” It’s hard to convey the impact of the work of art in a static medium, as he worked in video for this piece.

I love pieces that reference other cultures and artists. According to the information posted at the entrance to the room where the piece was playing, in this work, Viola, an American artist, references Hieronymus Bosch’s Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns) (circa 1490-1500), Andrea Mantegna’s Adoration of the Magi (1495-1505) and Dieric Bouts’s Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowing Madonna) (1470-75).

Each of these paintings captures one moment in history.

Viola uses video to explore a series of sentiments relates to these paintings.

With the technology of digital video recording, sixty seconds of footage is slowed to fifteen minutes.

We’re allowed to observe actors’ interpretations of compassion, shock, grief, anger, fear and transcendence.

The video’s slow speed emphasizes subtle transitions from one feeling to another.

We are allowed to experience certain timeless, universal qualities of expressive emotions.

The changes are really subtle but captivating at the same time.

I could easily have watched it a few times, but I had much more museum to visit!

I left the annex and headed over to the main part of the museum.

Yep, it was still raining.

Once inside, I saw a sign for the cafe. I wasn’t ready for a break, but I thought I’d check it out.

What a cool piece of art! And they have waiters?! I will definitely have to return some day. This looks like a place I’d like to eat!

Now, I suppose that there is a logical way to tour this museum. By looking over my photos and the order I took them, I think I may have gone the wrong way. Still, everything was well displayed and the lighting was wonderful.

This altarpiece was created by Giotto di Bondone and Assistants somewhere around 1300. I was lucky enough to see the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, on my last trip in 2006.

Giotto is one of the most influential artists who ever lived. He is credited from changing the flat, artificial styles of Byzantine art to a style more based on the study of nature. He was the first painter to paint his figures with believable bulk and weight and give them expressive gestures and features.

A mere 300 years or so later, Frans Snyders (and his Workshop) painted this work of art, “Market Scene on a Quay.”

The details in this painting are amazing.

I love the little kitties grabbing themselves some dinner!

They had some Rembrandts, too, which were from the same era as the previous painting. Rembrandt worked in many media. These are not the finished works of art; they are the copper plates that produced the etchings.

The museum didn’t have the prints, but I did manage to find one on the internet to accompany the plates.

The plates had great value through the ages.

As they would get worn down from use, printers would re-etch the lines and keep on printing. Now they are valuable, because Rembrandt.

I’m not sure of the details of this painting, but I thought the way the frame reflected the subject matter was interesting. Could this fellow be given to drinking and gambling? If so, there’s an app for that!

Speaking of debauchery, this painting by Jan Steen seems to fit the theme.

The Worship of the Golden Calf, painted around 1670, tells the story of what happened with the Israelites while Moses was away on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments.

Moses’ brother Aaron gave in to the demands of the people and created a golden calf for them to worship. you can read all about it in Exodus 24 in the Bible or click here.

I’ll share one more painting from this section of the museum. This work of art, An Allegory of Unequal Love, is by Jacques de Gheyn II, and was painted in the 1620’s. I’ll let you study it on your own.

Moving on, I passed this second century Roman mosaic. Something tells me that I may not be proceeding through the collection in chronological order.

As long as I’m indulging myself, here’s a mosaic I made when I attended a mosaic course in Ravenna, Italy in 2006.

And, on we go…

Apparently, I’m not proceeding in a chronologic or geographic order. This bull is from Greece and is from circa 1400-1200 BCE – or AD if you are still rocking it old school.)

As always, women are a favorite subject. The one on the left is identified as “Idol” and the one on the right is “Woman holding child .”

I didn’t make any notes about this, but I am sure this guitar-shaped figure is female.

After all, B.B. King named his guitar “Lucille.”

We’re still in Greece, but now we’re in the late 3rd or 4th century BCE.

This is a blown glass Roman amphora from the 1st-2nd century. It would have been used as a burial urn inside a tomb. It held an egg-shaped lead vessel, which contained the ashes of the deceased.

This is also funeral-related, but this Italian Hydria, from about 320 BCE would have stood above a grave. Libations for the deceased were poured into the vase. I wonder if there is an opening in the bottom for the drinks to drain right down to the deceased?

And now we’re in Egypt, at least for a hot minute.

Hold on a second!

I was in Egypt and now I’m in Central America!?

I believe this one came from the Mayans near – or in – modern-day Honduras, and was created circa 650-850.

This looks like more of the Mayan artwork I’m familiar with. It is from Guatemala, circa 700-800.

This is also from Guatemala – a terracotta censer from circa 350-550. It’s kind of amazing that such a fragile looking piece made it for so many years.

I loved this squash effigy jar, from Colima State, Mexico. The era it was created is a bit uncertain, circa 200 BCE – 300 CE.

In case you’re wondering, Colima is about 200 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, a favorite destination of The Pacific Princess.

I wonder if The Love Boat is in port these days?

I’m sure that I must have charted my own course through the museum, because now I’m in a wing dedicated to painting.

This work of art is by Jacob Lawrence. He painted Forward in 1967 and it is done in tempera on masonite. (And you thought tempera was only used by children in elementary art classes.)

Harriet Tubman was painted by Aaron Douglas in 1931. It’s a mural-sized painting that was commissioned for the Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina.

This is Aaron Douglas’ explanation of his painting.

Are we back in Rome? Is this some ancient Roman?

No, this is South Carolinian Senator John C. Calhoun (1782-1850), as envisioned by Hiram Powers in 1835, an American sculptor who spent much of his life in Italy.

Powers took a number of artistic liberties with this portrait.

In addition to draping him in a Roman toga – not everyday attire in Calhoun’s era – he gave him a “lion mane – more leonine than true. He also exaggerated Calhoun’s brow to shadow his eyes. He even had Calhoun remove his set of false teeth in order to accentuate his gaunt face.”

I suppose this was the 19th century version of a Snapchat filter.

Immigration is part of the American story. This next painting is by John George Brown, an American artist who was born in Great Britain

A Tough Story was painted 1886. in the 1880s, the streets of New York City teemed with the children of the desperate poor, many newly arrived from Europe. In the paintings of the time, the squalor and viciousness of urban poverty are downplayed. Such depictions of young entrepreneurs were reassuring to wealthy Americans, many of whom considered themselves to be “self-made men.”

Even so, Brown is too honest to disguise the bone weariness in their eyes.

The name “Pat”, carved into one boy’s boot blacking box, identifies the lad as Irish born Paddy Ryan, one of the artist’s favorite models.

William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) studied in Munich for six years.

Before returning to New York, he spent nine months in Venice. Instead of painting the usual tourist views, Chase focused on scenes of everyday life glimpsed in the backstreets and markets.

In this painting, In the Baptistry of St. Marks, Venice (1878), he used the the cavernous spaces of the great Basilica of St. Mark.

When the painting was later displayed in New York, one critic described it as “really a still-life study of brass, marble and other substances.”

In case you’ve forgotten, this is the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice.

Americans do get around.

This painting, The Garden Parasol (1910), was painted by Frederick Carl Frieseke, An American artist who was active in France from 1898 until his death in 1939.

The painter poses his wife as a cultivated woman of leisure whose readings interrupted by the arrival of a visitor, that prompts her to look up from her book.

I found it interesting that he staged this scene in his garden in Giverny, France, where he spent many summers living near Claude Monet.

Now, why did I select this work of art from the literally hundreds of images I snapped in the museum? See if the title gives you a clue.

This is Peasant Spreading Manure (1854-1855) by Jean-Francois Millet.

If you guessed that it reminded me of my gardening last summer, you win! However, I didn’t have any manure to spread. I had to make do with compost. I had a healthy amount of compost, as I my lawnmower has a bag that I have to empty. I compost the clippings, the leaves in the fall, and the kitchen waste.

This painting is Weather Side (1965) by Andrew Wyeth. Does the house look familiar? I imagine it is the same house that is in his famous painting, Christina’s World (1948).

According to the information with posted with the painting, “Wyeth intended the decaying Maine house to be a surrogate portrait of his close friend Chistina Olson and her brother Alvaro. Wyeth studied every detail of the house for traces of its eccentric inhabitants: note the sheet stuffed in a broken attic window and Alvaro’s jerry-rigged system to collect rain water. Christina was crippled from polio and insisted on dragging her body around the house and yard. Out of sympathy Wyeth chose to paint the house from her low point of view.”

If you are still reading this post, you are probably wondering if I will ever stop.

The answer is, “Yes. Yes, I will.”

But bear with me for a few more works of art and then I’ll let you go.

This is Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) (2013) by Amy Sherald. I selected this work of art because Sherald is the artist Michelle Obama chose to do her official portrait.

According to the information with the painting, this “encapsulates Amy Sherald’s desire to build “alternative narratives” through her work. “Historically, people of color,” she says, ” are often shown looking away. But [this subject] has let that go and meets the viewer’s gaze. She assesses the viewer rather than being assessed.”

Sherald is known for her portraits of African Americans, all of whom are depicted with grey skin tones, forthright facial expressions, monochromatic backgrounds and vibrant clothing.

Quietly confronting issues of historic underrepresentation and stereotypical imagery, Sherald deliberately paints her subjects’ skin grey; doing so challenges the notion of color as race.”

The last work of art I will share with you is Light of Life by Yayoi Kusama.

It is a mirrored box and LED lighting system, an enclosed version of an infinity room, which are her most well-known works. You gaze into the work of art through portholes at your your reflection, other viewers, and a two minute show of colored lights.

Click on the play symbol to see what I saw.