I've Never Been To Mississippi
2011
oil on canvas
20" x 20"
Reading by Flashlight Paintings
Sometimes paintings evolve from needing to put form to stories we have read or heard yet that do not rest well within us. These paintings began to root from the research my father has shared with me. For many years he has been studying and writing on the lives of fugitive slaves and those who attempted to usher them to freedom in the state of Indiana. He always says Indiana has a dark history. One graphic story I grew up trying to imagine was of our ancestor, William C. Gildersleeve, an abolitionist of Wilkes-Barre, PA. Gildersleeve made no secret of his hostility toward human slavery and welcomed many anti-slavery lecturers to his home as a safe haven. But in the spring of 1839, Gildersleeve was taken from his home and strapped to a beam, where the mob proceeded to pour hot tar and feathers on his body, parading him about town, a public punishment called Tarring and Feathering. Gildersleeve survived.
from the series
Reading by Flashlight Paintings
Sometimes paintings evolve from needing to put form to stories we have read or heard yet that do not rest well within us. These paintings began to root from the research my father has shared with me. For many years he has been studying and writing on the lives of fugitive slaves and those who attempted to usher them to freedom in the state of Indiana. He always says Indiana has a dark history. One graphic story I grew up trying to imagine was of our ancestor, William C. Gildersleeve, an abolitionist of Wilkes-Barre, PA. Gildersleeve made no secret of his hostility toward human slavery and welcomed many anti-slavery lecturers to his home as a safe haven. But in the spring of 1839, Gildersleeve was taken from his home and strapped to a beam, where the mob proceeded to pour hot tar and feathers on his body, parading him about town, a public punishment called Tarring and Feathering. Gildersleeve survived.
from the series
Reading by Flashlight Paintings
