Sassy LeRoi Jones + Oh Mary Don't You Weep

LeRoi Jones is hilariously sassy. I found myself highlighting a bunch of lines from the text which may, or may not have, been particularly important.  Sassiness aside, Jones put blues and American folk songs into perspective for me. Work songs and spirituals were a source of inspiration and strength for African Americans during the slave era. There were no music scores for these songs like for Beethoven's 5th. Rather, African American folk songs was a malleable and organic product of the rough African assimilation into American culture. 

Many work songs disclosed specific clues about the paths slaves should take to escape to freedom. Mary Don't You Weep, however, does not offer such clues. Still, embedded within it is a coded message of resistance and liberation. This song has resonated with African American, both before and after their emancipation because the Israelites struggles, which are sang about in the song, paralleled their struggles. 

The Mississippi John Hurt version of Oh Mary Don't You Weep resonated with me the most because it was bare and true. I loved the twang on the guitar. He sings it with an air of hope and inspiration --a feeling that cannot be detected upon just reading the lyrics of the song. 

I was especially intrigued by the rawness of the song -- his tone evoking hope and yearning for freedom. 

What is Soul?

I had a fantastic idea for a project this week, HAD being the operative word. After listening to the Spiritual and Gospel songs on loop for a couple of hours, I was at a loss for ideas…

How do you portray something as heavy and culturally loaded in an artwork? What is soul?

I’m running back to the idea of warmth --but it’ more.

Light

Struggle

Vulnerability

Centeredness

Something ephemeral

Does this mean you have to struggle to have soul?

Something so raw it hurts

Soul is shrine

Soul is goose bumps

Soul is energy

I’ve been running in circles with these ideas. I don’t think it can be visually portrayed in one attempt –no good art ever is.

For this weeks project, I’m building on last week’s themes of light, shadow and negative space. Baby steps. I think I’ll work with text and a favorite quote from this week’s readings

Two arguments:

“You are black, which means you live too close to the sun. Black is evil.”

“ You are white…which means you live too far way from the sun. You have no color…no soul.”

Guiding words: land & home

Google Down in the Valley, and hundreds of versions of the same song will appear. Each version, however, is sung in a unique way and evokes a different kind of energy. The Andy Griffith Show version of Down in the Valley resonated with me as I could feel an overwhelming sense of security and warmed in the way the lines of the song were delivered. Perhaps this is what home should feel like -secure and warm. 

In this weeks project, I wanted to depict the security and warmth of my bedroom through photographs and sound. 

Below are two images I have been playing with. I'm interested to see how I can get these two images to obviously read security and warmth.  

Why folk songs and old songs?

Good music makes me shiver and undoubtedly gives me goose bumps. The power of music to evoke emotion is captivating -music alone can cause a person to laugh hysterically or fall on their knees sobbing. I'm excited to create work for this class that will capture the pulse and energy on the folk songs which we as a class experience together. 


In our first project, we were asked to depict, in some way, the first song that we remember. What "first" meant was up to our interpretation. A sad, but unfortunate fact is that I can hardly recall the first decade of my life. Small bits and pieces flush back to my memory occasionally when I smell a familiar scent, or visit a special place. The one song I can remember from my childhood is the first song I danced to in ballet class when I was five-years-old. It was a song sung in Mandarin. The name and artist are unknown to me, but the lyrics for some peculiar reason, have remained in my mental rolodex. Perhaps -this is the power of music. 

The song, a nursery fable, tells of a fox whom attempts to persuade a rabbit to let him in the rabbit's home. The rabbit, to our joy, refuses to let him in as the rabbit mother is not home. Pen on paper, 2013 Below is my visual interpretation of this song. 


The background pattern of this piece was inspired by a previous self-portrait print I created.