Allowing yourself to enter into intimate relationships with others forever impacts your life. Intimacy comes with the honest, raw sharing of hopes, ideas, emotions, and experiences. These types of relationships are at times both rewarding and painful, but they are integral to shaping our entire being. I have allowed myself to have this type of friendship with many women throughout my lifetime, be it for a moment or a season. My second piece, Conqueror, in the Crowns: Royalty and Resilience Series, visually and symbolically represents what happens when you enter into intimate relationships with other women - their strength becomes your strength.
When you look at a woman the first thing you see is what she wants you to see. A woman carefully curates your experience as you enter into her presence. Her adornments send a message of how you should approach her. Conqueror clearly says, “I’m royalty; respect my status.” When you take the time to look beyond the adornments, you understand that she is deeply complex. Her wholeness is a multi-layered composite of many parts. Her skin is never monotone. It is a tapestry of varied she-stories woven together to serve as armor against attack. Her eyes reflect the skepticism of age and the hopefulness of youth. Her smile is warm, inviting, and approachable, but it masks a deep, lingering pain. The pain is rooted in a longstanding history of oppression. Her back stands firmly immovable against struggles while her gaze contemplates a better future. America’s Southern red clay soil induced both trauma and joy from the moment her ancestors stepped off of their abductors’ ships onto the land. This is the same soil that sprouted the seeds of back-breaking cotton blooms. Her ancestors’ wombs fertilized this soil as they took a break from laboring in the fields and squatted to give birth to a new generation. The strength, culture, and tenacity of this new generation came through the handed down stories, food, art and memories of the Motherland. The longer these descendants of abducted people thrived on American soil, the more this land became their birthright. Conqueror is the composite of all the women warriors who are preparing my daughter, and all African-American youth, for the sustained battle against multiple forms of oppression. Feminine memory wills them to never forget their royalty, to transcend through the pain, and to press forward into victory. The blossoms are for generations who thrived in spite of overt, legalized racism, sexism, and classism. The transition in colors recognizes our collective efforts to resist oppression. With each generation, the war against oppression continues, but there is a little less bloodshed in each battle. The bright green blossom symbolizes the yet unseen moment where future generations will have space to blossom with no hint of oppression or bloodshed. But until that day, feminine memory will propel us into battle where we will emerge as conquerors.
1 Comment
Natasha Cummings
11/9/2018 06:45:25 am
Ramona your art pieces are so deep in thought. Girl Power is what I see in your piece. Women do so much and we still have time to look like a Queen. Thank you for your piece. I will taking my twin daughters to see all the different ways to express art at Speed, Goodwill event. Since they are artist too.
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AuthorRamona Dallum Lindsey is an artist, speaker and curious citizen who finds strength in the wisdom of her elders. Archives
February 2019
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