Brown Girls Unite

2017 Anne Summer is here and school is out! As an art teacher I am thoroughly enjoying the break and catching up on a few Netflix series. It was to my surprise that I found one of my childhood favorite books remade as a Netflix series, "Anne with an E". The original book series is Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery and it centers around a young orphan girl mistakenly sent to an older bachelor brother and sister living on Prince Edward Island, Canada. I loved this series while growing up and I remember watching the 1985 TV series directed by Kevin Sullivan and aired on the CBC Network. I loved the exaggerated language and energy of the character. While the newer Netflix Anne has the expanded vocabulary and feist the flashbacks she has are darker in content.  1985 Anne Even so I have enjoyed the realism of this new Anne, therefore I've decide to make her my own by adding some melanin to this literary legend. I've painted a new version of Anne as a gi...

The other day I was asked "What's up with all the Brown Girls throwing hand signs in your art?" and my answer is "Representation Matters". So let's start from the beginning, this summer I started painting a series of brown girls that reflected pride in their ethnic heritage, academic excellence, service to the community and friendship. I wanted to represent a college educated woman who is proud of who she is and where she comes from. I also wanted viewers to relate personally to each painting, I want mothers and daughters to see themselves in the painting.  Each brown girl is wearing a dashiki in the paintings. I think it is important to embrace our ethnic heritage in art. I see works from other artists that say they are about celebrating the African, female body but the work is usually a nude. I think women can be empowered without being nude, women can be clothed in strength and pride. Women can boldly celebrate their heritage in a dashiki cloth t...