What I learned while centering the clay and obsessing over the clay-to-water ratio in class for weeks is that clay particles are like platelets; water and earth dance around and are compressed in the process of sculpting. While the goal is cohesion, it starts as a suspension. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, not to oversimplify it, is in suspension, as it is multiple different ideologies pulling apart rather than binding together. I learned this profound lesson from Simone Leigh’s "Jug" (2014).

Trophallaxis focuses on the breast as a site of labor. In that, there is the juxtaposition of comfort and discomfort, familiar and unfamiliar: the cracking nipples and boot prints showcase bodily violence and the physical impact of breastfeeding. Fecund breasts with gold-plated areoles and nipples, constructed from terracotta, porcelain, antennae, and epoxy, suspending from the ceiling.

The final resting place of these effigies became an ancestral grove, "till the yard smells of ghosts," until it was disrupted by colonialism. For that, I grieve for the disturbed lost souls but rejoice that a child of the diaspora reconnects with the echo of home.

During my experiences, I thought about a church song’s chorus: “You are the potter and I am the clay, make me and mold me, this is what I pray.” My theology has always been about wrestling with the text and interpretation. My background in wheel throwing, in particular, sheds new light on this Biblical metaphor.

"I started thinking, you know, do I want this to be my legacy? Do I want my work to be about being a victim? I started thinking about conversations that I had with Mr. Gilliard (my first pottery instructor) and conversations that I had with Professor Stull about my African heritage. With Mr. Gilliard, we would talk about all the great things that African Americans have done for this culture and how they brought their African heritage to this country and made this culture what it is. And so, I started thinking about how it would be interesting for me to tap into that lineage of artistic tradition that I'm an heir to." This month's FREE article.

This isn’t just a sculpture, it’s a sacred geometry of Black adornment. The ceramic orbs resemble braid beads, yes, but they also evoke planets or memory knots, binding the spiritual to the sensual, the cosmic to the communal. "Hairloom" becomes chandelier and root system at once – radiant, grounded, reaching.
This month's FREE article.