Freedom Songs

Freedom Song No. 2, 2018 (Installation View), Rena Bransten Gallery

Freedom Song No. 2, 2018

Tambourines, metallic leather, suede, mirrors, grosgrain ribbon. 72” x 145” x 2”

Freedom Song No. 1, 2018

Tambourines, metallic leather, suede, pyrographic calligraphy, grosgrain ribbon. 75” x 75” x 2”

Freedom Song No. 1 (detail)

Freedom Song No. 3, 2018

Tambourines, pyrographic calligraphy on leather, lambskin, suede, grosgrain ribbon. 39” x 30.5” x 2”

Freedom Song No. 5 (We Shall Not Be Moved), 2019

Tambourines, leather, suede, grosgrain ribbon, Plexiglas, conté pencil and watercolor on archival pigment prints. 96” x 58” x 2”

A Change is Gonna Come, 2018

Pyrographic calligraphy on leather; suede, acrylic disks, lampblown glass, tambourines. 70” x 50”

Freedom Songs, 2018-ongoing, is a series of tambourine works that honor the sacrifice, dedication, and labor of civil rights activists whose struggle for equality and justice remains relevant and urgent today. The series recalls civil rights era protest songs in the African American music tradition– from spirituals, gospel and R&B. Freedom songs were sung to inspire courage during meetings, marches, and when activists were arrested during acts of protest against Jim Crow segregation, subjugation, and terrorism.

A Change is Gonna Come, 2018, takes its title from the song by Sam Cooke written in 1964. This piece is part of the traveling exhibition, Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of the Paulson Fontaine Press.

Exhibitions:
Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press, (Traveling Exhibition) | Curator: Carrie Lederer
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Bakersfield Museum of Art, Bakersfield, CA
Art Museum of West Virginia University, WV
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL
Las Cruces Museum of Art, NM
Gallery 360, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph, MI
Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA.
Sound Vision: Harmonious Relationships in Art and Music, Virtually via Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY | Virtual Tour | Curators: Alva Greenberg, Independent Curator; Bartholomew F. Bland, Executive Director, Lehman College Art Gallery.
UNTITLED, ART, 2019, Rena Bransten Gallery, Miami Beach, FL
Monument, 2020, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA
Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 2018, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA | Exhibition Catalog | Press Release