Make it Plain: Part 2
This exhibition will combine artwork from Felicia Follum’s first show, Make It Plain, with new work responding to her time living in Richmond, VA in 2019 as well as the movement occurring today. Make It Plain dealt with African American history and the impact the Black church had on the community, her more recent work will be designed to encourage dialogue about race. This dialogue will focus on the process of lamentation and working towards racial reconciliation.
You can visit Felicia’s website by clicking here: feliciafollum.com
Creation and Genesis 3
Creation - And It Was Good
Each mini book highlights one day of the 7 day Biblical account of creation.
Light and Dark
Clouds and Ocean
Land, Plants, and Trees
Moon, Sun and Stars
Birds and Fish
Man and Animals
On the Final Day God Rested
Creation and Genesis 3
Genesis 3: Adam and Eve
I often hear Christians say that racism is a “heart issue” as an excuse to ignore it. Racism absolutely is a heart issue, just like every other sin in existence. I want to acknowledge that here. And yes, Jesus can change our hearts. I absolutely agree.
Jesus didn’t ignore sin. And we don’t get to either.
As we move on through this body of work we will discuss one specific sin that has been around since the beginning. This sin literally built this country and was the backbone of the economy.
So let’s dive in!
How Many Nooses Do You Have in Your Family Tree
Negro Family Tree
Slavery was 4 generations ago, lynchings 3 generations, and the Civil Rights movement was our grandparents’ generation. The question this piece asks is simple.
How many nooses are there in your family tree?
1892
Lynchings peaked in the late 1800s - early 1900s. With a peak of 230 people lynched in 1892.
Lynchings became events, sometimes referred to as Negro BBQs often with hundreds or thousands of onlookers and sometimes were even events announced in newspapers or after church activities. Lynchings were referred to as “Negro BBQ” and were family gatherings, photo opportunities. Oftentimes if attendees didn’t go home with a charred piece of a human body they were disappointed.
This piece has one noose for each person lynched in 1892.
Klanstory
Klanstory outlines some of the origins of the Klan and goes through the timeline leading up to Obama as president.
Stay tuned as there may be a Klanstory: Part 2.
A Monument
After visiting Monticello, Thomas Jeffersons Estate, all I could see at the Washington DC Jefferson Memorial were the fields and 600 workers who built the foundation for Jefferson’s wealth. They were quite literally the financial backbone of not only our founding fathers but this entire nation.
Artistic rendering: I did tweak history by making the fields cotton rather than tobacco.
National Responsibility (medium sized teal book with the Jefferson photo)
This country goes through phases of unrest and chaos and our leaders are not exempt from that.
America Collage I and II
A quote by Jackie Hill Perry summarizes these two pieces quite well.
“When I think about myself and I think about my behavior patterns.
So much of who I am is genetics, yes, but also up bringing… [So much of my mother influences who I am and] much of how she was shaped was shaped by how her parents were shaped
And before that was slavery, maybe three or four generations ago.
SO when I look at the pathology of who I am, I cannot divorce who I am from what has come before me…
So when I apply that to America it’s hard for me to really think that America as a country could not possibly be affected by the way it was created.
[Early Americans] literally went to another continent and took people from their homes and made them sleeves to make [our cotton and tobacco…. for hundreds of years] and then we just so happened by the grace of God to be emancipate so you have millions of slaves being set free back in to America. Now you got the Ku Klux Klan raising up. The Ku Klux Klan who was a part of the senate, a part of the government, the politicians, the police who are making certain laws that still protect their power and their whiteness and so we think, racism doesn’t still exist.
How wouldn’t [racism exist] when its in the fabric of this country?”
Mary Turner
In Memory of Mary Turner
Mary Turner’s husband was falsely accused of murder and was lynched by a mob. Mary was lynched the next day accused only of the crime of crying out while being forced to watch her husband’s brutal murder. She was tied upside down by her feet, her clothes were torn off and her 8 month old baby was cut out of her stomach and stomped on. She was covered in gasoline lit on fire and then her body was riddled with bullets. Her grave was marked with a whiskey bottle and a cigar stuck in the neck.
At least 13 Blacks were lynched beginning May 16, 1918 in southern Georgia.
The poem on the back of the Bottle reads
In the breeze forever their memory will loom,
A beautiful mother died and her child cut out from her womb.
That little river, a diseased and painful scar.
Your name forever worth more than this empty bottle and a simple cigar.
We remember your strength now.
Erased Truth and The Confederate Legacy
Truth Erased and The Lost Cause Performance Art
The Lost Cause movement was a movement with the goal to rewrite the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression. This movement created textbooks talking about how the North was abusing the South and that the war had nothing to do with slavery. Slavery was actually seen as a good thing that was helping those “poor Black people” who were incapable of governing themselves.
Many of the confederate monuments that are being taken down today were a product of the Lost Cause Movement as an effort to keep the memory of the soldiers alive and went up in the Jim Crow era as intimidation tactics. Terms such as “states rights” became popular early on in the movement. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were rewritten as heroes rather than traitors.
The first piece of this read “Truth.” The performance aspect of this piece shows me erasing and rubbing away the truth with an eraser turned into a noose print block which was used to create a previously sold work “History Can’t Be Undone, But It Can Be Erased.” This print block was also used in the creation of “1892.”
The truth has been removed and replaced with the false confederate legacy.
Maggie Walker
Maggie Walker
Born of a freed slave, Maggie Walker was the first black woman to charter a bank in the US. She did so in the capital city of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA during Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
Two things that I love about Walker are her faith as a devout Christian and that she was known for uniting Black leaders from a variety of backgrounds during the 1920s. Her home was located right in the middle of one of America’s “Black Wall Streets” and the “Harlem of the South.”
These two paintings are of young Maggie Walker looking up at the buildings that she would one day own, on Broad Street, the main street through Richmond, VA. The other painting is of her as a bank president in similar fashion to many of the wealthy white bank presidents of the day.
Walker’s final words were "Have faith, have hope, have courage and carry on." Her funeral was one of the largest ever in Richmond, VA.
Topsy Turvy Klan Dye
Topsy Turvy Klan Dye
Picking up the phone to hear, “We don’t want Niggers in our neighborhood! CLICK!” The family had been receiving threats from the KKK for some time.
Anthony Lee Dye Senior was sniped outside of the BBQ restaurant that he owned when leaving on June 5, 1996.
Topsy Turvy dolls go back to little slave girls. They were typically standard looking dolls with a black doll head on one side and a white doll head on the other side. The skirt of the doll is always hiding one head. There is a long traction of these dolls including ones that are little red riding hood on one side and the wolf on the other.
This specific doll has my biological father, Anthony Lee Dye Senior, as the owner of Spring House BBQ restaurant in Georgia on one side. The other end is the KKK member who sniped him outside of his restaurant simply for being a successful Black man.
Anthony Lee Dye’s case is still classified as an “unsolved homicide” but newspaper articles state that the family knew who had done it and there were reports of KKK calls in other newspaper articles. My half siblings also remember.
Unity Quilt Series
Quilts and Fiber Arts
The tradition of fiber arts is something that goes back to slave times in Black communities. My white grandmother was also a big quilter. Quilts are symbolic of community and bringing people together while keeping tradition alive.
The beauty and symbolic unity behind quilts is absolutely beautiful and something that I hope people will take away and remember from this body of artwork. There are simple activities that can be done in our community to intentionally bring those is a community together. Quilting and similar unifying activities must continue.
A Critic’s Inspiration
A Critic’s Inspiration
Change is messy. Change is a process. Often all it takes to make progress is one person seeing that something is wrong and taking that first step.
Overwhelming Love
Overwhelming Love
I am overwhelmed by the love of God anytime I really think through the gospel story. As you have seen through this show, humans were created good, but fell from grace early on. We are all sinful and fallen beings. Yet we have a God who chose to save us from our sin through the cross. He came to save every one of us. The Klansman who killed my biological father and the rioter alike.
Graffiti Wall
Agapetos
The Truth Will Set You Free
Psalm 119:11
Agapetos
Agapetos means one unique beloved son. Jesus was the one beloved of the father. In the Greek Agapetos is the titles used in “this is my AGAPETOS.”
The Truth Will Set You Free
John 8
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Psalm 119:11
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
The Relevant Methods for Change
Race Talk Book
Racial Stereotypes Book Cover
In college I was accepted into a graphic design course with David Carson. One assignment was to create the materials for a book talk on our life. This is the book cover and bookmark that I created. My whole project was based on stereotypes that people had assigned me and a specific story. When I was first dating my husband I had 13 people ask me that first week first thing if he was white or Black. These people didn't ask how we met or what I liked about him or what he was like in general. It was the direct question, “is he white or Black?”
My grandmother was one of these people to ask. Her response was “good I’m glad you found a nice white boy…” she continued to explain why in words that I don’t even say publicly.
The other questions you see on the book are also things that I was asked regularly in high school and college.
Into the Streets
Into the Streets
This accordion fold book starts out with the beauty and excitement of the freedom to hold peaceful protests, something I am grateful for in this country. It’s important to remember that 93% of the thousands of protests for racial justice are and have been peaceful. There are a couple cities that have had 100s of nights in a row of violence. Tri-Cities, and the great majority of cities are peaceful. This is illustrated on the front.
As the viewer moves to the end of the front and around to the back we see things become less clear. Ideologies split and things become messy and on the back side, they even become violent.
This is a direct response to what I see happening today. I created this book while watching the Kenosha shootings and riots live. I was filled with anger and sadness and hurt for how broken some of these streets in our country have become.
The confusion and lack of clarity are something that I am extremely frustrated about while simultaneously, I see immense beauty in other aspects of what is happening. This is not an either or situation. The expectation to pick a side or to put one on one side only is infuriating to me. This book illustrates the over simplification that is amplified by social media and is creating more polarization.
The situation is complex, but the polarization we see right now is absolutely from the pits of hell. It leaves no room for dialog or actual change. I encourage you NOT to view the world in this way.
Magazine Spread
This quote by Shelby Steele was in the book Blood lines by John Piper. It stood out as such a great quote to describe being Black.
“The condition of being Black in America means that one will likely endure more wounds to one’s self-esteem than others and that the capacity for self-doubt born of these wounds will be compounded and expanded by the Black race’s reputation of inferiority…
Black skin has more dehumanizing stereotypes associated with it than any other skin color in America, if not the word. when a Black person presents himself in an integrated situation, he knows that his skin alone may bring these stereotypes to life in the mind of those he meets and that he, as an individual, may be diminished by his race before he has a chance to reveal a single aspect of his personality…. He will be vulnerable to the entire realm of his self-doubt before a single word is spoken…”
Mini Painting Series
I oftentimes hear people discuss about how they “don’t like Black culture.”
My Black culture does involve dance, hair conversations, church music, and connecting over common experiences that few other people really understand.
These four paintings represent the beauty of and variety of real Black culture, not what the media inaccurately portrays or what those who have never been in Black culture and yet have strong opinions.
Lament Via The Psalms and Lament Chapbooks
This book approaches lamentation from a Biblical perspective and uses the Psalms to go through the process of this type of prayer and heart change. According to John Perkins, the process of lamentation can be broken into three stages.
The first step is to cry our to God. It is ok to go to Him with raw emotion.
The second step is to petition for help. Ask for what is needed.
The final step is to thank God for the good things he has done.
As we work through all of the chaos in our nation, I urge people to go through this process. Make it Plain mirrors these three steps.
Journal
Take a moment to respond to the show with what you learned or what you are thinking. How can you work toward unity and racial reconciliation? What will you do next? What is something you would still like to learn?