Don't You Mind People Grinning At Your Face
Don’t You Mind People Grinning at Your Face
—Son House (lyrics)
Return to Narrative:
Following my last body of work, Shape Memory—a deep exploration of abstraction in both 2D and 3D form—I found myself drawn back to my roots in visual storytelling. Using the rich stories and mythologies surrounding early jazz and blues musicians, I began to build layered visual narratives.
What surprised me most was how much joy I found in imagining the secondary characters—the ones who often linger at the edges of the historical record. In fleshing out these supporting roles, the compositions came alive with emotional weight and speculative history.
Jelly Roll Plays for the Girls Upstairs on a Slow Night
I imagined what a quiet evening in Storyville might have looked like. Jelly Roll Morton plays upstairs in what feels like the private quarters of the “girls.” While he appears as the central figure, the true stars are the women lounging around the piano—bored, reflective, maybe tired of the act. The ornate wallpaper and homey decor form multiple mini-compositions within the image, turning the background itself into a character. Jelly Roll looks off to his right, distracted—lost in thought, or maybe just playing the same tune he’s played a hundred times before.
Down Home Diva: Memphis Minnie Plays for Family in Walls
Here, Memphis Minnie—aka the Down Home Diva—takes center stage in a lime-green lamé dress, glitzy and radiant against a gritty rural backdrop. In reading about her life, I learned she often stopped in Walls, Mississippi, where her family lived. I imagine her holding court, playing her latest songs down on the farm, surrounded by people who knew her long before she became a legend.
Son House (Ain’t Gonna Work on Carrie’s Farm No More)
This scene is drawn from an early story in Son House’s life. He married an older woman from New Orleans who swept him off his feet and brought him to her family’s farm. There, she put him to work. In this piece, Son appears at a crossroads. His expression suggests resignation—or maybe the quiet realization: “This woman’s using me. I gotta get off this farm.” Carrie, his wife, stands as a strong anchor on the left, while her critical mama hovers in the background. Two younger brothers fill out the right side of the composition, reinforcing the sense of pressure and entrapment.
Borrow Pit
This large textile landscape acts as a kind of supporting character in the series, echoing the surface/sub-surface theme of the exhibition title. Things are not always what they seem. Here, the land is carved out—a hollowed section of Delta riverbank filled with the layered detritus of generations.
This motif of above/below, seen/unseen, is one I return to often. Many of the depicted objects are based on actual fragments I’ve unearthed in my own yard—when planting a tree or setting a post—at my home in the Lower Ninth Ward. These bits and pieces feel like remnants of untold stories, silent but present, testifying to the lives that came before me on this land.
Plein Air Landscape Paintings
These observational works support the color palette and compositional choices within the textile pieces. They serve as visual grounding—land-based studies that inform the textures and rhythms of the narratives woven throughout the larger series.
Archival Print Series
For the first time, I’m offering a glimpse into the underlying process behind my textile work. Each piece begins with a series of sketches that gradually evolve into the final composition. The last sketch is projected onto muslin and painted using Golden Fluid Acrylics. These under-paintings often carry a power of their own—raw, gestural, and deeply expressive. I’ve created a series of archival prints that celebrate this often-unseen stage of the process. They offer viewers a rare look into the visual foundation and emotional energy that informs the finished textile pieces.