Justice for All
In the early 1970's, I did a series of paintings often inspired by the nightly news on the most recent civil rights issue that forced me to question my childhood upbringing. My mother and my grandfather were "pillars" in our little Methodist Church, a very historic little church established by John Wesley and early circuit riders in the Southeast. I learned all the simplified Bible verses children learn: "For God so loved the world, he gave His only Son...." "God is love." "Love your neighbor as yourself." The Lord's Prayer, The 23rd Psalm, The Ten Commandments.......; all the things that set the moral compass of a child and guidance for a lifetime.
It was in the music, also; the little song that still runs through my mind, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world."
So early on, I asked questions of my mother. "Why did water fountains say "White" and "Colored"? What color was colored water? Was it Koolaid?"
We lived in a cotton field, a sea of white as far as the eye could see. I walked out to my mailbox every day to get on a school bus while little black children who were my neighbors, dragged their brown sacks into the field where they would work all day. "When do they learn to read?" I ask my mother. "Does the library truck go to their house?" "Why can't I work in the field and make money?"
I didn't know until I was grown, that I also lived just a few miles from Native Americans who experienced racial discrimination from both white and black people in the community. Their education was practically non-existent! It was also the same community where we had all white churches, all Black churches, and the Native American's also had churches. All of these churches, however, preached from the same Bible about the same God; Jesus our Savior; the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
By the 1970's, I'd grown up watching the desegregation of schools.There were discussions in our churches about desegregating churches. There were student sit-ins at lunch counters, demonstrations at schools, at work places, The Orangeburg Massacre, a lot of civil unrest in our communities, and I'd become old enough to begin to answer my own questions. As I observed and questioned, I had paintings that came to me in my dreams; always about 2:15 a.m. Then I had to get up and paint.
Today as I listened to the news about the death of the young man in Minneapolis, the riots, the city in flames, I decided it is time again to show the work I've done! It is all even more relevant today than 40 years ago. Forty years ago when I very innocently produced this work, with no thought in my brain other than what is right and just according to the up bringing of my childhood, how powerful and threatening it would be. People who otherwise loved my paintings, totally rejected this work! I hung it in the little chapel of St Mary's Human Development Center. One morning Sister Ellen Robertson called to tell me my work had been stolen. It had disappeared and was never seen again, except I had some photos.
A couple of years ago, I showed the photo's to a mentor and friend, a former Catholic monk. He insisted, "Becky, you have to do them again. You have to reproduce this work! You have just had the church shootings in Charleston! God has given you this talent and this message, brought it to you in your dreams! Do it all again. It will find it's own place in it's own time! Your responsibility is producing the message."
So, I have done the work again. My son has made me a website: www.Beckyssocialjustice.com.
I have kept it separate from www.Beckysart.com. But today, my one painting on racial justice came to mind as Minneapolis went up in flames.
Our racial conflicts have been and still are, hell on earth. We all live together in our world of diverse skin colors, religions, ethnic cultures, and human prejudice. Our faiths teach us human love and kindness; our reality practices man's inhumanity to man! It takes different shapes and forms in various parts of the world, but the inhumanity is deadly, physically, morally, and spiritually.
My painting, "Fetus on The Cross", was a statement on apartheid in South Africa. It was a simple statement, " If we condemn a person for the color of their skin, we condemn the person before they are born." It was my most controversial. A priest told me the work would never be acceptable because I was painting people from the inside out, and they did not choose to see themselves.
Many people saw this painting as a statement on abortion. That was not my intent. That's when I determined that I would write about my own work, not leave it for art critics interpretation in another century.
By the time I reproduced the work forty years later, the world had seen numerous school and church shootings, and mass murders. There had been several instances of white police officers brutality killing black men such as the incident in Minneapolis this week. My new title for this painting became "Killing U.S. Softly," (U.S. being the United States), "U.S" reflecting our willingness in this country to justify and to accept racial prejudice and ethnic hatred as our news of the day quickly becomes history. We can look back at years of momentary outrage, but then we again allow ourselves to become numb to the inhumanity.
,Where is the justice? Where is the equal justice for all? When we witness a Black man dying with the knee of a white man on his neck in real time on live TV, what excuse is good enough for the delay in making arrest? Why not arrest them all, the uniformed accomplishes who also allowed this man to die while cameras rolled and witnesses also pleaded for his life?
"Equal Justice For All" evolved from my mind, literally as I put paint to canvas. I used the Grecian cross with all arms the same length. The hands were painted to represent difference colors in the world. The intersection of the wrist became a second cross. When I added the nails and the blood, I realized I had painted the trinity. Then when I signed my name at the bottom of the canvas, I saw that I could sign my name on all four corners. Anyway you looked at the painting, it was the same, just as justice should be the same for all.
So my work has been done again. The thief 40 years ago did not destroy the artist or the message! As the world struggles to survive a pandemic virus, our mask and social distancing cannot cover our failure to love our neighbor as ourselves. Only when we can see ourselves from the inside out, will we realize what it means that God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
It was in the music, also; the little song that still runs through my mind, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world."
So early on, I asked questions of my mother. "Why did water fountains say "White" and "Colored"? What color was colored water? Was it Koolaid?"
We lived in a cotton field, a sea of white as far as the eye could see. I walked out to my mailbox every day to get on a school bus while little black children who were my neighbors, dragged their brown sacks into the field where they would work all day. "When do they learn to read?" I ask my mother. "Does the library truck go to their house?" "Why can't I work in the field and make money?"
I didn't know until I was grown, that I also lived just a few miles from Native Americans who experienced racial discrimination from both white and black people in the community. Their education was practically non-existent! It was also the same community where we had all white churches, all Black churches, and the Native American's also had churches. All of these churches, however, preached from the same Bible about the same God; Jesus our Savior; the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
By the 1970's, I'd grown up watching the desegregation of schools.There were discussions in our churches about desegregating churches. There were student sit-ins at lunch counters, demonstrations at schools, at work places, The Orangeburg Massacre, a lot of civil unrest in our communities, and I'd become old enough to begin to answer my own questions. As I observed and questioned, I had paintings that came to me in my dreams; always about 2:15 a.m. Then I had to get up and paint.
Today as I listened to the news about the death of the young man in Minneapolis, the riots, the city in flames, I decided it is time again to show the work I've done! It is all even more relevant today than 40 years ago. Forty years ago when I very innocently produced this work, with no thought in my brain other than what is right and just according to the up bringing of my childhood, how powerful and threatening it would be. People who otherwise loved my paintings, totally rejected this work! I hung it in the little chapel of St Mary's Human Development Center. One morning Sister Ellen Robertson called to tell me my work had been stolen. It had disappeared and was never seen again, except I had some photos.
A couple of years ago, I showed the photo's to a mentor and friend, a former Catholic monk. He insisted, "Becky, you have to do them again. You have to reproduce this work! You have just had the church shootings in Charleston! God has given you this talent and this message, brought it to you in your dreams! Do it all again. It will find it's own place in it's own time! Your responsibility is producing the message."
So, I have done the work again. My son has made me a website: www.Beckyssocialjustice.com.
I have kept it separate from www.Beckysart.com. But today, my one painting on racial justice came to mind as Minneapolis went up in flames.
Our racial conflicts have been and still are, hell on earth. We all live together in our world of diverse skin colors, religions, ethnic cultures, and human prejudice. Our faiths teach us human love and kindness; our reality practices man's inhumanity to man! It takes different shapes and forms in various parts of the world, but the inhumanity is deadly, physically, morally, and spiritually.
My painting, "Fetus on The Cross", was a statement on apartheid in South Africa. It was a simple statement, " If we condemn a person for the color of their skin, we condemn the person before they are born." It was my most controversial. A priest told me the work would never be acceptable because I was painting people from the inside out, and they did not choose to see themselves.
Many people saw this painting as a statement on abortion. That was not my intent. That's when I determined that I would write about my own work, not leave it for art critics interpretation in another century.
By the time I reproduced the work forty years later, the world had seen numerous school and church shootings, and mass murders. There had been several instances of white police officers brutality killing black men such as the incident in Minneapolis this week. My new title for this painting became "Killing U.S. Softly," (U.S. being the United States), "U.S" reflecting our willingness in this country to justify and to accept racial prejudice and ethnic hatred as our news of the day quickly becomes history. We can look back at years of momentary outrage, but then we again allow ourselves to become numb to the inhumanity.
,Where is the justice? Where is the equal justice for all? When we witness a Black man dying with the knee of a white man on his neck in real time on live TV, what excuse is good enough for the delay in making arrest? Why not arrest them all, the uniformed accomplishes who also allowed this man to die while cameras rolled and witnesses also pleaded for his life?
"Equal Justice For All" evolved from my mind, literally as I put paint to canvas. I used the Grecian cross with all arms the same length. The hands were painted to represent difference colors in the world. The intersection of the wrist became a second cross. When I added the nails and the blood, I realized I had painted the trinity. Then when I signed my name at the bottom of the canvas, I saw that I could sign my name on all four corners. Anyway you looked at the painting, it was the same, just as justice should be the same for all.
So my work has been done again. The thief 40 years ago did not destroy the artist or the message! As the world struggles to survive a pandemic virus, our mask and social distancing cannot cover our failure to love our neighbor as ourselves. Only when we can see ourselves from the inside out, will we realize what it means that God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
well said...and your art shows you speak from your soul!!
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