the art & writing of

36" tall   x  33.3"  wide  

mixed media:  paper, carving, latex enamel paint, wood on wood

completed:  3.2002

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The painted text in the work:

This old woman out there in Chalmette...one day -- Chalmette -- right over there.  Me and her was  there, I was in the kitchen doing my work and she's standing up there in the doorway asking questions.  

About some colored folks she liked and some she don't, some of them so ugly, some of them so this, some of them so that.  I let her talk.

When she got through I asked her, I said, "Don't you see some mighty frail looking -- "  I said,  "Us colored folks get at our house," I said, "We calls them peckerwoods."    I said, "Some of them we call them rednecks."   And she said "Huh?"

I said, "Yeah, you didn't know it?   I said "Just like you find fault in the colored ones," I said, "the colored ones finds fault in you."

I KNOW THERE'S SOMETHING  WRONG ABOUT THEM.  THE REASON I NEVER COULD MAKE UP MY MIND TO LIKE THEM.

I said "Well, why you didn't explain all this the day they sent me here for a job?"  I said "Do you think if I had known you was that type I would have even come here?"

YOU BETTER BE QUIET BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TALK -- I BE A HALF-SICK WOMAN.  YOU'LL UPSET MY NERVES.  I'LL TELL MY HUSBAND.

"Well, baby," I said,  "You ain't  got nothing to tell him," I said, "but just before I leave here," I said,  "I'm going to give you something to tell him." 

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The Engraved words in the work:

tete-a-tete,  woman to woman, peckerwoods abound 

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This piece has exhibited:

10.06     "Old School, New School, No School," Carbon County Cultural Project, Jim Thorp PA; AWARDED:  "Best No School"

9.03     "8th Annual No Dead Artists: A Juried Exhibition of Louisiana Art Today,"  Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans,    juror: David S. Rubin, Curator of Visual Arts, CAC 

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