I did some experiments last week to try to start understanding how to make something based on the spirituals we're listening to and reading about.

I wasn't originally going to do any drawing, because I didn't feel equipped to make a comment on slavery and oppression in the south in that way. Instead, I looked for an object that said something about it. Reading Blues People reminded me of the cultural (and musical) differences between the African people who were initially captured and the African Americans who were enslaved a few generations later. I hadn't realized how distant these generations were from each other. Apparently there was no continuity, except for in very secret ways. I was stunned by the idea of a gap created when families were separated and children sold away from their mothers. What a stunted culture that would be. I wanted to make something physical with a void in it. I found a place mat and ripped a space in the middle. Now that I see it scanned, it reminds me of a birds-eye view of a field where slaves would have worked, not just a rift in a fabric.

Later on, I did a sketch too. It's based on the video of the men working at a Texas prison, and I tried ignoring distance and perspective so that the horses and dogs are directly on the prisoners, crushing them, but not really, because the prisoners have practically no weight or volume.