two-headed woman

in this garden
growing
following strict orders
following the Light
see the sensational
two-headed woman
one face turned outward
one face
swiveling slowly in

—"in this garden," Lucille Clifton 

blue

My creative partnership with blue unfolded with an alternative photographic process called cyanotype. I still recall the instant connection I felt as the water cascaded over the fiber washing away the emulsion to magically reveal a striking blue print. A year and a myriad of photograms later, an inquiry about my knowledge of a mysterious plant named indigo catapulted my research into a blue abyss and the art of textile dyeing.  

In this academic pursuit, I learned of the hue’s spiritual significance, indigo’s fraught history, and the blue-saturated textile traditions that are not only centuries-old but transnational. Much like me, this color is complicated, cerebral, and strange, and it continues to entertain my seemingly ceaseless curiosities. Today, I’ve come to understand my work with the color as reclamation, an act of resistance, and a continuum of my ancestry. 

I am unsure how long I will work with blue, but it appears to have taken up residence in my studio, on my paper and materials with no plans to vacate. So I will heed and play and grow until my desire to enmesh with this mesmerizing color resides, and I am no longer bewitched by its allure and magnetism. 

carla

in
 

Carla Williams: Circa 1985 at Higher Pictures (Brooklyn, NY)

“I don’t remember when I first decided to take off my clothes for the camera. I know it was in that first year of photography classes, probably the first semester. The contact sheets showed me experimenting with stages of undress. Tights on. Tights off. Leg up. Smile. Wink. I figured I knew what to do, since I’d seen it played out for years. I never showed the pictures to anyone. They looked nothing like the magazines, but they sure looked like me, and I was thrilled. I was seeing exalted nudes every day in art history class, but I didn’t want to be Charis Wilson; I wanted to be Edward Weston and Charis Wilson in one. I knew I needed more technical sophistication, and that I had launched into something I hadn’t yet begun to understand. I put away those negatives and contact sheets for more than thirty years. But I kept photographing. And I never fully put my clothes back on.”

Carla Williams, Tender

Carla Williams: Circa 1985 at Higher Pictures (Brooklyn, NY)

Williams’ images are at once tender and wise, awkward and exhilarating. They reflect a young woman’s burgeoning sexuality and expansive curiosity about the medium. As a Black woman processing a canonical history that positioned so many models, girlfriends, and wives as muses to their photographic ‘masters,’ Williams did not see herself reflected in any of the history books’ most revered images. She was nevertheless absorbing a classic, timeless aesthetic of female representation.

(Higher Picture Press Release)

from wiki

A womanist is committed to the survival of both males and females and desires a world where men and women can coexist, while maintaining their cultural distinctiveness.

source

embodied: a love letter to myself

in

in a sea of stars

your galaxy stole the spotlight

in awe

i stand here fixated

blinded by your halo

a gravitational pull

a universal force

i can’t escape nor do i want to

a galactic story written in the stars

an epic tale of two worlds colliding

to say i desire you is an understatement

i crave this reward

it consumes my entire being

narkita, 2019 (revised in 2021 and 2023)

praxis:

in

womanist

1. From womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e., frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, “you acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered “good” for one. Interested in grown up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with another black folk expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious.

2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally a universalist, as in: “Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige and black?” Ans. “Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.” Traditionally capable, as in: “Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me.” Reply: “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.

4. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

Alice Walker’s Definition of a “Womanist” from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose Copyright 1983.

everything is connected

in

“In West African animist belief, all time is now. We are the living embodiment of our ancestors. We carry their DNA. However it is not just the physical matter of our bodies that is shaped by those who came before us, it is the patterns of our thoughts and the patterns of our cultures and societies. Animism sees this link between the past, present, and future as a constant that exists beyond time; it sees life in everything, and sees all life as equal. Life and death are simply two different states, and what marks a living thing is that it is never static, it is always changing, evolving, and that in every stage of life, life expresses itself, until death allows the cycle to start again. Animism believes that everything in the universe has a spirit, an energy, and everything is intimately and intricately connected. The sun, the earth, air, rain, seasons turning again and again as the world spins on its axis and the planets make their journeys around our distant star. Time moves, the past is present, and nothing can ever halt the cycles that every living thing depends on, not until the end of time. All of life on Earth is a consequence of these subtle interactions.”

from Earth and Leaves by Aboubakar Fofana, essay by Johanna Macnaughtan