travis
MISSISSIPPI ARTIST
BRIEF ART STATEMENT
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I am a Black//Native American male born in Itawamba County Mississippi 23SEP46.
My current work is based in the following disciplines:
Calligraphy
Drawing
Painting
Sound
Live Art/Performance Art
Design (Shotgun Shack Vernacular Architecture).
For the past 10 years I have focused on the passionate life, death and transfiguration of the historic Itawamba shotgun shack community.
My work springs from a performative approach to race, gendered space and colonial objectification because virtually every Black perspective is rich and valuable! Period!
Nevertheless, Black cultural institutions show, unmistakably, that assumptions about Majority phallocentric supremacy testify only to the ability of a fragile Black identity to devour itself.
Black cognoscenti presuppose that decolonization must repudiate some “primitive” perspective, like Europe is the baby daddy.
If, indeed, conflict is the heart of all art, Blacks must manifest unique views of art, art history and contemporary museology.
My 2002 Proposal to the New Chapel (Itawamba County) Homecoming Committee, quoted below, defines very briefly yet very succinctly the current state of my approach to art.
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PROPOSAL FOR ART EXHIBITIONS DURING ITAWAMBA/NEW CHAPEL
HOMECOMING 2002 AND 2003
DISCUSSION: Art stimulates creativity, imagination and discovery, while assisting in the enculturation of ideas that foster wider diversity within the Mississippi community.
“Art for Art’s Sake” is a European concept unknown to our community. Our community is, nevertheless, internationally known, accepted and respected as the birthplace of various genres of sound and music arts.
However, we have failed to empower the muses of film, photography, installation art, sculpture, performance art, painting, etc. Every Mississippi blues song, every Mississippi gospel lyric and every Mississippi call, response and spiritual holler invokes a human image both within and without the range of post-modern America.
I propose a glimpse into an exciting world waiting to be challenged by that peculiar Mississippi Vitality, Vision and Voice.
Indeed, we should expect the fecundity of the Mississippi spirit to produce visual art forms (abstracted, deconstructed and reconstructed) that even our most creative elders never imagined.
Thus we honor those who for us, here today, struggled, suffered and died to make a way out of no way.
AUGUST 2002:
I propose to lead our foray into art exposition, and to set the qualitative standard by:
(1) Exhibiting original art works on paper, original installation art and/or original sculpture created by myself, and also by:
(2) Displaying the art works of a small group of local Art teachers committed to art exploration, creativity and experimentation.
If Art teachers are unavailable, I can single-handedly produce solo shows incorporating one or all of the following genres:
1. Experimental Videography of Mississippi Homecoming rituals.
2. Installation Art. Incorporating Itawamba material culture.
3. Sculpture. Incorporating shotgun house, sweathouse, plantation chapel and dogtrot architectural models.
All models are accompanied by original axonometric and/or isometric drawings.
4. Performance Art. Incorporating original essays, original poetry, original blues songs, original gospel songs and traditional storytelling.
All storytelling accompanied by original sound environments.
All Performance Art is based in the Itawamba County/Mississippi African-American/Native American experience which, in many instances traces its migration North to Chicago, Illinois. Why Chicago? Because Chicago’s population is made up of more people from Mississippi than from any other place.
5. Painting /Drawing. I am prepared to show 200 original paintings or to otherwise fill a predetermined space.
NOTE: I request assistance identifying either Art teachers or Artists who are willing to teach both youth and adults and also to formulate an Art/Creative Process within the community. Those Artists/Teachers would be required to present themselves and their art works to the community during Homecoming 2002. If there are no leaders, we must establish goals, develop leaders and sell their product.
AUGUST 2003:
Art works on paper, installation or sculptural works by members of the community, with substantial space allocation and concentration on the works of children and of the elderly.
Evolution of Art Process gleaned from 2002.
^^Art works offered for sale
EXCEPTION:
No Works by travis will be offered for sale.
^^Artists’ lectures on Meaning In Art.
^^Lectures and demonstrations:
Art Techniques
The Language of Art
Creativity and Spontaneity.