“For African Americans living in a segregated society, the sources for our creative expression came from within. Our hardships are expressed in our blues, our many moods in our jazz, and our relationship to God in our spirituals. Painting, sculpture and dance, became a way to express all of it visually.”

 

We are here for only a short period of time. We start aging from the moment we are born until we die and I think that batik, because of its crackle suggests that aging quality. It also expresses, in my opinion, a kind of dinginess . . . for African Americans who live in substandard houses, we kept [belongings] for a long time because we couldn’t afford to get new things.”