((PKG)) AFRICAN AMERICAN ART IDENTITY
((Banner: From Across the Ocean))
((Reporter: Faiza Elmasry))
((Camera: Mike Burke))
((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Manassas, Virginia))
((NATS))
((James Terrell, Visual Artist))
The art is based on the African American experience, the black experience, from slavery until now.
((NATS))
((James Terrell, Visual Artist))
All right, this piece is called Mami Wata. Mami Wata is a goddess of the sea.
((NATS))
((James Terrell, Visual Artist))
During the triangle trade, slave trade, sometimes slaves were thrown overboard. And when they were thrown overboard, there were books written about how those particular people became mermaids.
((NATS))
((James Terrell, Visual Artist))
My art is very focused on, I guess in terms of stain glass windows, the breaking up of the space. I like to break down the image with the vertical lines, horizontal, diagonal lines, but I also like to play with the color. So, I’m really into color theory. So, growing up in a church, I was into stained glass windows and how light comes through the windows and how the colors vibrate and how they are layered next to each other.
((NATS))
((James Terrell, Visual Artist))
It’s trying to be uplifting, like the poses are in uplifting poses. They’re not bowed down, they’re not hung over, but they’re standing firm, standing strong. Their lines are to symbolize the fact that people say that our race has been broken, but I say that we have been put back together and we’re stronger as a people. The different colors represent the fact that we come from different backgrounds, and yet we all come together and we’re still together to form a particular person or a particular feeling.
((NATS))
((Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell, Visual Artist))
They have the classic European style art circles of suns around their heads. I’m from Denver. I went to predominantly white schools when I was growing up and we would do things, like we would take field trips to the art museums and we would go look at all this beautiful art and there would be no black artists represented.
((Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell, Visual Artist))
I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, they gave an assignment to trace back your lineage, and so, the white kids were able to get up and talk about hundreds of years of their background and where they come from and who they are, and there was me and one other black kid in the class who could go back to a plantation in Virginia and that’s it.
((NATS))
((Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell, Visual Artist))
My people were brought here on the bottom of a ship, and they were sold and they were renamed and they would travel from plantation to plantation. If they were sold to another plantation, they might have been renamed. So, for me, that set me on a journey of trying to define myself as, you know, clearly I’m American. My people, whatever happened between the place they left in Africa and the place they were sold once they got here, we have become a new culture and maybe thinking about embracing that culture and embracing that identity as what I am as an American descendant of slavery.
((Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell, Visual Artist))
So, my artwork is very reflective of trying to define what that identity looks like. So, you’ll see a lot of things that remind people of, like, African prints and African textiles, but you’ll also see things that are reminiscent of American culture and American print and textile.
((NATS))
((James Terrell, Visual Artist))
I’d say that we have a healthy competition. We work together. We influence each other. We guide each other. The people love the colors. They love the energy They love the images. They love the fact that we are a husband and wife team. We were able to create by having three kids of our own. So, I think it’s a very healthy situation.
((NATS))
