​Over/Come(ing)  Blog 7

Introduction
 
The images I bring to you were inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from my new series “Over/come(ing).”  This series of paintings was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march, the march in 1965 the walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity/hopefulness of social movement (s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world, appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.
 
 
Commentary # 7
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It was a couple of years after my trip to Charleston, S.C. I encountered my second
experience with racism.  I had gone on a retreat in upstate New York with the Girl
Scouts.  The retreat included many girl scouts from the New York area.
 
A friend and I (also African American) were sitting by a brook feeling the peacefulness of being out of the city, having the opportunity of listening to the water flowing, hearing birds singing, and trees waving from the slight breeze.  Along come a couple of Caucasian girls both dressed in their Girl Scout uniforms, as were we. I said hello, but received no response.  Out of one of the girl’s mouth I hear, “I don’t speak to chocolate cookies.”  “What?” I said.  It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about, and suddenly I found myself saying, “I rather be a chocolate cookie, then a white cracker. Chocolate cookies are sweet and delicious, crackers are dry and tasteless.” I didn’t want this encounter, because my friend and I were really having a good time.
 
The next thing I knew we were pulling at each other’s uniform and had slipped into the edge of the brook and fell into the shallow area.  We both realized that ruining your uniform was a big no-no.  We were wet and disheveled, we had broken the rules of how a girl scout should behave and represent.  I was angry because I knew I didn’t start it, and we had to return to the main cottage for lunch.
 
Entering the main cottage the other girl scouts looked at us with disgust. It was Miss Ursula who was in charge, and took the four of us to another cottage where her office and sleeping quarters were.  She explained to us girl scouts didn’t call each other names or fight with each other. Girl Scouts respected and helped each other. She made us shake hands, and that was that. I don’t know if that girl changed her mind, but I certainly appreciate Miss Ursula’s speech, and I enjoyed the Girl Scouts in my neighbor, especially completing projects and getting badges for my efforts.  I wasn’t about to let that girl ruin that for me. 

To see all images from this blog series go to this link.
To see all images from the painting series go to this link.

 Over/Come/(ing) Blog 6
 
 
Introduction
 
The images I bring to you were inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from my new series “Over/come(ing).”  This series of paintings was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march, the march in 1965 the walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity/hopefulness of social movement (s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world, appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.
 
 
I had made the commitment to post portions of the “Over/Come(ing)” series everyday for the month of March, but life has a way of doing what it wants to do.  We had a tremendous wind storm here on Wednesday last week that cause a power outage, it lasted in my area for six days.  I stubbornly decided to stay put in the house hoping the lights would be turned by Sunday at 11:30 pm.  It was cold and my bones and muscles were becoming stiff, but I felt you could handle this.  If the people in the march could handle what they had to handle, I could do this. By Sunday the electricity was still not on and the temperature dropped to below freezing. With two down blankets and a near frozen face, the images of the march began to fade, the reality of how cold I was, made all thoughts to fade.
 
I managed to rid myself of doubt, jealousy, lack of confidence, and a few others of those self-destructive attitudes, but found that stubbornness was still lurking. No I can stay in the house, bear the cold, and not go to a friend’s house for warmth.
 
Come Monday along with the icy weather it snowed and my body said time to go to my son’s colleague’s house and warm this ice cube of a body. You know how you can have the body of a senior citizen, but the mind of a younger person and the two just don’t seem to coordinate with each other, that was my dilemma.
 
As my body warmed up at their house the “Over/Come(ing)” series came back to life reminding me that I had not posted for 5 days, so now I am back home warm and on the computer to post again, yes stubbornness is taking a trip along with those other loser attitudes and placed inside a balloon to drift off into the sky, never to be seen again, amen.
 
 
 

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Over/Come/(ing) Blog 5
 
 
Introduction
 
The images I bring to you were inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from my new series “Over/come(ing).”  This series of paintings was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march, the march in 1965 the walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity/hopefulness of social movement (s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world, appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.
 
 
 
When I returned home my aunt told my mom about my behavior down south.  My mom said, “you could have been killed drinking from a white fountain. You could have been lynched.”  “Lynched? What is lynched?”  “Hanging your puny ass from a tree. Those white people are crazy down there.”  Being killed because I drank from a fountain, I thought, yeah that is crazy.
 
 
 

​Introduction
 
The images I bring to you were inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from my new series “Over/come(ing).”  This series of paintings was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march, the march in 1965 the walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity/hopefulness of social movement (s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world, appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.
 
Over/Come(ing) 4
 
When we arrived in Charleston, my Aunt Anna and myself had to take a bus to my Grandma Laura’s house on Norman Street. I sat in the front of the bus and my Aunt went to the back as “negroes” were supposed to do. Alarmed at my behavior and location, she gestured for me to come to the back, but I rebuffed her pleadings, and sat stubbornly in the front. No one told me to move, but all eyes were on me. When we reached my grandmother Laura’s house, the first thing out of my Aunt’s mouth was that I sat in the front of the bus. My grandmother spoke to me in Gullah, while smoking her pipe, and giggled. Her words I could not understand, but she seemed amused by the story. I asked my Aunt what grandma had said and she translated for me: “that one got spirit.”
 
I wasn’t done.  On this trip, I broke many rules.  I drank at “white fountains”, I sat where I wasn’t supposed too, and as a consequence I caused my Aunt a great deal of stress. The trip was quite an awakening to my young mind and a distressful one as well. I didn’t like what I saw and I didn’t like what colored people had to do.  My Aunt was unsettled as well.  She promised that she would never again bring me to Charleston, S.C., and that was fine with me.
 
 

​Introduction
 
The images I bring to you were inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from my new series “Over/come(ing).”  This series of paintings was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march, the march in 1965 the walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity/hopefulness of social movement (s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world, appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.
 
 
Commentary for #3
 
I was 10 years old when I first visited the south to meet my grandmother (on my mother’s side), aunt and cousins.  At the time, I was unaware of the situation of terror inflicted upon black people.  Growing up in New York City, I had no encounters with the south or racism or white folks at all - actually.  That ended one summer’s day when we traveled to Charleston, South Carolina.
 
My trip was a reward from my Aunt Anna for not telling my mother that she burnt a hole in her mattress, while mom was in the hospital.  I told anyhow, but by that time the tickets were already bought.  This would be my first train ride.
 
It started out in an interesting way as we were told in New York that we had to travel in the last three cars of the train.  This didn’t sit well with me because we were initially in the first car and I was quite comfortable.  We now had to walk all the way to the back of the train. 
 
As the trip progressed and we got closer to our final destination, I didn’t understand my aunt’s nervousness.  She began to tell me that Charleston was not like New York and that I had to behave a certain way.  “Walk with your eyes down when you pass a white person,” she told me. Being a precocious kid I said, “What if I bump into one because
I can’t see them looking down at the ground?”  No answer.  “Follow what I do and don’t talk to any white people,” she continued.  “Why?” I asked. “Just don’t”, she replied.  And, this is how most of the trip went.
 
When the train reached the southern border I noticed beautiful homes with white pillars,
cows on lush pastoral fields grazing, how exciting, I thought, wondering who lives in such a beautiful setting.  As the train progressed onward it was as if the sun disappeared.   Now around me I saw dilapidated cabins leaning on a thread of wood. Pushing onward, sand was kicked up from black children running along the railroad track waving. I waved back.  I asked my aunt, “Do those children live in those beat-up houses?”  No answer. “Does grandma live in houses like that?”  “No, now sit back and enjoy the ride.”  I didn’t enjoy the ride, because I wanted to know why the kids lived in those cabins, and why they didn’t have any shoes on. To this day that image has never faded.
 
 

Introduction
 
The images I bring to you were inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from my new series “Over/come(ing).”  This series of paintings was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march, the march in 1965 the walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity/hopefulness of social movement (s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world, appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a  month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.
 
Commentary for #2
 
The turbulent period of the march of 1965 in the United States was in many respects a reflection of my own turbulence and thus I remember it well.  Inside, I was expecting a child and in an unhappy relationship.  As a result, my focus was fragmented and there was a uncertainty of the future, all thoughts moving through me at once.  Outside, the struggle for human and civil rights was being waged against a seemingly unbending ideology of separation, anger and hurtful language, boldly denying people the right to exist and to pursue what they wished. The right to vote was the major topic of discussion, with many sub-grievances which turned out to be even more important (e.g., economic inequality).
 
Watching television, the message I received and saw was that we were people - a beautiful people, endowed with the same ethos of that which created all things. Seeing the strength, the commitment, deeply flowing out from the people steadfast in the face of something you knew was wrong was incredibly empowering.
 
As such, the march not only challenged societal oppression and political repression as well as strengthened all of those who bore witness to it but, more personally, it challenged my own inter-personal oppression as well as strengthened me and those who bore witness.  The struggle was within; the struggle was without.  It sounds odd to say it but from the march I was inspired and uplifted.  In its wake, I knew I would be able to accomplish what I set out to do: addressing my difficult decision to put things in truth.  

Inspired by John Lewis’ graphic novel series “March” (the third installment of which was just released recently accompanying its national book award), I wanted to send out some images from 
my new series “Over/come(ing).” This series was initially conceived in reflection about current marches and their connection to marches in the past – mostly the famous march of 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Within this work, I seek to explore the power/complexity hopefulness of social movement(s), the most powerful of human creations, for improving the world.

Appropriately, I will post a part of a painting from the series each day for the month of March, which we should now think of not just as a month or as a way to mark time but also as a call to action and freedom.

For more of my work see: www.julietseignious.com