“Art creates a kind of commentary” -Barbara Kruger

I live in the South. Sweet Home Alabama. The southern states of the US are full of a complex history, and for me, it is always strongly felt when I have the rare opportunity to gaze in stillness over a vast field of snow-white cotton.

Cotton Whispers, 24×36″ soft pastel on board

Stand with me a moment:

It’s a gleaming fall day in Alabama. The sky is brilliantly soft blue as the sun shines intensely at midday, lighting up the tufts of white cotton to full brightness. The grass is becoming dry, multicolored with the changing of season.

Behind me is your average gas station. We’ve stopped to fill up on our way home. You see, I’m a city girl, raised from age two in Birmingham, “the steel city,” the largest city in Alabama. We don’t have cotton fields nearby, and I have grown up in an age in which people don’t pick cotton by hand anymore. I’ve never seen people working fields with anything other than large farming machines.  Continue Reading…