Project Descriptions
Noah B. | Digital Illustration
I based my illustration on the relationship between two of the characters from The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man: the main character and the millionaire. I illustrated the power dynamic between the two characters because it was one of the few relationships in the book that I wanted to translate onto paper. For this illustration, I chose to include a few key elements that I thought would easily explain the relationship between the characters, such as the chain that connects both of the characters, the tailcoat on the man that is placed lower on the illustration, and even the placement of the two figures in the drawing. I felt like it was important to show this relationship because of the hidden way that class and social statuses were the bones or structures for their relationship. Social class and race still affect the opportunities and success people achieve today. For my creation process, I found pose references, sketched out my rough draft in a digital art program, and completed it with line art and color.
Kota F. | Handbound Children’s Book
For my project I created a children’s book about the Blues. The Blues are a popular genre of music that has a sad and painful story. Not many people know or understand the story behind the music. So my goal is to inform people about the rich history. Music has always been very special and important to me and my family. I grew up listening to older music especially my favorite genre was the Blues. So when we started to learn about them I was very interested. I chose to do a children’s book because children are the next generation, they should know more about the world’s history. The Blues have impacted all of us in some way. The Blues were first started by African Americans and their music was about their lives. In my opinion it’s important to know about African American history because in America, our country takes bits from different cultures and that makes up who we are. Also if you think about it, it’s a long and interesting history. It’s full of pain and sadness but they fought for their freedom and have many stories and successes. Everyone’s voice should be heard and when The Blues were started it wasn’t an intention to spread it to others, it was for them. But it started to spread and impact others.
Sara F. | Clay Sculpture
I sculpted two women dancing together, hands intertwined, out of clay. I wanted to show the evolution of African American culture, a big part of which is dance. When Africans were taken onto slave ships and brought to America, they lost almost every aspect of their culture, the only things they could hold onto is what they could remember. Generations after generations, their culture was taught to their children to try to keep their history alive. Though it could not stay the same, as American culture and interference influenced how it evolved. Same goes the other way, lots of African culture influenced today’s US: in dialect, manners, religion, literature, music, art, and dance. I wanted to show how dance stayed a big part of the culture through the generations. I chose two women dancing because a big part of it was taught by mothers to their children. One of the dancers represents someone from today and the other is her ancestor who kept her heritage alive in her children even though it was outlawed to practice any of their own culture. I really wanted to show the maternal connection to one’s roots and how our history is all intertwined into the fiber of our being. This project was very difficult to complete because there were many times that I would come back after a day and the clay had broken. After I got it mostly complete I realized I could’ve built a wire frame first and built off that. I have a strong connection to this project, even though not African American I have a deep connection with my family and ancestors. I want to show that they are still living through us and guiding us. We live in a better world because of them.
Autumn F. | 3D Model
Wesley F. | Podcast
Throughout human history, we have always resorted to violence for many reasons, whether it be wishing for certain resources, having territory invaded, or just not liking certain things or people. Through modern history there have been two world wars. For the American soldiers in both world wars, there has been segregation and racial bias. In my project I wrote about the average African American soldier in the first world war, explaining some of the things these soldiers could and could not do. The goal behind this project was to inform people through words on what history was like for these soldiers, and contrasting it a bit to those of the white soldier. The original idea I had was to make a piece of music, either in the style of the era (Blues, jazz, etc), but with no previous musical experience this quickly fell through so I did something I was more experienced in: writing. The main inspirations for this project was the contrast between the many views presented in the book The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. The other main inspiration that came to my mind was originally the youtube video “A Long Way to Tipperary and You’re in a Shell Crater with the Last of Your Division” by Jörmungandr, who used historical music which often had an upbeat tune accompanied by the sounds of war edited in, often overpowering the music. The reason why the music with the sound effects over it really influenced the project was because there was a huge contrast presented between the peace of the music, and the horrors of war.
Lucas H. | Political Cartoons
For my first political cartoon, I show a caricature of Abraham Lincoln as a cowboy sheriff chasing a caricature of Jefferson Davis on horseback and throwing a lasso made out of a snake, representing the Anaconda Plan. Davis is in women’s clothing, representing the embarrassing footnote of history when the CSA was defeated and Davis tried to hide from the Union authorities dressed as a woman. It’s a chase to symbolize the law coming down on Davis’s head. I chose to make Lincoln a cowboy because I can’t think of something more stereotypically American, and I can’t think of any other profession that involves lassos. There is a panicking donkey in the background, representing the rest of the Democrats at this time. My second political cartoon shows Davis as a caveman with a dodo bird on his head to represent his bird-brained beliefs, and I have the setting all the way back to the time of the dinosaurs to represent how old-fashioned their beliefs were. I made Davis look ugly to drive this all home. I reference the “Cornerstone Speech” and replace its focus with dodo birds representing the CSA to focus on calling Davis and the Confederacy outdated and backwards. They call themselves superior, yet in this image he is a stupid caveman. My third political cartoon shows the Statue of Liberty fighting a hydra. The hydra’s main head is Davis’s face, and the rest are donkeys representing the rest of the crazy democrats. The donkeys also have snake tongues, and instead of chopping off heads like you’d expect any normal protagonist to do, Lady Liberty is using a flamethrower to just burn the whole creature down all at once so it won’t have the chance to regrow itself. The fire represents “cleansing flames” that renew the southern states, referring to things such as the Emancipation Proclamation, burning down infrastructure in Georgia, and the Reconstruction Era which utterly devastated the South yet created the building blocks to remake the region better than ever. This is really fitting too, because she normally carries a torch, as shown by it being at the end of the flamethrower.
AJ K. | Watercolor Illustrations
My watercolor piece represents how each new generation changes society’s views on social issues. The concept of a monster in a cave symbolizing issues in society came from the connections between racism and/or tolerance being passed down from past generations to the newer ones and old myths and stories being passed down by word of mouth. The story that the different pieces tell is up to interpretation, but they don’t have to be connected. The people in my pieces are meant to look like the people you would see on traffic or safety signs. A blank space that could be filled in by anybody. Racism is symbolized by a snake because of the connection to the serpent in the bible. The serpent represents the tempting devil in the book of Genesis, like how growing up with racism in your family could tempt you to think that it’s ok. It also connects to how racism lets people’s heritage negatively influence their lives. The snake lives underground hidden in caves to represent that it can show up anywhere and sometimes unnoticed. It also makes it difficult to find the source of where it’s coming from. The monster living hidden under this village of people and slowing them from progressing is a metaphor for people holding onto past beliefs and prejudice stopping us from growing as a society.
Alex M. | Acrylic Painting
The First Sin of Our New World
I created this image to address systemic wealth inequality within the African American community. I had three figures in this image, each representing three different ideas. The first one on the right represents white supremacy. The bottom of the figures represents how that white supremacy has become ingrained in our society and how we have created systemic structures to keep people of color oppressed. Then as we move up, we see blood; this shows how white supremacy has killed for its continued existence. Even today, we still see hate crimes directed towards people of color for simply existing. Even further up, the color used here is the same color used for the blood except it is mixed with white. This describes how people who are unaffected by racism can turn a blind eye and act like these horrors never happened. When that happens, those acts are seen as not as horrible and atrocious as when the color of blood is mixed with white, it becomes pink. At the top, we have this twisted spike and arms coming off of it and attached to those arms; a rope pulls in the second figure into the jaws of white supremacy. The rope represents lynchings and how often white people hung black people in the name of justice. This twisted form of justice was enforced for black people doing minor things, including using their right to vote. The second figure represents people of color and how they are held back from getting wealth. I used a dabbing technique that represented how race is how others perceive you; for instance, if someone sees someone as black, they are black no matter how they identify or where they came from. The third figure represents wealth itself and the spiral that is coming from the first figure. This represents how the wealth system in America will always keep people from succeeding; as long as people can go bankrupt for simply existing, we will always have significant wealth disparities.
Ina R. | Digital Illustration
Redlining was a discriminatory practice participated in by banks. It started in the 1930s and lasted until 1968. Redlining was the act of mapping out neighborhoods into 4 major groups (green = best, blue = desirable, yellow = declining, and red = hazardous) which would then determine whether or not it would be “safe” to approve a loan for certain neighborhoods. This practice was heavily based on race as any majority black neighborhood was much more likely to be marked down as “hazardous” or “declining”. This also led to further segregation. Because loans were often declined in majority black neighborhoods, homes in said neighborhoods would often deteriorate and so too would the health of those living in those houses. Redlined neighborhoods were also more likely to be close to industrialized sites which heightened exposure to pollution. Though redlining was removed from financial practices, it still affects people today. Home owning is one of the number one ways of accumulating wealth – but because of redlining, many people of color were prevented from owning good homes. Many people have been held back by this, not just financially, but also in education and health.
This split illustration is meant to represent some of the differences caused by redlining between majority white versus majority black neighborhoods. One side represents a non-affected neighborhood (a past green-labeled neighborhood) and the other represents a neighborhood that has been affected (a past red-labeled neighborhood). The side which is meant to represent the people who are affected shows smog and less greenery to show that past affected neighborhoods are more likely to struggle with pollution and a house that is small and damaged which represents higher probability of poverty and poor living conditions. The side meant to represent those not affected shows a bigger house to represent growth regarding wealth. No smog, and more greenery to represent better living conditions. The person on the right appears to be sick/tired while the person on the left appears to be healthy, this is meant to show that those affected are more likely to struggle with health.
Ashton G. | 3D Model
Gentrified Manhattan
I decided to create this 3D printed map of Manhattan to show the segregation and beginning of what we now know as gentrification. This map is highly detailed with roads and buildings. I have outlined each gentrified and ethnic community to show what it was like in the early 1900s and how it progressed to 2021. After reading The Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man I was really caught off guard with segregation in NYC. I didn’t know specific neighborhoods were segregated, and I believe that ties into what we know today as gentrification and it’s only getting worse. For example, when the Ex Colored Man went to New York City, he and many others were restricted to an area of just 10 blocks. This area stretched from Sixth Avenue from Twenty-third to Thirty-third Streets, with the cross street one block to the west, totalling less than one square mile (0.085 Mi 2 ). Most of these ethnic neighborhoods in the early 1900s were vastly diversified and mainly in the lower part of the island. Around 1910 many of the area’s Italians and Jews began to leave the Lower East Side in search of new neighborhoods. Many moved to Brooklyn, specifically Boro Park and Brownsville, which became a heavily populated Jewish neighborhood. At the same time, many of the wealthier German Americans began moving uptown. In Manhattan today, the vast majority of its districts are heavily gentrified, for example: Harlem, Williamsburg/East Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bed-Stuy/Crown to name a few, are all heavily gentrified districts. I believe it is important for people all around the world to learn what gentrification is, how it started and how it’s affecting mainly lower and middle class communities all around the world.
Casey H. | Jazz Guitar Piece
There was a common belief that African Americans weren’t smart yet they helped heavily create and influence one of the more complicated genres of music being jazz. This piece that I created is a contrafact piece made from the contrafact piece “Barbados” by Charlie Parker. The small nuances in this piece are what I think gives it the feel as well the short runs and the arpeggiation of chords. In my version of the piece I tried my best to express the chordal changes as well as add my own flare to certain parts of the piece. All I would like for you to get out of this piece of music is an appreciation for the complexity of the genre and how much thought goes into making a piece like this.