Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Southern Waters: A Visual Perspective

Southern Waters: A Visual Perspective Photo essAy .................... Southern Waters A Visual Perspective introduced by Bernard L. Herman with commentary by William Arnett "Water always finds a way," a carpenter once explained, evaluating years of roof damage concealed behind a failed soffit. The same holds true for the presence of water as a recurring motif in the art of the American South. Work by Thornton Dial, Georgia Speller, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Joe Minter, Thornton Dial Jr., Purvis Young, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Joe Light, and Ralph Griffin offers multiple perspectives on water as a powerful metaphor speaking to deep histories of African American experience in the South. In their work, water finds a way in the description and critique of power. The images represented in this portfolio reveal some of that coded metaphorical flow. The conflicted, sometimes paradoxical, representations of water in these works address water as barrier and avenue, as threatened, as a shaper of historical identities. Something to be crossed; something that resists crossing. Something that gives life; something that can be poisoned and deadly. Water is the promise on the other side of River Jordan; it is the deadly highway and misery of the Middle Passage. Water is defined by http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Southern Cultures University of North Carolina Press

Southern Waters: A Visual Perspective

Southern Cultures , Volume 20 (3) – Aug 16, 2014

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/southern-waters-a-visual-perspective-04Jd4kp4IV

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of the American South.
ISSN
1534-1488
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Photo essAy .................... Southern Waters A Visual Perspective introduced by Bernard L. Herman with commentary by William Arnett "Water always finds a way," a carpenter once explained, evaluating years of roof damage concealed behind a failed soffit. The same holds true for the presence of water as a recurring motif in the art of the American South. Work by Thornton Dial, Georgia Speller, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Joe Minter, Thornton Dial Jr., Purvis Young, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Joe Light, and Ralph Griffin offers multiple perspectives on water as a powerful metaphor speaking to deep histories of African American experience in the South. In their work, water finds a way in the description and critique of power. The images represented in this portfolio reveal some of that coded metaphorical flow. The conflicted, sometimes paradoxical, representations of water in these works address water as barrier and avenue, as threatened, as a shaper of historical identities. Something to be crossed; something that resists crossing. Something that gives life; something that can be poisoned and deadly. Water is the promise on the other side of River Jordan; it is the deadly highway and misery of the Middle Passage. Water is defined by

Journal

Southern CulturesUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Aug 16, 2014

There are no references for this article.