SOUTHERN
WHITE AMNESIA
An examination of the family stories white Americans pass down through generations—or allow to be forgotten—about their role in slavery and its ongoing legacy.
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Through traditional quilting techniques subverted for contemporary discourse, the artist explores their own family history as enslavers in South Carolina and Kentucky, creating works that range from a topographic burial ground quilt to AI-enhanced video installations of ancestral portraits. Using worn textiles, traditional patterns like Sunbonnet Sue, and the symbolic language of Southern Baptist church banners, these pieces invite viewers to consider how individual histories form collective identity.
The collection aims not only to expose hidden histories but to probe deeper questions about inheritance, responsibility, and repair in contemporary America. I like to think of these pieces adding to the conversations of Kara Walker, Bisa Butler, Angela Ellsworth, and most recently, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, whose Unburied Sounds reminds us that there are still undetonated American bombs deep in the soils of Vietnam, mirroring the unaddressed legacies in our own domestic history.
100% of proceeds from sales of pieces in this collection are contributed to black-owned community nonprofits.
Want to get in touch? Feel free to email me. I’d love to hear from you.
FINISHED WORKS
LIKE FAMILY
A recreation of a family burial-ground I visited in Laurens, South Carolina in 2019. Here, several of my white ancestors are buried in graves marked with elaborately carved tombstones. Around them are sunken graves marked only with an unhewn rock—likely the burial site of the people enslaved by my family. Outside the walls of this graveyard, there are more sunken graves, which raises the question for me of gate-keeping: who was allowed into the privilege space of my family, and who was kept out? On this quilt, you can see embroidered tombstones of my ancestors, as well as five memorial crosses with the known names of those enslaved by my family.
Approximately 48”x36”
GENERATION
The original quilt in this piece was made by my partner’s grandmother for his father when he was a boy. Instead of using traditional cotton batting, she employed an old chenille bedspread whose stitches have worn through her patchwork over the years. I’ve requilted the whole piece with several yards of black silk chiffon mimicking a document-masking effect in order to draw the viewer’s attention to the ongoing effects of decisions made long before we were born.
Approximately 72"”x36” as displayed
OUR CHILDREN
An allegory of a snake that whispers Whiteness into the world. It’s written using an ancient pattern of writing called boustrophedon, where instead of starting at the left side of the page, the line picks up directly under where the previous line ends, thus snaking the viewer’s eyes down the text. Made from velour, silk, and microfleece. Text: our children are both with a snake in a crib this guardian serpent whispers silver tongued seeds into the open ears of our children that bloom later in life whispers like all this belongs to you whispers like you have all this because you worked so hard whispers like they don’t work hard like you
Approximately 72”x 55”
SNAKE HANDLER!
Made in the style of Southern Baptist church banners I grew up studying during long sermons, this piece is came to me in a dream: an ancestor handing me a writhing poisonous snake and told me it was the “work of the living” to untangle the injustices of our time.
Approximately 80”x48”
ONUS // ON US
Constructed from a garment that easily shows its history. Garment found in the middle of the street in NYC and shows how the past and present co-exist. Text from family letters during the American Civil War.
Approximately 48” x 36”
SILVER DOLLAR
A fan-style genealogical infographic illustrating how I personally benefit generations later from the wealth my family accrued during slavery.
Approximately 40”x40”
I THINK WE WOULD KNOW
When I first found records that my ancestors had enslaved Black folks in South Carolina and Kentucky, I asked a family member about it. They quickly responded no, and then, after a pause, they insisted that surely we would know if they has enslaved people. It made me wonder how many White folks walk around thinking the same things and spurred this entire collection into being.
Approximately 72” x 72” spread out
FAMILY BED
A collection of 36 dolls: one for each slave-owning ancestor and one for me, all piled awkwardly into a homemade antique doll bed. More images soon.
Approximately 18” x 18” x 9”
JESSIE TELFAIR & THE WHITE MAN WHO FIRED HER
This piece explores how family stories may travel different paths through generations. In 1963, Jessie Telfair was fired for registering to vote. A decade later, she made her iconic Freedom quilt as a cultural critique. The front side of this quilt—Jessie Telfair—posits her artistic acclaim as a familiar and commonly-held wealth in the Telfair family. The revise side—The White Man Who Fired Her—questions whether the descendants of this person knows about his role in history.
Approximately 40” x 40”
ALVA BEE
Letter to my great-grandfather whose 1904 Furman University class ring I wear everyday.
Approximately 12” x 8”
REGULARLY UPDATED
REGULARLY UPDATED
CURRENT WORKS IN PROGRESS
JANUARY RIVER
Animated family photos projected onto an antique quilt where I’ve appliqued my own portrait. The 8-minute video is a sequence of actual family photos (the first person is my great-grandfather, Alva Bee, mentioned above). The photos have been AI-enhanced to create this short, life-like vignettes, all super-imposed on my own portrait.
Size TBD
BROAD STRIPES // BRIGHT STARS
A careening, breathless thought experiment through American history hand-stitched on a flag circa 1912-1959. Ideally displayed with bottom edge at eye level.
Size approximately 6’ x 3.5’
REPARATION QUILT
Exploring the idea that tattered quilts often invoke a desire to repair, regardless of who caused the damage. How is that similar or dissimilar from social repair? Ongoing mending project to be displayed at whatever current condition it’s in at the time of show.
Size approximately 6’ x 6’
IS IT POSSIBLE
A quilt that interrogates the mental health of generations of slave-owning ancestors and its potential impact on my genetic inheritance. This piece will be some sort of mobile installation/sculptural piece. Still working out the details.
FUTURE PIECES MAY INCLUDE:
TOGETHER FOREVER, a collaborative quilt with my extended family about our inherited wealth
a quilt featuring Tom Bennett Langston: the lone abolitionist in our family
a collaborative quilt with members of my extended black family that we only know about through AncestryDNA
a quilt featuring Mary King, a Black woman who appeared to have had a long-term committed relationship with a White great-uncle of mine
a quilt connecting slave ownership and higher education
a quilt featuring John Avery Foster: first Black deputy sheriff in NC in 1965
a quilt featuring a line from my 5th-great grandfather’s will: the phrase bequeathing slaves to his children, “to him and his heirs forever”, which directly implicates future generations in the fight for racial justice
recreation of the old Stone House an ancestor of mine build designed to withstand defensive attacks from local Saura people in North Carolina