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Harris: This piece was inspired by the story of Eliza Harris After finding out that her slave owner was going to sell her, and thus separate her from her only surviving child, she decided to escape. I Had to Keep On! No Stopping for Me- I Was the Seed of the Coming FreeĬhromira print and bootie in hardwood box with etched glass They are not the original beads obviously, but I was fascinated by having such an old memento in a family. Harris: The glass beads in this piece were given to this individual by his mother, who was given the beads by her mother as a keepsake when she died and they were the only thing that made it from Africa to America. Ye have no chains to bind my free-born soulĬhromira print and glass beads in hardwood box with etched glass I stitched a small star on the quilt to reference the North Star, which they (African Americans escaping slavery) used for direction. When this person crossed over the river, she became an abolitionist and was known for her hospitality in taking other people in, so I liked the symbolism of the blanket also extending to her hospitality. Harris: On this person’s journey towards freedom, they traveled on a wagon and she specifically mentioned how they had feather beds and patchwork quilts that they had made in the wagon with them, so that was powerful to me in terms of the detail. I went down in the valley And I crossed an icy streamĪnd the water I was crossing Was no water in a dreamĬhromira print and quilt square in hardwood box with etched glass We spoke to Harris to find out more about her process and the inspiration behind select pieces in the series.
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For those, the artist drew on selected words from African American literature, such as slave narratives, oral history and poetry from the Harlem Renaissance era. She used some of them in “Just Beyond The River,” making them transparent through a scanning and printing process, then placing and photographing the transparencies in ponds, lakes and rivers in the Hudson Valley.Įach image was then paired with an object unique to the life story she reimagined for each figure. One of Harris’ hobbies is collecting Victorian-era black-and-white images of unidentified African American men, women and children, sourced from trips to flea markets in New York State. “So I made a note that I would do something with those images one day.” “It’s really beautiful, it’s like a whole other world,” she says. These same waters inspired Harris to create her dynamic, colorful and yet haunting folktale series, “Just Beyond the River.” On family fishing trips, Harris explains, she was always drawn to the bottom of the river. As part of her “Just Beyond the River” FolkTales series, artist Daesha Devón Harris places her transparencies in Hudson Valley waterways. Her ancestors arrived in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., five generations ago via Virginia. It connected people to Lake Champlain, providing access to freedom in Montreal, Canada.įor artist and photographer Daesha Devón Harris, the landscape and waters of the Hudson Valley region were important. In New York, a popular route favored by those using the Underground Railroad included the upper Hudson River. Water provided passage to the ships that brought Africans to the Americas in chains later, water served as a means of escape from slavery.
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Ground Control: Soil Health and Climate Resiliencyīodies of water - rivers, lakes, the ocean - have played a major role in the lives of African Americans.Federal Watershed Protection Legislation.Connecting people with inspirational power of the Hudson River since 1963.