Syd Carpenter, Mary Lou Furcron, 2010, terra cotta with acrylic paint, graphite, and wood, 25 x 23 x 11 in. (63.5 x 58.4 x 27.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Renwick Acquisitions Fund, 2010.51, © 2010, Syd Carpenter
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Artwork Details
- Title
- Mary Lou Furcron
- Artist
- Date
- 2010
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 25 x 23 x 11 in. (63.5 x 58.4 x 27.9 cm)
- Copyright
- © 2010, Syd Carpenter
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase through the Renwick Acquisitions Fund
- Mediums Description
- terra cotta with acrylic paint, graphite, and wood
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Landscape — garden
- African American
- Architecture — detail — fence
- Occupation — farm
- Object Number
- 2010.51
Artwork Description
This is a bird’s eye view of a homestead built by Mary Lou Furcron, an older Black woman living in rural Georgia. The view is based on a map from a project that documented farms owned by African Americans in the rural South in the 1980s. Ceramist Syd Carpenter sculpted the tops of trees, curvilinear swaths of garden plots, and the peaked roof of the shack Furcron built with mud, grass, and branches. Carpenter, also an avid gardener, memorializes a home cultivated through resourcefulness and resilience. Such a place provides material and spiritual sustenance to those resisting the harsh realities of deprivation and hardship from systemic racism.
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