JOHNNIE MAE
Artist
Introduction here.
Flutter, flutter
Beautiful Black and Brown Butterflies.
Flutter into our hearts, minds, and spirits
Lest we forget.
Flutter until justice rains down
Like a might storm and
Love of all
Becomes flooding rivers.
Johnnie Mae Maberry
Beautiful Black and Brown Butterflies
These words by poet, artist, and educator Johnnie Mae Maberry are brought to life in her artistic production entitled the “Beautiful Black and Brown Butterflies” (BBBB) series. The exhibit pays homage to victims of violence and creates a memory of history that should not be forgotten. “The killing of unarmed Black and Brown people at the hands of law enforcement … continues to be an injustice that needs addressing,” says Maberry.
Black butterflies represent truth while brown butterflies symbolize transformation. The BBBB series has evolved from horrible incidents whose only purpose was to cause harm to a purpose-driven series honoring Black and Brown lives that were not allowed to metamorphize to their full potential. Maberry says, “The butterfly symbolizes the many victims whose lives were violently cut short.”
“The great God above alone knows the thoughts of the poor slave’s heart, and the bitter pains which follow such separation as these. All that we love taken away from us… When the sale was over, my mother hugged and kissed us, and mourned over us, begging of us to keep a good heart, and do our duty to our new masters. It was a sad parting; one went one way, one another, and our poor mammy went home with nothing. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, A West Indian Slave [Mary Prince] In 1989, as a young faculty member at her Alma Mater, Tougaloo College, artist Johnnie Mae Maberry had the opportunity to do a residency at New York University where she discovered slave narratives from the 1930’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the university library. These slave narratives, along with the writings of Frederick Douglas, inspired artist Maberry to begin creating her own paintings of what would become her illustrations of the “Classic Slave Narratives”. These works are visual illustrations of slavery as described by enslaved individuals recorded in the WPA Slave Narratives and other writings. The paintings are colorful and stunning; the stories they tell are cruel and heart-breaking. There’re the children being sold away from their mother; the pregnant naked woman being beaten because a cow strayed; there’s Frederick Douglas’ mother being sent to a cabin alone in the woods when she was too old to work; the 6 year old who’s expected to carry water to the fields in huge gourds.
TBC after further clarifications with Johnnie Mae