An Offering #8

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A mixed media work comprised of a rectangular painted wooden panel with a quilted fabric panel suspended below. The quilted panel ends in a curved point, giving the overall work the shape of a ship with pointed bow. The painted panel depicts a portrait of an ancestral figure against a gold background. The figure, shown from the waist up, wears a white, sleeved garment with a red cloth wrapped around the middle. A round black shape appears behind the figure’s head. Two blue butterflies hover around the figure, one at the right shoulder and one at the left elbow. In the quilted panel below, the figure’s shadow is cast in black fabric overlaid with tulle studded with delicate glass beads. The black mass from above appears here as a halo of white thread. The shadow figure is surrounded by waves made of undulating strips of fabric in shades of blue, gray, and purple.

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