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| “Friends” Kate Macklin Acrylic on Canvas January 2008 “Friends” was inspired by the poem “The Haunted Oak” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. It is about a lynching as described by a tree, but I didn’t want to put that directly onto canvas, nor did I want to paint someone being hanged. I decided a tree swing held up by nooses was more fitting. I selected acrylic on stretched canvas because it was a medium I had enjoyed working with in the past and I wanted to do more with it. I really appreciated how quick-drying they were and how flexible acrylic paint could be when used with gel and liquid mediums. The main theme is that there is still a lot of change to occur. Though up North in Harlem, culture and change is flourishing, down South lynchings and other horrible acts were still going on and the numbers were not decreasing. When one thinks about the Harlem Renaissance lynching is not usually a topic that would come up, but it is of astronomical importance and if often overlooked. Dunbar was one of the first published black poets, and the Harlem Renaissance was all about realizing black identity. So although Dunbar perished before the time of the Harlem Renaissance, his work embodied the spirit of the Before settling down to sketch, I read the poem numerous times trying to decide which aspects were the most important and how I wanted to transform those into a visual piece. I finally had a plan and threw down many ideas onto one piece of paper. I experimented with color, and once I had some form of jumbled design I attempted to re-create it on canvas. Though some things changed, the overall product is very close to my original plan. |