Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2009SYR16
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Black or White, Light Or
poster information
Description
Black or white, light or
dark, we all call this city
our home. We are one.
This image reminded me that there are racial differences, and people have different skin colors, but underneath it we're all trying to achieve the same goals.
I live in Cazenovia, and we don't have a very integrated community. It's mostly Caucasian. Race is not a big topic. So, beside the image, my inspiration for this poem came from Barack Obama. At the time, he was still running to be elected, and the whole racial issue came to life every night on television. Watching the election coverage, I became a lot more enlightened, realizing that there's all sorts of different races out there, and we should do our best to represent them all.
This was initially commissioned for a Christian magazine, for an article called "Reaching for God's Smile." I wanted it to deal with spirituality, without being specific. A lot of my recent work had dealt with hands. It's such a complex form, and yet, I think, an elegant form.
These hands have a kind of calming effect. I do illustrations for business publications: it's conceptual, it hits the mark, but it doesn't really evoke a feeling. This was different. I've mixed these colors a million times, but this time I felt I really hit the values right, and it added a calmness and spiritual aspect to the piece. I was trying to have it speak to someone's soul, not really relating it to any one dogma.