New Iris Photos from the Memphis Botanical Gardens. My favorite time of year.....

This is a page from one of my handmade journals. I have been working in this book for over a year, and it has become a springboard for the current piece that I am working on. The paper is arches text wove, splashed with sumi ink, that was then washed off. The colors in the bands of ink were done with either Derwint inktense pencils, or graphitine pencils, and the lettering was done with parallel pens. To see more of these images and the development of the new piece, go to the 2007 Yearlong Reggie class blog.

Final Version Bound Together

The painting was finished on Thursday night, with no time to spare. As usual, I could have gone on tweaking it and fixing the lettering, but there came a point in the day when it was just too late to make any more changes.

From top to bottom: the final stretched canvas in the venue on 387 S. Main in Memphis for the Visible Film Festival.

Detail of Martin Luther King Jr.

Detail of the lyrics that were added last

Detail of the people

This was a large project which took 3 years to complete. In all that time, I have continued to be convicted by the words in the James Taylor song, and still see the images of darkness and mist when I listen to it. Many other projects developed as a result of reading King's sermons, researching his life, and of course, living in Memphis, which is still struggling (publicly)with the issue of racism. I finally chose the title "Bound Together" because of all the people in the painting, and the idea that "we cannot walk alone."

One small voice, one unknown artist, in a tribute to the legacy of a great man.