BECKY DAVIS MFA BLOG: 3rd Semester

Statement
In 1861, a farmer and slaver owner named Isaiah Parker Sr. died. In January of that same year, his home state, Georgia, had seceded from the Union. Two of his sons were named administrators of his estate: one, Fleming, would enlist in the Confederate Army; the other, Isaiah’s namesake, would purchase a female slave, and the six children he fathered by her, from the estate sale. Her name was Charity Ann. For more than twenty years, she and Isaiah Jr. would live, illegally, as husband and wife on the same land where she and their children had formerly been enslaved. They were my maternal fourth great-grandparents.

A river runs from its present in one place to its future in another, gradually and meticulously shaping its surroundings along the way. The women in my family are also rivers—collectors and archivists of recipes, stories, portraits, and traditions. Following their example, I am learning that events of the past simultaneously shape our present and future. I work across media, collecting images, documents, and narratives; transforming them into monuments; memorializing personal memories, family histories, and traditions; exploring the reciprocal relationships between environment and inhabitant. These accumulations seek to answer what role our surrounding landscape plays in who we are and what we become, how we simultaneously shape it while it shapes us, what erstwhile lessons can be used to better understand the present, and where we can find connections to the land, to each other, and to our past.

Advisor: Joe Wolin