“Three Installations,” Art, LaShawnda Crowe Storm.

Be/Coming – Detail of Wig © 2009 Mixed Media Installation including hand- and machine-quilted fabric, beads, human hair, donated fabric (canopy) and wood. Note: The wig was constructed from donated human hair from various individuals                                         .

Be/Coming

Description: Be/Coming is rooted in various masquerade traditions found throughout Africa, particularly Gelede and Egungun of the Yoruba (Nigeria). Be/Coming dances for African American women to reclaim their primordial female power, which continues to be fractured, destabilized, and undermined by the weight of history, negative stereotypes and derogatory imagery.

Be/Coming is a multi-part installation comprising of an art installation, poetry, and community engaged practices.

Be/Coming, © 2009 Mixed Media installation including hand- and machine-quilted fabric, beads, human hair, donated fabric (canopy), custom jewelry, beads and shells.

·       Figure Installation: 6’ x 6’ x 6’

·       Canopy: Approx. 96” x 108”

Be/Coming – Detail of Canopy © 2009. This photograph is a detail of the canopy which highlights the variety of fabrics donated for use in its construction, as well as the center section of panels, which are derived from The Underground Railroad Quilt Code.

Be/Coming, © 2009, Alterantive installation with wedding canopy on wooden posts. Poetic Dialogue Exhibition at Indiana State Univesity’s Furman Gallery.

Be/Coming – Detail of Fabric © 2009: This photograph is a detail of the fourth layer skirt and highlights the variety of fabrics used in the piece, as well as the hand quilting.

Her Name was Laura Nelson: Quilt I, The Lynch Quilt Project

The Lynch Quilt Project is a multi-year community-based initiative, which explores the history and ramifications of racial violence, specifically lynching, in the United States through the textile tradition of quilting. The project consists of a series of 10 quilts tackling the lynching phenomenon from various perspectives. Her Name is Laura Nelson is the first quilt in the series and explores the intersection of gender and lynching.

2004, Fabric, machine pieced and hand quilted, 90.5” x 123.5.”

Origins

Origins is the solid bronze casting of the pelvis of an unknown African American woman. Who is she? What happened that her bones have ended in a place to still be sold on the open market for consumption? Like Henrietta Lack, whose cervical cancer cells were taken without her knowledge in the late 1950s and due to their miraculous qualities have become the basis for cancer research world-wide. How did she / we end up here? Or Saartjie Baartman, a woman from the Khoisan people of South Africa also known as the Venus Hottentot, whose body was carved up and put on the display at the French Muséum des Sciences Naturelles d’Angers from 1816 to 1976. How did she / we end up here? Stripped of our humanity? Faceless bones?

2017, Cast bronze, fabric. 8” x 8” x 4.”

Infinite Continuum from Sister Song: The Requiem

The ancestors and the yet to be born are why we do the work. We who are living are the bridge between the past and all possible futures. We are the space where healing can occur to transform what comes after. Life is a relay. One after the next, after the next, after the next, and then we return. What are you willing to do in this life to transform the future for those that come after? What do you want to be reborn into in some far-off future? How do we get there? How do we build/rebuild/heal the continuum we want to inherit? Mother is creator, the first maker, teacher, healer to all. What do we teach? Whom do we heal? How do we heal? What futures do I create, make, teach, heal? Womb is creator, the first maker, teacher, space to heal all. 

* * * * *

“Muad’Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. Muad’Dib creates his own water. Muad’Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night. Muad’Dib is fruitful and multiplies over the land. Muad’Dib we call the ‘instructor-of-boys’ . . .,” said Stilgar. (Dune).

* * * * *

Mother. Maker. Instructor. Teacher. Muad’Dib. Creator. Sons. Daughters. Yet to Be Born. Mother. Maker.

Muad’Dib.

* * * * *

Mother. Womb. Mother. Maker. Mother. Creator. Mother. Universe. Mother. All. 

2022, 6” x 3” x 3”, Cast metal, twine, charm, wooden base.

LaShawnda Crowe Storm is an artist, activist, community builder and occasionally an urban farmer. Whether she is making artwork or sowing seeds, Crowe Storm uses her creative power as a vehicle for dialogue, social change and community healing. At the core of Crowe Storm’s creative practice is a desire to create community; any community in which the process of making art creates a space and place for difficult conversations around a variety of topics, with an eye to community healing. In her words, “If life were a photo, then my artwork would be the film negative, seeking to explore those aspects in our society that have been ignored or forgotten. By printing these negatives, I give voice to the marginalized and disregarded aspects of our society.” Crowe Storm has an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in mass communications and English Literature from the University of Michigan. She has received numerous awards for art and community activism including but not limited to a MdW Fellowship, Power Plant Award, De Haan Artist of Distinction Award, Art Place America National Creative Placemaking Award and Creative Renewal Fellowship.