Tag: remembering

Hills of Dreams: Becoming What We Needed to See

Sometimes the universe whispers before it speaks.

Not long ago, I had the idea that I wanted to do something for the elementary school I attended as a child. I considered doing a mural or workshop. It was an idea that I mentioned only to my wife and scribbled in my journal. The very next week, no joke, I opened an email from the art teacher at Rolling Hills Elementary School. Her enthusiasm came straight up outta that computer. She had seen my work and wanted me to paint a mural. She had the will and the zeal, but no true idea what it would take or cost to bring it to pass. But I already knew it was destined to be. We trusted the process. Huntsville City Schools and local sponsors answered the call and the project was set in motion. We would call the mural, Hills of Dreams.

With mixed feelings I returned to those linoleum floored cinderblock halls where my own journey began. Rolling Hills Elementary School was where I first discovered the joy of art making as a thing, the exhilaration of diving deep into the creative process, seeing my work on the walls for the very first time. Where I walked with reverence into that precious carpeted library that served as a keyhole to the worlds of my interests. Where I watched a popcorn seed planted in a baby food jar sitting in the window, sprout and reach for the sun. Where at the end of my fourth grade year, the teacher gave me my pick of books on the shelf by her desk. I felt like I bit off a little piece of heaven that day. At that little cozy elementary school tucked into northwest Huntsville, nestled on a hilltop, the foundation who I am as a creative was laid. To create there again, among students and teachers, was more than full circle. It was cosmic alignment.

One day, while I worked on the mural in the cafeteria, a group of students came in to watch a film. Out of curiosity, I glanced back at the screen then noticed a boy with his face toward me. He wasn’t watching the movie at all. His eyes were fixed on me as I painted. I could feel him watching. Deep, steady, unblinking. I turned back to my work, brushed paint onto the wall, and later looked again. He was still watching. Still locked in. Of course it didn’t bother me at all. People always ask whether it distracts me when they watch or talk to me when I am painting murals. The answer is no because I see mural painting as a type of performance art. Interaction with the audience is an integral part of the work.

In that moment, I wondered What was that little fella thinking? Was he seeing himself in me? Was I looking back at me at that age? I thought about how vital it is to live fully in my space, to be visibly present on my wings. Because oh, what it would have meant for me to have seen that when I was his age. To see possibility embodied, to see someone creating, to see myself reflected in real time. That’s what doing what I do is about. It isn’t just putting paint on walls or pen to paper. It’s about planting visions. It’s about representing and recreating for inspiration. It’s about adopting the responsibility to be what I once needed to see.

Every child deserves a light to reach toward. Adults can use it as well. So what do you say we commit or recommit to standing tall in our space, to showing up fully, to inspiring boldly for the ones watching us with wide eyes, waiting for their own wings to sprout. Because Hills of Dreams is not just my slinging paint on a lunchroom wall. It’s an embodiment, an incubator for what belongs to every child or person with a dream bigger than their circumstances. It’s for all of us who dare to go for the dream and to forge trails for others to follow. In fact , as I consider it all, I think I’ve been dreaming too small.

The Earth Never Forgets

Late last year I had the honor of attending an Equal Justice Initiative and Community Remembrance Project posthumous memorial service and marker dedication for one Robert Mosley. In 1890 Robert Mosley was dragged away from life in Meridianville, Alabama, hung by an enraged mob of over 450 men. This southern son’s light was snuffed out in broad daylight. This act of homegrown terrorism was carried out not by the courts, but by self-appointed executioners, fueled by fear-based hatred and the presumption of guilt. Robert Mosley’s age was somewhere between 16 and 19. Basically a child.

I had the challenge and honor of doing a portrait of Mr Mosley in red clay which I gathered from the area of his murder. Working with red clay gives me the feeling of working with a living substance. It is, as a professor once told me, “rich with the blood of y(our) ancestors.” The red clay that forms this image is not merely pigment. It is a reminder of the blood shed on this southern landscape for what we now call home. This painting calls us to bear witness—not just to the life of Robert Moseley, but to the countless others whose names have been forgotten in the ashes of social violence.

During the ceremony, the photographer approached me about the portrait and his camera’s interaction with the eyes. He explained to me the sensitivity of his AI powered camera – how it could detect human eyes. He went on to say that it was reading the eyes of the portrait as human. I heard him but didn’t think anything of it. Several times more in passing he would comment on it, in obvious awe. Finally at the end of the ceremony when he was taking a photo of another gentleman and myself next to the piece, he came over shaking his head and said, “You’ve got to see this!” he proceeded to tell us that the camera had actually recognized the portrait’s eyes before it had ours. In the camera, I saw the green dots focused in on the eyes of the portrait of Robert Mosley. If I’d had another mindset, it could have come across as eerie. Obviously, to him it was rather fantastical and somewhat unbelievable.

At home that evening, I found myself looking through the photos of the program online. The words on the posterior of the marker read.

With his last words, Robert reportedly objected to the mob’s covering his face with a handkerchief, pleaded, “Let me see one more time in this world.”

As I read those words, a chill ran through me. Let me see one more time in this world. And here was this portrait—his likeness, his spirit—being recognized by an artificial eye meant only for the living. The thought settled deep in my chest. Had I, in some way, created a portal for his sight? Had the clay, the very earth itself, become a vessel for something beyond my understanding?

Sitting in the dim glow of my screen, I stared at the image—still seeing in my mind’s eye the green dots locked onto his eyes. It’s as if the camera, too, was acknowledging his presence. Maybe it was just technology behaving strangely. Or maybe, just maybe, Robert Mosley finally got the chance to see in this world one more time. After all, it is A.R.T. …A Resurrecting Truth.