Artistic Expression in the Face of Oppression
One individual who exemplified this was David Drake, an enslaved potter and poet who lived in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. Drake, better known as “Dave the Potter” for signing his works “Dave”, was born into slavery and worked as a potter producing alkaline-glazed stoneware in a traditional Southern style used for storage.[3] He was one of the few potters who signed his work, making him the most identifiable among all potters in Edgefield. Dave was one of the few men capable of making vessels larger than twenty gallons, employing the coiling method used by African and Native American women to achieve pots up to twenty seven inches in height.[4] Not only was he a skilled potter, but a poet as well. Along with signing his pots, he often inscribed poetic verses on them, twenty seven of which are still around today.[5] The poetry through which Dave expressed himself demonstrated yet another layer of artistic talent, something most slaves were barred from doing due to laws criminalizing their pursuit of literacy. Dave’s individual pieces were not named, but can be identified by such poetry.
This piece of alkaline-glazed stoneware was created on August 16, 1857 by Dave. Its function is to act as a storage vessel and is nineteen inches in length. Inscribed on the pot is "I wonder where is all my relations / Friendship to all—and every nation". Through this poem Dave expresses his desire to know more about his heritage that was taken away from him before he was even born. Despite his enslavement and the attempt to strip him of any personal identity, Dave was able to express his uncensored feelings through his poetry in the very practice that he was forced to work in. Though he was forced to make pottery for the benefit of his enslavers, Dave’s commitment to the trade and branding it as his own served as a bold yet subtle act of defiance. While the pots were often signed with the initials of his owner, the unrivaled craftsmanship and poetic genius convey that the work is unmistakably Dave’s.
Harriet Powers was another figure whose artistic prowess rose above the institution of slavery. Born into slavery in Georgia in 1837, little is known about Powers’ life apart from the fact that she learned to sew at some point during her enslavement.[6] After her freedom following the Civil War, Powers went on to create several quilts, only two of which are known to exist to this day in the Smithsonian and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Despite only having two known extant works, Powers commands tremendous influence and reverence over the art world, especially when compared to other prominent artists who have thousands of works to let their name be known by. Even in her time Powers’ work gained the respect of white folks, namely an artist and teacher named Jennie Smith who expressed great interest in Powers’ work while it was on display at the Cotton Fair in Athens, Georgia in 1886.[7] Despite having all the odds stacked against her as a formerly enslaved woman of color, Powers’ artistic genius solidified her legacy as one of the most influential quiltmakers in American history.
Of her two extant works, Bible Quilt, created by Powers in 1886, is the first one she produced.[8] The quilt’s eleven panels depict various scenes from the Bible. In order, they are described by the Smithsonian as “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a continuance of Paradise with Eve and a son, Satan amidst the seven stars, Cain killing his brother Abel, Cain goes into the land of Nod to get a wife, Jacob's dream, the baptism of Christ, the crucifixion, Judas Iscariot and the thirty pieces of silver, the Last Supper, and the Holy Family.”[9] As Powers was not literate and therefore unable to read the Bible, this quilt is very much an expression of her understanding of Biblical events through oral sermon. She also employs the traditional West African quilt making technique of appliqué in which smaller pieces of fabric are placed over larger ones to create shapes and patterns. What makes this piece stand out is the fact that it can only be viewed from one side, while other quilts usually had designs facing all angles. This suggests that the quilt is meant to be read like a story from left to right, top to bottom. The truest testament to her work’s influence, however, is the fact that it only took two quilts for her name to echo across generations of systematic erasure of the work of other Black artists throughout America.
To deny the history of Black artists is to deny art history in America, for the story of American art is the story of Black artists. There is no greater testament to the resilience of mankind than that displayed by the enslaved artists described here, along with countless others. Art is one of the most fundamental components of humanity that distinguishes us from other animals and no art is more worthy of praise and recognition than the art created by those who faced some of the most brutal injustices in all of human history.
[1] Eugene W. Metcalf, “Black Art, Folk Art, and Social Control,” Winterthur Portfolio 18, no. 4 (1983) : 271, doi: 10.1086/496153.
[2] Denise M. Johnson, “Black Reconstruction” (lecture, Chapman University, Orange, CA, October 11, 2021.
[3] Jill Beute Koverman, “The Ceramic Works of David Drake, aka, Dave the Potter or Dave the Slave of Edgefield, South Carolina,” American Ceramic Circle Journal 13, no. 4 (2005) : 86, http://www.amercercir.org/.
[4] Koverman, “The Ceramic Works of David Drake,” 91.
[5] Koverman, “The Ceramic Works of David Drake,” 84.
[6] Judith Weisenfeld and Richard Newman, This Far By Faith: Readings in African-American Women's Religious Biography (New York: Routledge, 1996), 21.
[7] Weisenfeld and Newman, This Far By Faith, 21.
[8] Samantha Moreno, “The enduring significance of Harriet Powers’ quilts,” last modified July 7, 2017, https://www.artstor.org/2017/07/07/the-enduring-significance-of-harriet-powers-quilts/.
[9] “1885 - 1886 Harriet Powers's Bible Quilt,” National Museum of American History, accessed October 11, 2021, https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556462.