I'd like to give you some idea of what motivated my interest in
doing the [Hiroshima and Genesis] series.
My family was part of a great
black migration that moved north right after World War I. I was born in
Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1917. We moved to several cities before
finally settling in the Harlem Community. I was baptized in the
Abyssinian Baptist Church in about 1932. And there I attended church, I
attended Sunday School, and I remember the ministers giving very
passionate sermons pertaining to the creation - the paintings of
Genesis. This was over fifty years ago and you know these things stay
with you although you don't realize what an impact these experiences are
making on you at the time.
Two years ago I had the opportunity of doing Genesis. I went back, I
read the bible, I read the Genesis, the creation, and its very, very,
very, awe inspiring as many of us know - The Bible: the mystery, the
magic, about the birth, about the coming into being, about life. As I
was doing the series I think that this was in the back of my mind
hearing this minister talk about these things, preach about this. And I
think this held me throughout my doing this particular work. "In the
beginning...all was void, and so on, and God created the stars, and God
created the herbs, and so on." It's a fantastic experience to go through
to remember these things; [they] become such a part of you.
I associate this also with Hiroshima, because we get the opposite. One is
the complete harmony of life, a complete magic, a complete dealing with
something coming into being, the mystery of life. The other is a
destructive kind of thing: they bomb us, we bomb them. And then it goes
on and on. And as we know, it is very, very scary. So I like to think
that the two series are related in some way to this kind of life we go
through, this kind of experience we
have.
