Two Narratives:
Edna Patterson-Petty and Nathan B. Young, Jr.
August 19, 2004 - January 2, 2005
Let me tell you a story- I had just graduated from grad school in California. After realizing that Los Angeles was not the place for me and deciding to move to the area of Santa Fe, New Mexico, I ended up in a town to the south of that city. Madrid was at one time a typical southwestern mining town. The local bar was called the Mine Shaft - during the day you could go on a tour of the mine shaft, and at night, while visiting the bar side of the shaft, you could often still see a shoot-out, or at least a knife or fist fight. This very small community had colorful characters living in the hills surrounding the mine; most of the neighbors either claimed to be artists or were actual surviving/working artists, others were runaways from families, runaways from society, and a few of our neighbors were the people who you might have seen on the wall of the local post office. The house that I was living in was owned by two of my friends who I had met during my time in Los Angeles. Their house was the old winch house for the mine. They claimed that a mineworker who had died in the winch after his arm got hooked and ripped off haunted the house. The son still makes a yearly pilgrimage to the site to honor the father that he never knew. The neighbors across Highway 14, or the Turquoise Trail, lived in an old greyhound bus. The man was called "The Russian." The Russian was married to a local girl three times his junior, and would fit three of the above-mentioned stereotypes of a local: an outlaw from Canada, a runaway from society and a neighbor claiming to be an artist. On top of that, he was the initiator many of the gun/knife/fist fights at the bar. On a beautiful Wednesday the group of us, while dining on homemade tortilla chips and salsa, decided to hunt petroglyphs in the town adjacent to Madrid. The five of us loaded into the pickup truck and headed out.
Surrounded by farmland, Galisteo was smaller than Madrid by about 200 people, and was connected to the larger town via a dirt highway. About 40 minutes into the drive we came upon a protrusion in the landscape. To the naked eye, it did not appear to rise much higher than the elevation of the road. We pulled the truck over onto the side of the road at a spot where the barbed wire fence had a break in it, giving us easy access to the private property. We agreed on a story to explain why we were trespassing onto private property, in case we were faced with the owner and a shotgun, and started walking. We reached the base of the small hill and started the ascent. Now, like I said, from the dirt road the hill did not look very high, but, once on top, you could see from one side of the prairie to the other for about a 50-mile radius. We continued to climb up and down the hill until we found the petroglyphs. The first was a drawing of an arrow-pointing north, so we followed it and came upon a drawing of an animal, which we decided looked like a buffalo. We began to discuss the history of petroglyphs - what they were used for and the stories that they communicated. From the cave paintings in Europe to the drawings on the rock formations of the southwest, humankind has perpetuated, orally and via imagery, a communication of events, location and histories.
Oral narration, or storytelling, has been an integral part of society since languages were developed. "Bardic" storyteller is a Celtic term that has come to describe the central poet/singer/performer or history keeper of many cultures. The bard is described as the "storyteller whose function is to create and/or perform poetic oral narrations that chronicle events or praise the illustrious forebears and present leaders of a tribal, cultural, or national group."1 This tradition was seen as a viable occupation throughout the 12th-15th centuries in Eastern and Western societies. To this day the position still implies and confirms knowledge, honor and greatness on the part of individual inhabiting it. The storyteller captivates his or her audience through music, body movements and tonal changes in the voice, mentally creating a visual place for the listener to go.
It is the combination of all this that I find in the works of Patterson-Petty and Young. Both artists are storytellers who are visually narrating the world in which they exist or existed. Patterson-Petty has been challenged by the world around her, both in books, and in relationships of hers as a wife/lover, teacher and friend. Her work stems from the personal experience of being her. She is the poet-storyteller, creating through cotton cloth, silk or discarded clothes the images that music, movies, or literature evoke in her. Patterson-Petty also works from her knowledge of Africa and the history of African Americans here in United States. In her own words, "Quilts are multifaceted, it began with the need to identify territory, groups and families, to tell stories and to also provide general information. Centuries ago our ancestors were silenced by the outlawing of the talking drums. But they were able to find other forms of communication, and as a result there was a collection of brightly colored cloth flags, or banners that adorn the villages during festivals or funerals. The designs were an array of appliquéd patchwork that was coded to be recognized by only a few." Patterson-Petty's works are also infused with political statements and themes drawn from history and religion, approached from the stance of a personal experience with each issue.
From the private we then move to the public realm. Young's body of work stands as a visual and written documentation of political events in the United States, and the history of the African American experience in this country. Some of the images that he uses were taken out of Time or Life magazines, and then reformulated into painted collage compositions. He would also take the text from the magazine or newspaper article, hand-writing the words that corresponded to the images, thus creating a work of art that would forever honor the people and the events in the painting. Young created paintings that chronicled the change and development of the American experience for African Americans, and that also conveyed his opinion that change and development must continue. "How can our society be changed...The only plan that will succeed is one that will be greeted by most social activists with disbelief and disparagement…the only means that is realistic, given the nature of the contemporary State: revolution by consciousness."2 Young believed in looking to the succeeding generations for change. Within our youths, believed Young, resides the capacity to change society, or the "State," through a new revolution of thought- specifically, within the spheres of music, art and literature. Young's works remind us of where we come from, and also remind us that we continually need to address the issues of racism, education, and stereotypes.
Both artists have created stories that pull the viewer in and allow him or her to develop a relationship with the work. Their visual stories augment the viewer's experience, making it more than simply looking at a work of art- making the viewer think. Patterson-Petty and Young urge us to think about our own personal experience, the society around us, and who we individually are within our society. Both artists give us an opportunity, through narration, to think about who we are in the present, and who we want to be in the future. Through image, they give us a story to address and remember.
-Nanette E. Boileau, Former Curator
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Notes:
1. The World of Storytelling, Anne Pellowski; R.R. Bowker Company; New York, NY; 1977, p.19.
2. The Greening of America, Charles A. Reich, Random House, Inc.; New York, NY: 1971, p.323
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