Artwork instead of an Essay!!

In my History of Women in America from 1800-Present class, we read a book called Coming of Age in Mississippi. Instead of responding to it in an essay format, we were also given the option of creating a work of art, writing a poem, or a blog entry or another creative outlet if we so desired. You could just write an essay too.  I decided to make a painting.  I focused on her childhood (who is surprised?) and a quote that I felt summed up her childhood mindset.

Childhood Memories inspired by Anne Moody's Life

Here is the "Artist's Statement" that I had to include:

“Childhood Memories inspired by Anne Moody”
acrylic, gouache, and Sharpie on vellum
GeekyFutureTeacher, December 2013

Anne “Essie Mae” Moody is known for her work as an adult in the Civil Rights movement, but her childhood experiences were what formed her into the strong women she became. This artwork is representative of Part I and Part II in “Coming of Age in Mississippi.” 

The first thought bubble contains:
•    House-fire (started by Uncle George Lee)
•    Broom (early jobs sweeping porches)
•    Clover (play-scape shared with white kids)
•    A Big Yellow Sun (nightmare before working cotton field)
•    Hoe and Cotton bud (working Raymond’s cotton field)
•    White and Blue (Baptism dresses)

The second thought bubble contains:
•    A newspaper featuring Emmett Till (fourteen year old boy murdered for whistling at a white woman)
•    HATE - “I was fifteen years old when I began to hate people.”
•    House-fire (Taplin burning)
•    NAACP door/sweeping hall (hearing about the NAACP for the first time)
•    Basketball (being on the team)
•    Greyhound (representing all bus rides, especially to Baton Rogue and New Orleans)
•    Waitress Tray (job at the Maple Hill Restaurant, first encounters with homosexual and transsexual people.)

The third thought bubble contains:
“If it wasn’t the straight hair and white skin that made you white, then what was it?”
(pg. 35 Question Essie Mae posed that I felt really defined her childhood quest for knowledge and understanding.”)