Spy Review: Urban Landscapes

Quite apart from photorealism is the reality of a very different sort in the archival collection of pieces, including Faith Ringgold’s stunningly joyful quilt panorama she calls “Dancing on the GeorgeWashington Bridge II,” evidently her second take on the subject – brightly dressed African-American women in dance still-life posed against the GW bridgescape separating New Jersey from the Bronx. More fabric art follows with Darlene Taylor’s “Mother: Archive Files” Numbers 1-8 –  silhouette facial profiles of women sewn onto lacy “canvases.”

But before you leave the cozy Spiralis Gallery just down the hall from the museum’s main entrance, pause long enough and step back a bit to take in the implied forward motion of what celebrated African-American painter Jacob Lawrence self-referenced as “dynamic cubism.” The stark angular imagery of his 1997 “Forward Together” screenprint more than suggests liberation under the fearless leadership of Harriet Tubman, her hands splayed as paired deliverance flags to her fugitive followers.

Young Douglass, 2004 linocut image/sheet: 22 1/4 x 14 7/8″

Speaking of Frederick Douglass, whom I once said “was my neighbor” because he was held a slave on a several thousand-acre plantation, portions of which were less than a mile from where I grew up on a Dutchman’s Lane farm. President Trump, one month into his first term, clearly seemed to have no clue of who Frederick Douglass was or when he lived and died. “I hear he’s done some good things,” Trump said of the self-taught, self-liberated onetime slave.

In the gallery replete with black-and-white images of Douglass and contemporaries, including Daniel Lloyd, 1812-1875, son of the slave-holding governor of Maryland, Edward Lloyd V, who writes in Douglass’ voice: “Before Paul Revere warned of the British invasion and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, my freedom was already hostage.” Among the slaves who were once Edward Lloyd’s property was “Freddie,” soon to become Frederick, the spokesman and champion for the oppressed and enslaved.

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To round out your visit to the museum, take a few minutes and one flight upstairs to the hallway gallery for the 10 colorfully beaded fabric scenes of “Haitian Drapo: The Art of Mireille Delice.”  Be sure to check out the twin mermaids and the ceremonial leaf-gathering known as “pile fey.” And then just imagine the skill and patience it takes to create such detailed fantasies, sewing beads as opposed to applying paint strokes.  I have zero talent in either discipline, but I appreciate both as art.

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Getting back to photo-realism, after you’ve taken in the Richard Estes exhibit, consider the guided tours of Easton’s “urban” landmarks scheduled for May 25, June 29 and July 27. Rediscover the town many of us call home. In retirement my wife Liz and I looked all over the New York to Mid-Atlantic region and aside from urban explorations that involved high parking fees for two cars, we found lots of attractive “developments” with a strip mall around the corner – even some with a supermarket. But we longed for an authentic town to call home. Well, there’s not much inauthentic about Easton. Take a walk to appreciate what we have here, not to mention lovely neighboring burgs such as St. Michaels and Oxford. Welcome to what my mother once called “God’s country.” I don’t know about God, but this place is – as my favorite sports announcer from the past, Chuck Thompson, once or a thousand times called it, “The land of pleasant living” – summer beach traffic notwithstanding.

Steve Parks is a retired reporter, editor, and critic now living in Easton.