A WBUR story on a new art exhibit honoring the Black community in Walden Woods, featured the work of MassArt Illustration faculty member Stephen Hamilton, BFA ’09 and Associate Director, Center for Art and Community Partnerships and Director, sparc! the ArtMobile Ekua Holmes, BFA ’77.

“On view through Oct. 18, the two-part exhibition features multimedia works on themes of identity, history and labor created by Black artists Sharon Chandler Correnty, Ifé Franklin, Stephen Hamilton, Whitney (Whit) Harris, Ekua Holmes, Perla Mabel,  McLeod, Kimberly Love Radcliffe and Anthony Peyton Young.

…More works are installed along an art trail. Bird cages adorned with cowries, white flowers and fabric by visual artist and children’s book illustrator Ekua Holmes blend seamlessly with the greenery. Holmes’ art explores the caged bird poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about in his poem “Sympathy” and Maya Angelou’s book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” the title of which was borrowed from Dunbar.

Holmes wondered if the birds present in the woods now are ancestors of the birds who lived during the American Revolution when Freeman and others occupied the woods. If so, she said, “they were witnesses too.” So, she wanted to invite those birds to come in and be a part of the story, she explained.

The doors to Holmes’ cages are open with birdseed and rice inside, so the animals can come and go. The cages are painted black because, Holmes shared, “there’s a need to mourn, the pain of that community.

…Inside the Umbrella, Stephen Hamilton’s haunting “Caulborn” hangs on a large wall. A blend of acrylic paints, natural dyes and pigments on burlap and hand-woven cotton, Hamilton depicts fish swirling around the submerged feet of a Black figure with a covered face sitting under a dark sky. The artist is trained in traditional West African art forms and wrote on his website that he treats “weaving, dyeing and woodcarving as ritualized acts of reclamation.”

Read the full story.