“I want to walk and step slightly left, I want to live in the  lavender spaces… .”

 

These words written by artist Sidonie Cheryl Smith describe  her transition from a predominately left-brain world into the  land of right-brain creativity and freedom. After retirement  Dr. Smith began artistic exploration at Santa Monica Emeritus College with artists Ruth San Pietro, Bruce Trentham,  Lynn Goodwin, and Mary Pillot.

 

Featured in this showing are several pieces from the  “Slavery: Another Name for Freedom” series. The special 

“Slavery by Another Name” recently aired by PBS inspires these pieces. The haunting images are a reminder of the legacy of slavery that manifests itself in the industrial prison complex system, which still to this day continues to utilize convict labor to capitalize major corporations. Immediately following emancipation of the slaves the need for cheap labor continued. A system was devised to acquire prison labor at little or no cost through the Black Codes and pleabargaining, which often resulted in imprisonment for life, the criminalization of Black people, and a skewed penal code.

 

These pieces give voice to this outrageous system and to  those caught in it and to those ancestors who scream from  the graves, “Never forget, never forget!”

 

There will be an Artist Reception on Sunday, August 4, at noon.

 

— Biographical information from the artist