Carucha A. Bowles is a retired high school teacher from Tallahassee, FL, who taught Fiber Art at the School for the Arts & Innovative Learning (SAIL) in Tallahassee.
Her contribution to COVID-19 PAGES is called “Black Madonna.” Here’s part of what she has shared about this work:
“‘Black Madonna’ is a narrative on ‘Living in a Global Pandemic while Black’ as we grapple to understand the impact of COVID-19 on our lives:
– Figuring out how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, healthy, preventing infection and impending doom …
– Getting used to wearing facial masks, ‘sheltering-in-place,’ frantically purchasing warehouse quantity toilet paper …
– Losing employment/ businesses/ income, standing for hours in miles-long food lines, fearing homelessness …
“Compounded by ‘living while Black in America,’ African-American mothers are doubly impacted by the all-too-real possibility of also losing their children to Systemic Racism. These mothers are nothing short of Saints of Grace, measured by the immeasurable depths of their suffering and sacrifices in lovingly raising children, only to lose them for no other reason than for the color of their skin. And to add ‘Cajun salt to the wounds of their living hell,’ finding no justice for their loss.
“I began to see and think of these mothers as ‘Black Madonnas,’ relating their sacrifices and suffering to that of Michelangelo’s ‘La Pieta,’ which represents a grieving Virgin Mary sorrowfully holding and contemplating her dead son, Jesus’ body, in her lap. (‘Pieta’ means pity or compassion in Italian.)
“Every mother worships her children as her Jesus, sacred to her, the epitome of what’s divine. So I felt an urgency to depict these tragic cultural figures and their realities in the traditional iconic religious context.”
To visit COVID-19 PAGES: The Influence & Inspiration of Women, click on the following link: https://wellsinternationalfoundation.org/covid-19-pages-exhibit/
