Little miss mary mack you make my heart go young Venus Williams (1994)
akeylah imani wellington
07.10.23-08.18.23
This exhibition is part of stop-gap project’s Open Window summer series. Artists were asked to propose projects that could be displayed in the gallery’s street-facing windows and responded to the idea of window space. akeylah imani wellington’s exhibition will be on display from July-August. Featuring large-scale, text-based tapestries using over 30,000 multi-color pony beads, wellington poetically weaves together material, verse, and memory. As the show is intended to be viewed from the exterior, we will not be having open gallery hours or first Friday receptions during the summer months (although you are welcome to stop by during those times). Instead, we welcome you to view the show at your own convenience—any day and time (during daylight hours)!
Luck is 16 braids on one hemisphere of a greasy head canerow straight parts
and blunt fingers on a white tender scalp luck is somebody ribcage just
behind an ear a deep breath next to an eardrum luck is twelve pumps of foam on
tight braids thirty two straight backs with the sideburns out six symmetrical slicks
running along a pair of temples a baby-face rubbed heavy in Vaseline little underarms
dressed in Tussy a blue magic cloud announcing an entrance the scent concocted between
two knees it is a phone resting on a thigh and a conversation on speaker and it is a
break from church shoes it is a month’s unwashed hair crimped and combed out for the
new new parting still as crisp as honest as young as miss mary mack apple on a stick you
make my heart slide and go and go and go
In the kind of homes in which braids are a regular hairstyle, it is common to select a bead color complementary to a child’s wardrobe. They afford a little body a quiet kind of confidence, as it is, at the very least, an indicator a child has a kitchen-beautician at home who stole enough time to not only braid in zigzags or straight-backs or curves or singles, but further ornament the style with a complementary pink or yellow or green or clear or purple bead. To adorn, in this case, is to love.
This work is a meditation on the 00s pony bead, a common accessory on cornrows, and the practice of hair jewelry-ing–the bit of Black hair styling which follows braiding–as a way to signify love and install joy. Select parts of the above poem have been woven into tapestries using an assortment of beauty supply beads.
- akeylah imani wellington
akeylah imani wellington is a regular-degular gyal who chews the gristle off the bone when eating wings. Her work concerns itself with the aughts, ironies, lucks, and a somber digestion of the psychological states of loving slave-descended citizens of the United States. She received her MFA from The Ohio State University and is an artist and educator based in Columbus, OH.
