Catalog Entry from If These Walls Could Talk Exhibit, Neill-Cochran House 2020:

This ensemble, created in 2006, has been taken apart up here in the Dependency bedroom. By the armoire, you’ll see a one-armed Raggedy Andy, a pair of tennis shoes, and some socks. These are part of a story that goes along with the big picnic basket and peanut butter and jelly on the chest of drawers. Each piece had a part to play in a story about Chlora going rogue at a Sunday school picnic. (She ran off to a creek where she tried to re-enact the water rescue of baby Moses… first waterproofed the basket with peanut butter, used Andy as the baby, etc… a sure garbling of a favorite Bible story). For If These Walls Could Talk, we have re-storied it, with the items representing things an enslaved family might have—a modest meal, shoes, toys. One especially disturbing connection arose as I researched lynchings during the Jim Crow era. People took picnics to the site of the hanging and enjoyed themselves. Picture postcards of the event were traded like baseball cards. I learned to see lynchings as crucifixions. Note that the cross- cut sandwich is bread and grape jelly, a reference to the bread and wine of the Last Supper.