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

This hat, made in 1991, is the oldest piece in the exhibition. I had been working in porcelain for only a couple of years at this point, and was just getting into making simple volumetric forms after playing around with plates that were painted in slip and incised. I made this by pressing thin slabs into a plastic party hat. I didn’t texture it or make parts in relief as I later learned to do, but was enamored with some pastel chalk-like underglazes that gave it the sense of felted wool. I still enjoy the simplicity of this hat, even though it is a one- liner. Revisiting it years later, I see that it represents what I call the “great omission”—that the white Christian church, in its rush to reconcile with blacks, has a flawed approach. Reconciliation will never be fully possible without a full accounting of the harm done. The church, of all institutions, should know this, yet it rests on collective amnesia that does not recognize legacies of unaddressed violence, subjugation, and oppression. Without meaningful apology for the benefits this oppression has long bestowed on us, why would we assume interracial relations would even be desirable to African-American Christians?” This old hat reminds me of one my grandfather wore. I imagine it had additional usefulness as an impromptu offering plate in his small country church. Inside this porcelain version is a hat tag which refers to Matthew 5:23-24: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Artist’s note from 1991)