Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other

Cloth, thread, and beads
Courtesy of the artist and Mead Art Museum 

The Beaded Prayers Project (1998–ongoing) is a long-term participatory artwork that has involved more than five thousand people in dozens of countries. The project embraces the artist’s research based on the shared etymology, or linguistic history, of the words “bead” and “prayer” and the idea that collectively made amulets, which may be found throughout the world, can offer spiritual and physical protection. For over twenty-five years, this project has demonstrated that art can be a communal activity as participants create packets containing potent contents, including their hopes or prayers written on a piece of paper and encased within a covering that has at least one bead. 

Pigment prints on archival paper

From left to right, top to bottom:
Chaunda King
Marsha Johnson
Jasmine and Jameika Pollard
Ife Robinson
Ingrid Riley
Kamala Bhagat
Anita Hill-Moses
Dionne James Eggleston
Natasha Superville
Nasirah Muhammad
Jamilah Williams
Sonya Clark

Courtesy of the artist

The Hair Craft Project features a collaboration between the artist and Black hairstylists, who practice their own form of artistry; Clark claims them as fellow textile artists and has noted that the first textile art form was hairdressing. Using her own head as a canvas, she worked with the stylists to break down the barrier between hair salons and art institutions as sites of craft, skill, improvisation, aesthetics, and commerce. Each resulting hair design was photographed and is paired with a complementary textile panel created by the stylists on canvas.

Plastic combs
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, purchase through the generosity of Marilyn D. Johnson; Beverly Dale; Buckingham Foundation, Inc.; Jeanne and Michael Klein; Fredericka and David Middleton; H-E-B; Joseph and Tam Hawkins; Carmel and Gregory Fenves; The National Council of Negro Women (Austin Section); Lone Star (TX) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated; Town Lake (TX) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated; National Society of Black Engineers—Austin Professionals; Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce; National Black MBA Association Austin Chapter; and other donors

This work pays homage to America’s first female self-made millionaire, a complex figure who came from the cotton fields of the South to create her own business, an empire of Black hair-care products. To create Madam C. J. Walker’s portrait, Clark used over three thousand fine-toothed combs, which she contends are gendered and point to Walker negotiating a man’s world. Clark chose to commemorate this figure, who used her wealth and status to advocate for antilynching campaigns. Despite not being able to vote—as a woman and as a Black person—Walker used her prosperity for activism and empowered other women to run businesses.

Woven linen and madder dye
Courtesy of the artist

Many amplifies Clark’s message by replicating the size of the original Confederate truce flag one hundred times. Unlike its tea-stained and madder root–dyed counterpart, this bright white work exudes newness, repetition, and ongoing effort. Clark hopes that the multiplied image of the flag might make an indelible impression on our collective memory for the work of reparations and racial justice in the present and into the future.

Finding Freedom, 2019–2020, light-sensitive cyanotype fabric, approximately 1,500 square feet, collection of the artist. Installation view at Phillips Museum of Art, Franklin & Marshall College.Photo by Deb Grove.

Finding Freedom is inspired by the history of the Underground Railroad when celestial navigation helped guide enslaved peoples in the United States northward toward freedom. This project is an immersive, participatory installation with a room-sized canopy that recalls a starry night sky. Clark created the monumental quilt-like textile in collaboration with students, researchers, friends, and a group of incarcerated men; this methodology draws on African and African American textile traditions, including the collaborative quilting practices of Black women.