Ebony in Veil of Fight (Whispers of the Everglades)

Medium: Porcelain Ceramics
Dimensions: 13” x 9” x 16.5”
Year: 2025

During my month-long artist residency in Everglades National Park, I immersed myself in its raw, untamed wilderness, tracing the histories woven into its shifting waters and dense terrain. This experience culminated in Ebony in Veil of Fight: Whispers of the Everglades, a ceramic bust adorned with intricate blue decals of butterflies, spiders, and various insects—symbols of survival, transformation, and resilience.

The Everglades, much like the histories it holds, is a place of both refuge and resistance. For centuries, Black Maroons and Indigenous peoples sought sanctuary within its labyrinthine waterways, forging autonomous communities amid the sawgrass and cypress. They adapted to the land, moving with its rhythms, much like the creatures that inhabit it. The butterflies on the bust embody the spirit of metamorphosis—an echo of those who reshaped their destinies in the face of oppression. Spiders, master weavers of intricate webs, represent the interconnectedness of survival, storytelling, and ancestral wisdom passed down through generations. Insects, small yet tenacious, signify endurance in the face of an ever-changing world.

Through this work, I honor the resilience of these communities and their sacred relationship with nature. The deep blue of the decals evokes the liminal space between water and sky, past and present, memory and myth. Ebony in Veil of Fight: Whispers of the Everglades is a testament to those who have found strength in the margins, thriving in places where the world said they could not.