The Brown Menagerie

Media: Glaze Ceramic & Aerosol Paint
Dimension: 10 in X 6 in X 15 In
Year: 2015

Photo by David Gary Lloyd

Brown is the color of rich soil—the foundation of life and growth. As a composite of red, black, and yellow, brown carries layered symbolism, representing earthiness, resilience, and ancestral connection. It is a color naturally found in human hair, eyes, and skin, especially within communities of the African diaspora. Yet, despite its ubiquity and richness, public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States often rank brown as one of the least favored colors, revealing deep-seated biases linked to race, class, and cultural perception.

The Brown Menagerie confronts these contradictions, examining how race, sexism, and fashion intersect and are experienced through an Afro-Caribbean lens. The series uses the symbolism of brown to question societal values around beauty, desirability, and identity. Through intricately crafted ceramic forms inspired by flora, fauna, and cultural iconography, the work reclaims brownness not as something marginalized, but as something vital, powerful, and deeply rooted in history and the natural world.

By situating brown at the center of the narrative, The Brown Menagerie invites viewers to reconsider their own internalized hierarchies of color and to acknowledge the inherent beauty and significance embedded in what is often overlooked.

—

For Aunt Jemima

By Morel Doucet

Them torpedo titties

hang like two calla lilies

over blue flames

soaked in bacon grease and eggs.

Don’t forget the hot sauce - taste the tip.

Don’t’ forget the pancakes - taste the syrup.

Don’t forget the sadness, taste the pain -

taste the pain of the minstrel shows.

The sun a bounty of ebonics

shines its rays like a room full of too many windows opened to the outside world. Them clouds can’t protect you

no matter how many times you wash

the rain out of them. Go seek day

with servile cheeks spread like first Sunday’s.

They curse you vile ebony

like the dim morning laughter

to the midnight hangings of the antebellum south.

White folks be talkn’ bout yous remind them of home.

Yet yous been homeless,

without a home. Your evenings are spent hiding behind their back door kitchens and dirty wardrobes.

When all the gold fell from the sun

he gave you that Carolina skin called Negro,

but children marvel at how

you make slavery taste so good.

Tightrope - balancing the kitchen like

chefs in a potter‘s dance,

frying chicken is an art form –

you know your craft well.

They thought you be that

monkey-dress-hood-rat

singing the blue jay’s blue and

cleaning their houses.

Be careful black maiden that your backbone

doesn’t become dust

lost to sand-like time does when he

becomes tired of hour.

Your liberation will come when

the stars of Babylon lean

on your front porch and the wind

scratches your dreams at night.