Wasn’t nobody free back then . . .
Thinking about the changing of life,
Okra, peas, sweet potatoes,
Rutabaga, collard greens.
Everything that growed,
I done tried.
Keep on trying, keep on learning.
The spirit works off the mind and get stronger.
Rope, sand, old wood,
Rocks, tree limbs and roots.
Picking up things, the dream of life, vision.
Wasn’t nobody free back then . . .
Everything in the world got a pattern.
The mind got to see it, the hands got to make it.
A pattern for a piece of art.
Keep on trying to learn a little bit,
Keep on learning to look at what we have did
and be proud
Wasn’t nobody free back then . . .
No freedom. I was still flying like a bird.
Inside me . . .
My pictures somehow be mostly about freedom.
Look at my art, you seeing my mind.
At them little folks out there.
We got to use them minds.
The movement of the world always make
changes in things.
*The title of this piece is based on “Green Pastures: The Birds That Didn’t Learn How to Fly” © 2008 Thornton Dial, Collection of the High Museum of Art. This painting is “one of a series, it shows figures of birdsconstructed from work gloves hanging on a line.” - Joanne Cubbs
Text derived from interview of Thornton Dial (1928–2016). Edited by Tania León and Julia Bullock