"Slavery by Another Name," the story of the hundreds of thousands of black Americans forced into labor camps during the years between the Civil War and World War II, had a radical effect on Robert Claiborne Morris.
Morris, a journalist and poet, was also a visual artist, a self-described landscape colorist. In 2008, after reading an advance copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by his friend Douglas Blackmon, his vision shifted. "It changed the way I saw my native South," he writes.
The shock sent him on a mission to collect artifacts — slave shackles from the bottom of the Savannah River, rusted tin from abandoned sharecroppers cabins, maps of coal mines and copies of 100-year-old newspaper articles attacking the prison labor system — and to incorporate these and other material in his artwork.
As a result he produced a jarring series of acrylics on canvas and wood panels, littered with found objects and broken glass, a collection now numbering about 32 paintings, and still growing. The latest was still drying when it was shipped to Mason Murer Fine Art this month, where the full collection remains on display through the end of the month.
As part of the National Black Arts Festival, which began July 6 and continues through this weekend, Morris will participate Thursday in a panel discussion of the issues raised in Blackmon's book, trading thoughts with Blackmon and, via Skype, Sam Pollard, producer/director of the PBS documentary, "Slavery By Another Name," based on the book.
Former AJC columnist Cynthia Tucker will serve as the moderator during the event, which takes place at the Mason Murer gallery.
The paintings have a surface beauty that calls to mind Seurat and Van Gogh, but create a dark mood that Blackmon described as "somber yet magnificent."
Michael Simanga, executive director of the National Black Arts Festival, said Morris' paintings provoke the disccomfort that accompanies travel in unfamiliar territory. And they give a three-dimensional account of the men and women whose lives were all but erased by this system of peonage.
"Historians will record facts and give us details, but who we are comes out in the art, in the songs, the paintings."
Slavery By Another Name: The Dialogue, told through art, film and literature, 6:30 p.m. for opening reception, 7:30 p.m. for program, 8:30 p.m. for reception and book signing, Thursday, July 12, at Mason Murer Fine Art, 199 Armour Dr., Atlanta. For information, Judy Hanenkrat, 404-730-6369; www.masonmurer.com
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