Please visit ‘The Mermaid Storm’ site for a fuller explanation of the collaboration between myself and poet Glenis Redmond, inspired by Dr. Ras Michael Brown’s ‘African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry’ (Cambridge University Press).
This new series of narrative paintings depict the antebellum slave myth of Low Country mermaids, and how their capture would bring about punitive floods and storms until their release. It has evolved into a collaboration with South Carolina poet Glenis Redmond.
Work in progress. ‘Ibo’s Landing’ (station IV of XIV)
Earlier Work
‘The belief that the captivity of the mermaid resulted in torrential rainfall remained current among African-descended people into the twentieth century. This idea existed outside the environs of Charleston as well.’
“Oh, yes Sir; it was a mermaid; they seen here in this here very shop, in a tub, in the cellar. All of them old people can tell you about her. Yes, Sir; that is the mermaid history” -Araminta Tucker (Charleston)
“Mere-maid got a forked tail just like a shark. From here down (illustrating by pantomime) all blue scale like a cat fish. Pretty people. Pretty a white woman as you ever laid an eye on. (..) They walk- slide long on tail. Pretty. From they waist down to tail blue scale. (…) You got a bathing house on beach. Leave bread there. They sure eat bread…”- Pauline Pyatt, Georgetown
(Above excerpts from the remarkable ‘African-Atlantic cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry’ by Prof. Ras Michael Brown)
