2023 Mural Restoration Project
AIN'T I A WOMAN?
Artist(s): jetsonorama with Jess X. Snow
Description of original 2015 piece from the O+ Mural Map:
Abolitionist and activist Sojourner Truth, who was born into slavery in Ulster County, NY, and later escaped to freedom, electrified audiences at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Ohio with her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech. Doctor-turned-mural artist Chip Thomas aka jetsonorama of The Painted Desert Project, and collaborator Jess X. Snow, honored Truth’s contribution to the women’s rights movement and her role as a humanitarian by asking African-American female poets to share poems pertaining to African-American womanhood. Poets Mahogany Browne and T’ai Freedom Ford are depicted with their poems embedded in each portrait.
As of fall 2022, 72 Furnace Street’s building/business owner Rebecca Milne (Milne Antiques & Design) has agreed to engage in the process to restore/replace the O+ Mural on this building given its historical and representational significance in the community as well as its current state of disrepair. The original work, completed in fall of 2015, was a combination of Jetsonarama’s wheatpasted photographic prints and hand painted text and motif by Jess X Snow. Over the last 6+ years, the paper-based portraits have deteriorated from weather exposure and the current state of the wall is problematic and upsetting. Moisture and sun exposure have literally begun to erase these powerful women’s faces from the wall and it is a priority of O+ to restore the mural’s impactful content in a way that is more sustainable long term.
The proposed solution is an updated mural design by Jetsonarama printed on a material known as Polytab for the portraits instead of a paper based print. The photographic portraits and text would be printed in Jetsonarama’s striking, black and white style while the wall surface and background details would be laid in with paint from O+’s longtime sponsor Golden Paint Works. Polytab, or mural cloth as it is otherwise known, is used by mural programs all over the world like Mural Arts in Philadelphia. It is a non-woven fabric that is twice primed and can be worked back into with almost any media. Polytab printed images are lightfast, high resolution pigment prints coated with acrylic sealers to ensure maximum life outdoors.
Current state of “Ain’t I A Woman” Mural Wall at 72 Franklin Street, January 2023. Photo Courtesy O+
PROPOSED RESTORATION OF WALL: Summer 2023
The Polytab and final design would need to be sent to the printer several weeks in advance of installation. O+ would work to clean the wall, including the removal of all remaining paper pulp from the deteriorating portraits. O+ would then support jetsonarama’s travel to Kingston to install the new version once printed and provide intern and staff production support. A scissor lift would need to be rented for the period of cleaning, wall prep and installation.
In the updated design proposed (below), jestonarama has again included lauded writer, organizer and educator Mahogany L. Browne (below left) and the second countenance included (below right) is that of Jennifer FA(LÚ.) One can also see in the new version of the mural, biographical information about Sojourner Truth – the ancestor, abolitionist and Hudson Valley resident the piece pays homage to- and words from the poets themselves featured.
Updated design proposed for “Ain’t I A Woman” mural. Courtesy Chip Thomas a.k.a. Jetsonarama
As an essential, and educative, component of this new iteration of jetsonarama’s Ain’t I a Woman mural, O+ would be working with the artist and the featured writers to build/edit together and audible experience to accompany the piece and be publicly accessible through O+’s website as well as a QR code on the wall itself. We will capture thoughts on the work from jetsonarama and the voices of the two women featured who have offered to generously record themselves reading their own poetry as a contribution towards the experience of the piece. We will also be working with young community members to not support mural production but to record their own reading of Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman speech delivered extemporaneously at the 1851 Women’s Convention in Akron, OH.
The ARTIST:
Chip Thomas, a.k.a. jetsonorama is a photographer, public artist, activist and physician who has been working on the Navajo nation since 1987. Thomas grew up in North Carolina where he was first exposed to the philosophy of doing the greatest good for the greatest number. He moved to the Diné Nation in 1981 to repay a National Health Service Corps scholarship by volunteering his skills in a community with limited healthcare. By the time he had satisfied his four-year with both the obligation, he had fallen in love with the people and the landscape. Today, Thomas’s public-art installations – known as The Painted Desert Project – are bolstering the community through a constellation of murals across the Navajo Nation painted by artists from all over the reservation and the world.
You can find Thomas’s large scale photographs pasted on the roadside, on the sides of houses in the northern Arizona desert, on the graphics of the People’s Climate March, Justseeds and 350.org carbon emissions campaign material.
In 2020, he was one of a handful of artists chosen by the UN to recognize the 75th anniversary of the UN’s founding. Thomas still practices family medicine at a small, remote Indian Health Services clinic on the Navajo Nation outside of Shonto, AZ.
The POETS:
Mahogany L. Browne is the Executive Director of JustMedia, a media literacy initiative designed to support the groundwork of criminal justice leaders and community members. This position is informed by her career as a writer, organizer, & educator. Browne has received fellowships from Agnes Gund, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research & Rauschenberg. She is the author of recent works: Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, & Black Girl Magic. Browne is the founder of the diverse lit initiative, Woke Baby Book Fair; and is excited about her latest poetry collection. I Remember Death By Its Proximity to What I Love is a book-length poem responding to the impact of mass incarceration on women and children). Browne is a mother, basedin Brooklyn, and was the first ever Poet-in- Residence at the Lincoln Center. https://mobrowne.com @mobrowne
Jennifer Falú is a celebrated performance artist, member of the Nuyorican Poets Café Slam Teams between 2006-14 and was 1/4 of the Tri-State area’s first All Female Poetry Slam Team. As a performer, Falú has shared the stage with Jennifer Holliday and Patti LaBelle. As an actor, she is featured in the movies “Mania Days” alongside Katie Holmes, as well as the Rza directed “Love, Beats, Rhymes”, alongside Jill Scott and Common, where she is credited as a writer. She is also featured in an Emmy Award winning documentary following the 2016 Brooklyn Poetry Slam Team.
In addition to being a dynamic and visceral poet, Falú is well known for her teaching, coaching and workshop leadership, working with Young Writers Academy, Boston Breadloaf, Sports & Arts In Schools Foundation and Achievement First-East New York, just to name a few. As a Cave Canem Fellow, she used her writing as activism work for Black Poets Speak Out and Black Lives Matter.
Her creative expression is further established in the four books authored by Falú entitled, “Ten Things I Want To Say to A Black Man,” “The Wet on My Tongue,” “When Ears Collide with Souls” and “& This We Know.” She is published in several anthologies, including “30/30” and “His Rib “and received a full spread in Urban Ink Magazine. She was also contracted by the Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation to write their current poetry curriculum and helped implement a “Redefining Manhood” curriculum for young, Black men in high school. Falu’s other passion projects include an art gallery she co-built and exhibit she co-curated that reconciles the legacy of racial injustice in the United States with the angst and aggression of the hip-hop generation. Falú is the proud mother of two children, a loyal Brooklynite and believes in fashion. @msjfalu