Never Quite, Sweet Enough
The watermelon represents freedom, community, celebration, land ownership, and self-determination. A fruit used by Black Americans to enact and celebrate our freedom after emancipation.
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Created during my three-month residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Never Quite, Sweet Enough, reclaims the watermelon, pays homage to this fruit, and pays homage to West African rice farmers who, during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, braided seeds and grains into their hair as acts cultural survival. Okra seeds, watermelon seeds, and other crops were also believed to be carried this way. Thus, turning hair into a vessel, and lifeline.
Never Quite, Sweet Enough I, 2025, 10’ X 8” X 7” (ceiling sculpture excluding floor tiles) Black porcelain, slip-cast seeded watermelon, braided synthetic hair, foam floor tiles, laser-engraved etching of family home in Seneca, SC, and laser-cut digitally scanned fig leaf cut-outs from the artist’s mother’s garden.
Detail Image, Never Quite, Sweet Enough I, 2025, 10’ X 8” X 7” Black porcelain, slip-cast seeded watermelon, and braided synthetic hair.
Detail Image, Never Quite, Sweet Enough I, 2025, 10’ X 8” X 7” Black porcelain, slip-cast seeded watermelon, and braided synthetic hair.
Detail Image, Never Quite, Sweet Enough I, 2025, 72”’ X 72” Foam floor tiles, laser-engraved image of the artist’s family home in Seneca, SC, and laser-cut digitally scanned fig leaf cut-outs from the artist’s mother’s garden.
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Never Quite, Sweet Enough II, 2025, 62’ X 27” X 27” (sculpture excluding floor tiles) 62” X 72” X 72” (including floor tiles) Black porcelain, slip-cast seeded watermelon, braided synthetic hair, foam floor tiles, and laser-cut digitally scanned fig leaf cut-outs from the artist’s mother’s garden.
Never Quite, Sweet Enough III, 2025, 48’ X 24” X 24” (excluding blue platform) 48” X 48” X 48” (including blue platform) Black porcelain, slip-cast seeded watermelon, braided synthetic hair, foam floor tiles, laser-engraved etching of family home in Seneca, SC, and laser-cut digitally scanned fig leaf cut-outs from the artist’s mother’s garden.
Detail Image, Never Quite, Sweet Enough III, 2025
Southern Sweet Potato I, Digital Photograph, Black porcelain, slip-cast sweet potato, magnolia flower, and hair.
Southern Sweet Potato II, Digital Photograph, Black porcelain, slip-cast sweet potato, ceramic cardinal, and hair.