J. N. WARD @jn-ward-blog - Tumblr Blog

They’re time to shine. An old piece about the high school drill team and how it was the only place I saw for Hispanics in our school.

#old art #my art #art #mixed media #roses #yellow rose #drill team #shine #women artists #jnward

A 2015 piece about the church I grew up in. The sanctuary and stained glass was epic. The music was amazing. The mental after effects, not so much.

#church #southern #southern art #southern baptist #art #my art #old art #mixed media #drawing #women artists #jnward

This one from 2015 is about the all important bridal shower and the women who host it.

#my art #old art #art #hostesses #hostess #shower #bridal shower #dots #mixed media #drawing #embroidery #southern #southern art #women artists #jnward

One from 2015. This is a football team from my high school. It struck me that I hadn’t drawn a black person ever until I started working on this, which is messed up.

That got me to thinking about the racial dynamics in my hometown. Our school was huge, and 70% black, but the black kids were still considered the minority, still undervalued, still marginalized except when they played football. I wanted to look at every single face and draw every individual. The background is a reversed image of the TX flag, with pine trees instead of the lone star since I’m from the piney woods area of TX. It’s called “A group portrait of individuals and home” and just makes me think about how things were/are segregated and not fair, not equal, and not right.

It’s a drawing of change for me.

#my art #art #old art #racism #southern #southern art #football team #football #east texas #mixed media #drawing #pine tree #women artists #jnward

Don’t get too bound up in the rules of identity that you make for yourself.

#feminism #art #my art #old art #feminist #feminist art #flowers #azalea #hydrangea #southern #southern art #mixed media #drawing #come and take it #women artists #jnward

2015 about Southern identity as a woman.

#identity #art #old art #my art #southern #southern art #feminist #feminist art #come and take it #mixed media #drawing #women artists #jnward

Again, from 2015. What’s great about that image is the image I found while reading about graphic design history in the South from 1800-1850. It’s a colonel’s wife, Judy. She’s depicted as wild, smoking, and stomping on a nest of wild kittens. I’m using it as bait to grab other feminists to join my new image of the Southern woman.