I've been writing about this mural for several weeks. There's so much about it that I've been trying to say. It's about us. And the history within it, I take that so seriously. Those words are still coming. Meanwhile a mural ... BabeSis, Aunts Tenn, Ms. W, Miss Choomby ... & In Our company .. is up on SE Grand & Ash in Portland OR. This was made within sight of this deep feeling knowledge I have about Black girls’ sight and -self- visionary capacities. How these visions, these forms of sight, show themselves to us and how our sight-doing makes presents, pasts and futures.. fans out worlds of change. Plural. This is reference and instruction. This work was made in sight of and in dedication to women and girls in my family. My mom is here, a sister, my aunties in Memphis, my family history is on this wall. My grandparents’ names are here .. and the story of my aunts, the seven Lee sisters, Black girls and young women, who together during the sit-in movement in Memphis in the 1960s were called the most arrested family in the country. These were Black girls - teaching a world that told them it did not want them - through their actions and bravery, their vision. Black girls, visionaries. And they still are today. I stand in the wake of their and so many Black girls’ visions. We all do. So this is in sight of them. This is in sight of and in dedication to Black women and girls in Portland. Lameah, Black girl artist .. AnAkA, sister, angel, storyteller.. Joyce Harris, educator and founder of Portland’s groundbreaking Black Educational Center, Mama Makini .. Chabre Vickers .. Oregon Supreme Court Justice Adrienne Nelson.. artist and poet Renee Mitchell .. all those imaged here .. and all those not imaged but here nonetheless. There is something about the line of Black women’s presence here, something close and made and done and continuing. Some ongoing way of life that regards itself and builds with its heart steadily. There's an ongoing courage in and of Black girls, Black women, and Black femmes here - and everywhere - that holds itself in the midst of. I see you and been seeing you. There is something to us. This work feels close. And more words will be said. I want to give deep thanks to the two Black women poets who said yes to my ask to open and close this mural with their words. The first night after we began mounting the images I stayed up all night with my brain open to everything .. and it said the mural needed words from a Black woman in Portland. And so from the title poem of Samiya Bashir’s 2017 work, her Oregon Book Award winning Field Theories .. .. What is a thing of beauty/ if not us?.. A mirror cupped in the hand, these words tllt .. to catch .. and regard us .. ring-shining our lights right back to us. A gift. An illumination. Leading us imaginatively out of the mural, yet right back in. Saying .. here .. here .. here. Looking .. and gesturing towards our lookings. Written, painted as they are here, it is as much sight as seeing. Thank you so much, Samiya. And given to me framed by a dear friend, Nikky Finney's "Instruction, Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica" has become for me what I call a fairy god story or fairy god poem. I felt - feel! - so seen by this poem and its title, not just my adult self but my Black girl photographer self, herself beginning to teach me at 14 what I was to know .. finding her own form of Instruction .. and what her teaching still tells me, remembers me to me of our purpose and our ways. Our eyes - together - still opening, shutter still catching, still letting the light Black in. Worlds open in the visual and vision-ing field. Like these portraits, surfacing in the black, what emerges here? Who sees Black girl image makers, teaching, learning, telling? What do we feel-hear in that gleaning between vision and the image, feeling and photograph? The language of “Instruction, Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica” sees me, specifically as a Black girl Black woman photographer as almost no other written language has. It calls me to me, speaks of Black girls and Black women’s vision-making .. world-telling .. Instruction .. photographic, visual spoken, told, felt, recounted, recalled, written, danced, passed up, lived, dreamed.. and more.. and otherwise.. always. It tells me to “Be camera..” and my own “black-eyed aperture.” It charges me to “Watch your language!” Thank you, Ms. Finney!! Thank you for the Instruction. I am ! still listening .. learning. We are always looking! With the words of these Black women poets a living frame to these portraits was made and a truth said .. and I am so thankful. What a gift and excitement to have work set against the work of these poets. I am still not over it. Thank you to my friend and poet Fork Burke, all the way in Switzerland, who when I emailed her at 4:23 AM on July 3rd asking “.. is quoting a poet in this way as an inscription/epigraph before a mural an acceptable or common practice?” responded within minutes.. ! “I think you need not question if it’s a common practice or not- it comes through you- it exists now.” .. And so the vision.. the reach of process.. the reach of our care. .. And so I reached out to Ms. Finney .. and ..and ..and.. Thank you, Fork!! We really be needing us. So this is also you. Thank you to the Portland artists who saw this vision up with me. Thank you to Eatcho who reached out asking me to do this and whose heart and dedication was the fire that soldered the many pieces. Thank you for your care, lift, this spark! Thank you Gage of Forest For The Trees! Thanks for your kindness and care and steady through.. and the printing and the printing and more printing. Thank you for asking me, "Are you happy?" that evening working at the mural when I was trying to listen to myself and the work, to really hear it. Eatcho and Gage, thank you for listening to my vision .. for your encouragement and your teaching. Thank you Matt! of FFTT for all your support. Thank you Ash Street Projects for hosting the mural. Thank you to Alex Chiu, Jeff Sheridan, Buckley, Jon Stommel .. artists in community who came through to paint, fix, wheat paste, and encourage. Thank y'all for your care in this process and bringing me into this mural life. It's a wonder. Thank you to all. And ... ! *Miss Choomby is from Margaret Walker’s “For My People.” .. so thanks always to her. Long the line! Love, Intisar Abioto
