e-mail: lisa.jarrett@umontana.edu
website: www.lisajarrett.com
MFA Thesis (PDF): Past Periphery

Bio

Born in New Jersey and growing up as a Black American who moved with her family to various, often conflicting political climates in cities in Texas, Minnesota, and New York, the influences of her upbringing in a post-Civil Rights and increasingly so-called “post-racial” America are apparent in her work, which seeks to confront ideas of racial difference and perceptions of racial equality. Though conflating comparisons of self and Other within a racial context are surely not limited to the American Black Experience and can be examined in myriad global racial milieus, Jarrett’s work is typically centered upon deconstructing, defragmenting, and, in turn, reconstructing and reassembling her personal experiences as a Black woman in America into a visual expression that asks viewers to consider their own roles in present-day race relations.

MFA Thesis Exhibition Statement

Last year I purchased the Sewing Centipede pattern for the Mammy Vacuum Cleaner Cover (copyright 1992) at the local YWCA Secret Seconds store for a quarter. While I do not believe that the YWCA of Missoula is consciously trying to perpetuate the mammy archetype, the irony is notable. As I was preparing to pay for my item at the YWCA, an employee cheerfully inquired about my sewing project. Her demeanor changed when she saw the prominent mammy pictured on the pattern’s cover. After wishing me luck with my project she abruptly returned to her rounds. Tension was palpable, though the exchange was not unpleasant. Neither of us broached the complex history of the mammy and its overt stereotyping of the black “nurturer” figure. Rather, we simply chose not to engage.

This lack of engagement—a sort of silent communication—is representative of how ideas of race and its perceived implications are often approached in contemporary American society. We as a nation often express an inability to engage (even in small ways) across supposed barriers of difference.

What could an older white woman have said to me, a young black woman purchasing a contemporary artifact entrenched in racist ideologies? What might I have said to her? How did her “whiteness” or my “blackness” enter into our mutual contract of silence? Indeed, how can we come to a greater understanding in the absence of discourse—if we do not engage? This body of work is my response.