God Of Our Weary Years

Verse Three: God of Our Weary Years

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears, As African Americans, just as nosotros have so much hope for our youth to 'lead the manner' and to 'fulfill the dream,' nosotros also have to daily face the reality that for countless reasons many of our youth, specially if they are male and teenagers,somehow wind up beingness touched by the criminal justice system. This piece speaks to that outcome.

—Gwen Magee

The face above the prison house orange peering between bars—the aforementioned face up as the eager graduate in Full of the Promise—stands in for a generation of black youth caught in persisting structural weather of poverty and lack of educational activity who may become a role of modern-day mass incarceration .

God of Our Silent Tears I

An execution scene addressing the disproportionate percentage of African Americans given the death sentence and executed. It does not address the question of guilt or innocence, merely questions whether or not our organization of justiceIs truly equal for all.

—Gwen Magee

God of Our Silent Tears I takes viewers into the execution bedchamber, where the life force of a condemned man fades, marked by the receding image of his body equally an overhead hand throws the switch to the electric chair. Magee has chosen to give this figure an African American face and not portray him equally a featureless profile. The tableau reminds viewers that capital letter punishment in America imposes unequal racial judgment in society'southward name.

God of Our Silent Tears Ii

This companion piece looks at execution from another perspective—that of the family being left behind, for they, too, will suffer. Each of the 3 newspapers shown takes a different position—one is against uppercase punishment and also questions the politics of the trail and whether or not this human was railroaded for political reasons. Another paper takes the position that the show clearly proved his guilt and that he therefore should be executed.The third takes a heart of the road bespeak of view.

—Gwen Magee

As the family of a condemned man waits, and the clock nears the appointed hour of midnight, God of Our Silent Tears II portrays the other side of the execution scene, that of the "family unit existence left behind."

Thou Who Has Brought Us

1000 who has brought us thus far on the fashion;
One thousand who has by Thy might
Led usa into the light,
Keep u.s.a. forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet devious from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed below Thy mitt,
May nosotros forever stand up.
True to our God,
True to our native land.

Gwen Magee's series doesn't interpret the final lines of Elevator Every Vox, but could exist reprised past the hope expressed in Our New 24-hour interval Begun. The spirit of Magee's work—informed by history only not overwhelmed by sorrow—complements the anthem that inspired her throughout her life.

Infinity

Infinity, the terminal quilt in the narrative sequence of Lift Every Vocalisation and Sing: The Quilts of Gwendolyn Ann Magee, voices the joy Gwen Magee knew in her life, the love she experienced for her family and friends, and the legacy of her work. Early in the chronology of her piece of work in cobweb, Magee created Infinity as a Christmas souvenir for her married man, D. E. Magee. Just showtime to flex her artistic muscles, she worked from a traditional quilt blueprint that she contradistinct to celebrate Dr. Magee's serious hobby of astronomy and his profession equally an ophthalmologist.

Infinity glows with intensity of color and precise geometry, successfully moving calorie-free across the surface while creating illusions of dimension through the manipulation of colour and form. Dr. Magee's insistence that this was a work of fine art for the wall and non a bed covering marked a turning bespeak from which Gwen Magee recognized and identified herself equally an artist.

Curator René Barilleaux, who worked with Magee on her exhibition, Journeying of the Spirit, at the Mississippi Museum of Art, sums upwards her life in the arts: "Gwen Magee was a rare combination of artist, abet, and gentle spirit. In her life and in her art, she fabricated monumental statements on those things near which she cared securely." [20]

Gwendolyn Ann Magee, 1943–2011. © Barbara Gauntt/Clarion-Ledger — Gwendolyn Ann Magee, 1943–2011. Photograph by Barbara Gauntt. © Barbara Gauntt/Blaring-Ledger.

About the Artist

Gwendolyn Ann Magee has work in the permanent collections of the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Museum of Mississippi History (Section of Archives and History), the Michigan State Academy Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum of American Fine art. Magee'due south work also has been exhibited in the Museum of Arts and Pattern, the Atlanta History Museum, the National Art Gallery of the Republic of Namibia, the Val d'Argent Expo in Alsace, France, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and at numerous other national and international galleries. Among other honors she was recognized by the Mississippi Plant of Arts and Letters as Visual Artist of the Year in 2003 and she was a 2007 Ford Young man through United states of america Artists. [21]

About the Author

Dorothy Moye is a Decatur, Georgia, art consultant and a college classmate of Gwen Jones Magee (WCUNC '63). She is Visiting Curator for the Gatewood Gallery at UNC-Greensboro, for Lift Every Vocalisation and Sing: The Quilts of Gwendolyn Ann Magee, September xi–Nov 8, 2014. Other curatorial projects in 2014-xv include Flying Patterns: A Fiber Art Exhibition, at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport through April 2015 and at the Welch Gallery, Georgia State University May xiv–July 31, 2015; and semiannual exhibitions through the Decatur Arts Alliance.

Moye participates in multifaceted projects in the arts, and holds membership in numerous arts organizations, both local and national. She graduated from UNC–Greensboro and North Carolina State University in Raleigh with degrees in folklore.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank those who have worked tirelessly to bring the work of Gwendolyn Ann Jones Magee to a wider audition.

The Magee Family: Dr. D. E. Magee, MD; Kamili Magee Hemphill; and Dr. Aliya Magee, DVM for sharing their legacy with the world.
Dr. Lawrence Jenkens and the staff of the Art Department at the Academy of North Carolina at Greensboro for conventionalities in this projection and the opportunity to curate an exhibition of the work of my friend Gwen Magee.
Dr. Allen Tullos, Jesse P. Karlsberg, Meredith Doster, and the outstanding editors and staff of Southern Spaces for the opportunity to give ongoing digital life to the Gwen Magee Project. Thank you in particular to Christopher Lirette and Clinton Fluker for their piece of work laying out this slice.
Carol Furey Matney and the other members of the Magee Projection Committee for support and assist and making this project possible: Bill Baites, Linda Arnold Carlisle, JoAnne Smart Drane, Twenty-four hour period Heusner McLaughlin, Maggie Triplette, Charlotte Vestal Wainwright, and Edith Mayfield Wiggins.
The director and staff of the Mississippi Museum of Art for assist in the logistics of the project, as well as for the loan of 3 important works.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Michigan State University Museum for their generous loans.
Due south Arts for access to an of import oral history from their archives.
Family and friends for valuable support and assistance in every attribute of this project.
The African American graduates of the Adult female's Higher of the University of Due north Carolina (1960–1963) who pioneered the way to the most various campus in the country's university system, the University of Northward Carolina at Greensboro.