A dreaded sat chit story
September 26, 2026
While shutting out the world to focus on this message, I scanned the news and quickly perused an article about a Haitian-Canadian writer whose novel was shortlisted for a major literary prize before being withdrawn from nomination because AI detection programs registered significant AI use.
The novel’s cover image of a black man in the wilderness reminded me similar imagery by Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas which further reminded me of the need to give up personal identity. As appearances become more manufactured in the converging histories of technology and black people, I’m increasingly motivated to shift from personal identity (which brings dread) to essential identity which is liberation. I feel the liberating need and the resisting dread at the same time.
On Monday, Hermine, Margaret and I met to walk, followed by a work session that included planning Margaret's article placing a 20th century North Carolina black woman herbalist into a broader historical and cultural context of black women herbalists, conjure women, root doctors and swamp women, real and fictional.
The meeting began with Hermine reading a draft of her pitch to a literary agent. I encouraged Hermine to ditch the bland treatment and convey the raw emotion of domestic violence at the book's core.
Not only affecting Hermine's family, that tragedy is symptomatic of larger issues of intergenerational trauma afflicting the nation and world. It ranges from from the emotional cruelty of Elon Musk’s father (from whom Elon became estranged) to the addiction and dysfunction that were a recurring pattern in J.D. Vance’s family, going back to his grandfather’s severe alcoholism. Family trauma contributes to the repressive ideology of some people with great influence and power.
The weighty sorrow of the talk with Hermine continued into the next day, the day before Toni's birthday, when I began to work on Toni’s card. Monday's walk had not yielded enough interesting weeds for decorating the card so I needed another approach.
The dread of moving in a new creative direction without a clear sense of what or where, added to the weight of emotions.
Pushing past psychological resistance, the card-making serendipitously generated a new construction: a card on papyrus-like paper that opens which is mounted on a larger piece of black felt providing a supportive frame that can be decorated.
I felt better ... for a minute... but Toni's reaction to the photo of the card-in-progress that I emailed her on her birthday generated another emotional precipice that I’m falling into now.
Toni wrote in her email message:
to me, Margaret, Kendra, Jacqui, hermine
Sista Word Women --
I love tree branches and white socks and kids! Thank you for designing and caring through assemblage and story. I don't care about the timing, Miss Juliette.
I've got one sizable tree that sits outside the two rear, north-facing windows of my little apartment. From April through mid-October I can't see my neighbors; the windows are filled with tree (and squirrels, and an array of visiting birds during migration seasons). A gift for sure in the city. I love its branches, too, when they're ice-coated or laden with snow.
My 72nd birthday was a string of joy-pearls. My third eye is finally open! Quite the late bloomer, I must be.
Love y'all.
--T
the oyster world cries out its pearls like tears
Tammi Lawson exhibition announcement on Linkedin
the oyster world cries out its pearls like tears (2021), Firelei Báez
https://www.curbed.com/article/firelei-bez-art-studio-tour-nyc.html
https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/forging-ahead. Shomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
This exhibition is curated by La Tanya S. Autry, Associate Curator, Photographs and Prints, and Tammi Lawson, Curator, Art and Artifacts.
Bertha Franklin Feder Award winning Librarian Curator, Art & Artifacts Division, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library
New York City Metropolitan Area
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I'm co curating an exhibit at Schomburg that is opening to the public Thursday Sept. 24th!
FORGING AHEAD: RECENT ACQUISITIONS OF BLACK WOMEN ARTISTS. We feature 21 artists in the show. Come thru!
Planting Seeds in the break of Dawn-Sun flower Hours, 2022
Kimberly Becoat (b. 1969)
Collage
Art and Artifacts Division
Flight, from The Emperor Jones series is a wood block print created by Aaron Douglas in 1926. The image is in the public domain,
Toni’s card in progress. The Picture-Poetry Book was initially published in 1935 by the Associated Publishers affiliate of the Association for the Study of Negro LIfe and History, and in a revised 1946 edition. The above photo shows the cover of the 1946 edition along with photocopies of the illustration for the "The Paint Pot Fairy" poem. The black and white illustration appeared in the book and I colored the illustration of the card.
The illustration accompanies a poem which begins with these lines:
The Paint Pot Fairy
A fairy has a paint pot in that tree,
And she tints the leaves for you and me.
Toni’s completed card.
Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien’s C’etait ca ou mourir (Was either that or die) , a novel about the harrowing escapades of a Haitian migrant who travels north through Latin America and the United States to Canada.