Medium:
Mixed Media: Acrylic hand painted black and white archival photo mounted and finished on a wood panel.

Dimensions: 24” x 18”

Year Completed: 2020

Artist Statement:

This painting was created in July of 2020. I have painted Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) numerous times since 2016. She gives me courage by her example. I admire the way she trusted God and followed the North Star to gain her freedom from slavery and then went back into danger to free other slaves. She was a general in the Civil War. She was a strategic thinker. She founded a home for elderly African Americans. To have her picture on our currency would go a long way toward recognizing our countries black history.

In Hold Steady, I overpainted a black and white public domain photograph. My observational skills are heightened in looking closely at the photograph. I read that in an ad offering $100 for her capture, Harriet Tubman was described as about 27, of a chestnut color, fine looking, and about 5 feet high. I was inspired by that description. As a white artist, I researched ways to paint dark skin. It seems profound that you use the same colors to mix white skin tones, you just add more pigment. The intense red underpainting in the background shows through in the edges like an aura around her.

I admire her trust in something good and much bigger than our individual lives. The title is from a quote attributed to her; “I said to the Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through.”