Historians tell us that, at the outset, the Civil War was not about preserving or abolishing slavery.  But there is no doubt that "the slave question" was one that had been present since the founding of America; one that kept resurfacing, demanding to be resolved.  The elimination of slavery eventually became a stated goal of the federal government, and a major driving force for the Union with the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862.  Shortly after the war's end, slavery was officially banned with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December, 1865.

In an attempt to represent the mood of a variety of segments of American society in the pre-war and early war era, I began researching African slavery, as well as the Underground Railroad movement.  My research led me to the book, Hidden in Plain View, by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard, Ph.D.  The book is a fascinating account of an oral family history, shared with Ms. Tobin by Ozella McDaniel Williams, describing how enslaved men and women encoded messages within quilt patterns that helped fugitive slaves in their quest for freedom via the Underground Railroad.

As I began planning Hard Road to Travel, I initially envisioned a very straightforward presentation of a slave, laying a quilt out for airing, a quilt which contained the “monkey wrench” pattern, the first pattern of the “code” as related by Ms. Williams.  As I continued my reading, I discovered that the book was based on a single oral history and informed conjecture, not yet verified by other sources.  However, I found that the book led me to many other sources, which provided information about African textile patterns and symbols, about slave-made quilts, and about the roots and realities of slavery itself.  Gradually, I began to see connections of present-day racial issues to the slave issues of the past, and began to speculate on the impact these would have on the future.  For this reason, I wanted to change the image to depict more of a metamorphosis or cycle, with one segment dissolving into the next.  I determined I would retain the image of a slave woman laying out a quilt for airing, as that would have been part of her seasonal work, but would take it in a different direction than originally planned: the quilt itself would become a sort of “canvas” for the road the slaves had traveled thus far; an illustrated history of both their past and present conditions. 

The red-and-white pattern gradually transforms into one version of the “flying geese” pattern, symbolic of both the slaves’ individual successes in escaping enslavement, as well as of the eventual elimination of the institution of slavery. The silhouettes of flying geese in the upper right corner of the painting are heading in the direction of the North Star, an important marker for escaping slaves as they made their way to the northern states.  And the tree, with its roots growing down into the past, and branches reaching up into the future, indicates that the past and present are permanently linked, and that the quest for unity and equality continues into the present and beyond, into the future; the lightening sky at the horizon is symbolic of a new day.

For a key to the symbolism used in Hard Road to Travel, please visit QuiltSymbols.htm.

Original Artwork
Framed Size: 40 ½ x 29
Image:  28 ¾ x 21
~Sold 2006~

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30 Artist’s Proofs
300 Signed & Numbered Limited Editions
Image size:  19 x 12 ½
Overall Size:  20 x 16
Price:  Artist’s Proofs $115.00
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