For my creative post I decided to make a painting inspired from an MFA art exhibit featured earlier this year by Basquiat, a black street artist, combined with my interpretation of Indigo’s character in Cypress, Sassafrass, and Indigo. Basquiat was a part of the “neo-expressionism movement” and created art in the 80s in Manhattan. His work focuses on popular social dichotomies such as wealth v poverty, integration v segregation, and outer v inner experiences. He uses social commentary in his abstract paintings as a way to highlight common experiences in the black community and attack power structures that commonly systemize racism in the US. Basquiat often puts words in his paintings, thus I took certain words from Cypress, Sassafrass, and Indigo that particularly stood out and impacted me in reading the novel—“the south in her,” “magic,” “lunar gifts,” and “ourselves” (within a cage to represent the slaves who are ourselves). Basquiat also puts a crown motif in many of his paintings as a way to pay homage to his heroes. For this reason, I put a big crown within the moon at the top of the figure that represents Indigo. I also made the crown red, first to represent menstruation and second to represent her self-confidence. I also made the entire back ground blue as a play on the name Indigo. I put music notes and a violin to represent her voice and way of communicating her magic. The first picture is that of Basquiat’s that I based this painting off of and the second is my Indigo rendition.
