ORIGINAL PAINTING: 

Courageous Spirit - This is a beautiful painting. One of my favorites-explores the complex story of slavery and freedom, which rests at the core of our nation’s shared history. Resting on heart and culture of millions of human being. I am still surprised how far we have progressed, but we are still dealing with bias, bigotry and racism in 21st century! In many cases the history that has been presented to people has been distinctly whitewashed for many reasons, often avoiding the documentation. The “Courageous Soul” shows part of the African history in the hour glass-the top part portrait the old Africa before colonization, full of life, tree and harmony. The bottom part represents what has happened, skulls, death, slavery and exploitation of land, people and culture. The figure is upper class queen that wearing a Victorian lace on the neck but also wearing African jewelries. The contrast between two classes and societies. On the right you see a third eye looking at the world and behind it is a map of Africa (the mother land) which is representing the injured eye but also a vision to her soul and inner pain that is not free yet and is wrapped by a thread to a bird that is supposed to be free and fly away but her the bird is trapped by the bondage on her wings. She sings but with fearful trill for things that are unknown to her but she has to endure.