Burnished Earth
This project uses oral history and Black feminist theory to archive and elevate the contributions of Black women ceramicists, reframing ceramics as a vital site of cultural memory and contemporary art discourse.
Archival Narrative
What Is an Archival Narrative?
In my practice, an archival narrative is a storytelling method that brings Black women’s creative histories into fuller view. By working directly with primary sources—photographs, letters, studio records, oral histories, and material traces embedded in clay—I use the archive as both evidence and intervention. This approach moves beyond simply recounting the past; it reconstructs the narratives that institutions have overlooked, undervalued, or never recorded in the first place.
Rooted in Black feminist theory and the study of craft, my archival narratives illuminate how Black women ceramicists use clay as a technology of memory, self-definition, and resistance. Through careful research, close reading, and community engagement, I build stories that honor the makers, preserve their legacies, and expand how contemporary art history understands their contributions.
Key Features of My Archival Narrative Approach
● Grounded in primary sources and lived memory
My narratives begin with what artists and communities leave behind: studio archives, personal photographs, letters, recordings, handmade objects, and oral histories. These materials anchor the story in lived experience and creative lineage.
● Built on credibility, care, and transparency
By tracing the story back to the sources themselves, I create narratives that are not only rigorous but deeply respectful. My method shows how I arrive at each interpretation, making the research accountable to the artists and communities it represents.
● Expands historical context through Black feminist frameworks
Archival research allows me to situate each artist’s story within broader histories of craft, migration, labor, gender, and cultural memory. This context reveals how their work speaks to larger conversations in contemporary art, material culture, and Black life.
● Recovers and amplifies overlooked histories
Many Black women ceramicists are missing from institutional archives. My work actively seeks them out—listening, interviewing, researching, and piecing together the narratives that history did not preserve. Each story becomes an act of reclamation and repair.
● Creates layered, multidimensional storytelling
I weave documents, photographs, interviews, and clay objects together to create narratives that are both scholarly and intimate. Through digital curation and public-facing platforms, these stories become accessible to wider audiences, expanding the archive in real time.