Description

“I travel around to see,” the artist Lonnie Holley explains. “It’s like walking back in time, to walk along the ocean, the beach, to walk in the sand. I am not trying to find my own footsteps in the sand, but to put my own footsteps where my ancestors might have stepped.”Holley sees himself as a link connecting his ancestors—brought to America as slaves—to future generations. He explains that he gave this sculpture two heads; one is earthly, the other spiritual. “As we develop our personness, we learn to yield to the ancestors and the history of learning, we develop that inner head, that second head, the keeper head; the embankment of all wisdom.”

Record Contributed By

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution