It’s a soft, gentle sculpture, of a woman sitting next to a body of water. But the context in which that woman sits — an Afro pick — is nearly as old as civilization itself.
For artist Yvonne Shortt, it’s a connection to her personal history and to her African heritage. It’s also a way for her to connect with the struggles of other ethnicities — and reach out to everyone.
“Picks from the Soil: Harvesting Community Narratives” — running in the Collision Room at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art for 2021 — “focuses on the creation of Afro picks with clay harvested from the river and banks of New Haven,” the accompanying note reads. “Limited quantities of locally harvested soil will be collected and folded in along with the artist’s own clay to highlight relevant environmental issues and educate the community about conservation. The artist sees this as an opportunity to discuss wetlands and our responsibilities to them. All local environmental regulations and laws will be adhered to in the course of harvesting soils. Then, the clay will be used to create picks with sculptures based on community narratives. The pieces will then be pit-fired with bananas and other household items to turn them into ceramic. Metal will be cut and soldered together to create the bottom of the pick.” The pieces currently in the piece illustrate Shortt’s style, the work she did to arrive at her latest installation idea — to take pieces like the hand-size picks in the exhibit, but scaled upward to about six feet, and put them outside, around New Haven, to start discussions about the issues they touch on.
That idea for the project began during the pandemic, born first of practical considerations. “With Covid I had cut my hair,” Shortt said; previously she had worn it long and straight. After cutting it, she let it grow natural. It became an Afro, “and I got an Afro pick.” Having the device in her life made her ask questions about it. Where did they come from?
Shortt started doing research and found that “they were thousands of years old,” she said. In a 2013 museum exhibition of Afro combs, the oldest, an Egyptian comb, dated back 5,500 years. “They used to be wood, and carved or chiseled,” she said. “In the 1960s they came to the United States,” where, worn in an Afro, they began a fashion statement associated with Black liberation. “Then they became metal or plastic,” Shortt said. But the history of the picks was all around for Shortt to find. She had a friend in Nairobi who showed her virtually around her collection of Kenyan picks. “She told me about the narrative around the pick,” Shortt said, explaining that each of the picks had its own history, connected to one of Kenya’s 42 nations, and resonant of their history.
It was then that Shortt began thinking about creating her own picks, and imbuing them with “my own history,” or the personal histories of others. A friend told her about a spot in Wappinger Creek, near Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (and near her current studio) where she liked to sit. Rather than buying clay at an art supply store, as she had before the pandemic, “I harvested some clay around the creek itself, and I made this comb about her sitting on the bank. I thought it was such a beautiful narrative.”
“I never used to harvest clay from the community. I used to just go to the store,” Shortt said. “And it was all because of Covid — what else was I going to do? It started from just creating things with my hands, and having ideas about what I want to do.”
Shortt plans for the picks to become a continuation of her practice of moving art out of gallery spaces. “I’m an outdoor artist mainly,” she said. “I create stuff and I just put it outside. My work does not exist in galleries. I figure out a way to get it out there in public, so I can have conversations. I’m tackling some things I want to talk about with the community.”
A previous piece of hers — in the series Shortt calls “fragments” — appeared in an October 2020 group show at the Ely Center. “The fragments were my way of dealing with microaggressions in the community, and I’d put them around, just guerrilla style,” with accompanying notes explaining what had happened that inspired the piece. Her hope was that, at certain times, she could be there to engage viewers and “we’d have a conversation.”
The Afro picks “became another object around this idea of telling narratives, but making it more positive. There’s so much trauma right now, and I didn’t want to see that kind of imagery for myself or my kids,” Shortt said. The picks are still an expression of cultural pride, as they were in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and a connection to African heritage. But in Shortt’s mind they have become even more complex than that. She noted the picks’ similarities to hair combs from Asia; in the context of her own concerns, the picks can become a source of understanding between the Black and Asian communities — two groups of people for whom the oppression against them has been in the headlines. A friend from hers from Poland who has thick hair also uses a pick all the time.
“The pick isn’t just African or African-American culture.” Shortt said. “There’s so many things that are synergies,” allowing for moments of empathy. “How can we bring more people into that way of thinking?”
Part of Shortt’s response to that question involves “making them bigger” — about six feet tall. “These picks are sculpted. They are telling a different narrative,” though they’re “not meant to be big and overpowering.” The picks are “meant to be a cooperative presence,” the size of a person. She has done six picks for Queens College and two for Marymount College already, where she has been working with student groups to talk about the pieces.
And as announced in the exhibit’s notes, Shortt is now planning a project to put six-foot combs in outdoor spaces around New Haven, in public spaces downtown where people can see and interact with them. They’re to be built from clay harvested from the banks of the Quinnipiac River; Shortt plans to built a boat so she can scout locations to find the clay she needs. In getting her clay from the local river here, she feels a connection not only to environmental themes and the conservation movement, but to the history of the Native Americans who live here, all the way through the present day people who currently live along the river’s banks.
“I’m building a boat so I can go down the river, ask for permission to take clay and soil, and then be able to tell stories from those locations,” she said.
So for Shortt, the hardships of the pandemic have also been a mode of inspiration. “Covid has given me a chance to think about what’s important to me,” Shortt said. She has realized how much she can accomplish through time and ingenuity. “It’s been a real good year for thinking and talking and creating with my hands, and being thankful for the things we have, like clay and metal. Clay is free. The most expensive thing was the metal for soldering, and that was $50.”
“The thing that Covid has taught me is ‘why not me?’” she added. “Just have the idea and learn what you need to learn.”
