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by Barbara Gothard (Author)
In Contradictions - Bringing The Past Forward, artist Barbara Gothard visually interprets and honors the legacy of twenty-three African-American
Homesteaders, who settled in the Eastern Mojave Desert in 1910, in the context of her own lived experience as an African American female artist living in the desert, share their stories via public presentations.
The research-based multimedia Arts + Humanities installation first exhibited at the San Bernardino County Museum in 2021, consists of twenty-three digital paintings created with the software ProCreate on her iPad, which she began exploring in 2017 as an extension of her oil painting practice. These paintings, printed on Senso raw linen canvas with a process she pioneered in the desert in 2020 in conjunction with Stephen Baumbach Photography are combined with an installation of the replica of the 1910 tract map of the Lanfair Valley area, a story map created by ESRI staff Doug Morgenthaler and Jim Herries, images of related archival documents, and Lanfair/Dunbar archeological objects loaned by Mojave National Preserve. Gothard's visual illumination of the lives of these homesteaders is believed to be the first and the only time in more than 100 years that their stories are portrayed in a visual format. The artworks inform a series of artist talks and community discussions hosted by public and nonprofit organizations and on social media. Visual interpretation honoring the legacy of twenty-three African American homesteaders who settled in the far Eastern Mojave Desert in 1910 Contradictions - Bringing The Past forward.
