chronology

a link to Vimeo where I have some additional earlier video works.

2011-12-04T18:03:00.001-08:00

http://vimeo.com/

Don't Hurry Back...re-edited.

2011-09-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

Don't Hurry Back: A Diaspora Fable by Portia Cobb, from Portia Cobb on Vimeo.

"Down Home" I & II: from the Gullah Land Chronicle, 2011, Digital prints,34x 21 inches. copyright Portia E. Cobb, 2010

2011-01-18T17:58:00.001-08:00

bottle tree: Blessed Memorial

2010-10-08T17:32:00.001-07:00

Bottle Tree:

2009-12-23T13:30:00.001-08:00

DAYCLEAN an exhibit honoring the memory of Denmark Vesey and 30 plus men, who were executed by hanging, with him.

2009-10-14T18:29:00.001-07:00

I mounted an installation at the Redline Gallery in Milwaukee, located at 1422 N. 4th Street. DAYCLEAN which honored the memory of Denmark Vesey, a free black man, and 36 other men- who during the summer of 1822 were brought up on charges of planning an insurrection against white slave owners in the city of Charleston and were all executed by hanging. The installation consists of bottles suspended from the ceiling to represent the bodies of these men; a bottle tree (an image you see in rural parts of South Carolina and other parts of the Gullah/Geechee Corridor). The Bottle tree is a practice that was said to have come with Africans from the Congo and the bottles, hung on dead branches of trees, capture bad spirits or energy before they enter the home. Other images in the space include actual oyster shells and pine straw from Charleston. The straw evokes memory through its musty, piney scent and the shells for me represent the recovered bones of these men, whose burials are not documented.There is a video loop projected against a white brick surface, in the space, of the sun rising with spiritual music from the Yoruba lexicon and the sound of crickets in the marsh. Sun rise is called day clean in the Gullah/Geechee language. I titled this work and its ongoing investigation...DAYCLEAN because I wondered what time of day these men would have been hung and later read that it was in the early morning. Usually when one leaves for work before day light, they refer to it as Day Clean.

There is a separate monitor with interviews of black Charlestonians who live or work near the prison where these men were detained and tried. The oldest is a gentleman whose family owned a funeral home that he still operates. He remembers being a boy in that neighborhood and recalls a story about black prisoners and of a his father (a black funeral director) receiving the body of a black man who was executed there. I will add sound bites soon.

I continue to work on expanding this conceptual work to develop a healing space that will have a memorial function to honor the integrity of each of these men. also included in and on a wall outside the space are photos I took of the interior and exterior of the Old Jail and the project buildings surrounding it.

A Crowing Hen: in memory of Gelsy Verna's collage and sketch books.

2008-05-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

A Crowing Hen

Interview I did with Amiri Baraka about Blues

2008-04-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

Amiri Baraka

this is copyrighted material.

Tenderness 1st version orphaned footage video

2008-03-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

Check out this video: Tenderness_one

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I made this as a memorial for a friend who suddenly passed away. I plan to make a second panel using different footage from the same film with my own added video inserts and voice over for a sister-friend and artist, Gelsy Verna, who passed away March 11, 2008. I will miss her, though our paths crossed physically once or twice, we were and always will be kindred spirits.

fortune images

2008-03-06T22:26:00.001-08:00

Torn

2008-02-14T18:59:00.001-08:00

This is an image of a "found" or "orphaned" love note, which I will add to my images as objects "I remember" project.

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-02-08T22:43:00.001-08:00

artifacts of my life

2008-02-07T00:45:00.000-08:00

My mother and brother on Easter 1967, Santa Monica, California
My brother was a new dad at age 18.

Me and Ricky, Easter. Elipsed. I was twelve and still quite innocent.

Probably 1959. One of my earliest memories of my daddy. Taken in the Bronx, New York.

An image of my birth-certificate with my inked footprint as an identity marker.

A slide image of my mother and myself in Oakland before my move to the Mid-West.

Ricky holding me. Xmas in the Bronx 1954.

Mom and Me, abstract.