By Cassie Smith
An East Austin native, Elizabeth has seen her neighborhood transform over time due to what she refers to as “neocolonialism.” Somehow, though, she continues to maintain the essence of the black and brown people who once populated the area.
Elizabeth spoke with the Austin Urban Post on her love for the original East Austin and why she attributes her art to the black existence.
She contributes her art to her existence as a black woman.
My art is a tribute to black life, to the black existence. For me, it’s a way of reimagining what blackness is; reimagining… what we are fed about blackness and our
capabilities; reimagining the richness of blackness and our power, and kind of looking at those things and undoing what we have been taught.
She’s a witness to the changes happening in East Austin.
There have been a lot of changes in East Austin, ones that have not been equitable for everyone. Instead of “change,” I think a better word would be “neocolonialism.”
Black folks have been shifted around Austin for decades. The difference now is that we are being pushed out of the city.
With my art I try to capture the essence of the black lives still here, many of whom risk losing their homes. Homes not in term of materials, but in terms of community. All of that is being taken away. So, I take photographs of buildings that have been here since my youth.
She continues to capture the essence of her neighborhood.
I go to Givens Park to take photographs of our community – barbeques, people driving around in the nice cars, those slabs with the popped trunks and lights, [or whatever it may be]. In this way, I try to take pictures of all that East Austin has been for me. I try to capture all of that now so that we can hold on to it and use it as a way to tell the history of a culture that is still here and holding strong.
She incorporates her existence as a black LGBTQ woman into her work.
I think art is very necessary for black and queer folks to survive and thrive. We experience the most exploitation, marginalization, abuse and trauma, especially sexually.
I create my art out of desire to create a new reality for myself and other black women. I think it’s important that we see ourselves as powerful. Even to be able to see ourselves, period. That is not something that happens often. When black women are seen, it’s in very particular ways. It’s as the world wants us to be. It’s never as we truly are.
There are lots of characters who are black women. It seems like we are always the comedic relief. Always the joke, and the means of telling the joke. I think it’s critical that art challenges that and forces us to see black women in different ways.
I strive to demonstrate our essence by creating these worlds where black women are goddesses; in terms of raising women beyond the level, above the level, of being human. But also using that as a metaphor to describe our true power and beauty and humanism. Because most of the time, people don’t want to see us as humans, equals, or as having all of the nuances so-said people have. We are always supposed to be able to take anything that is thrown to us. But the real question is, why is it being thrown to us in the first place?
Her work “Goddesses in Hue” glorifies the black woman’s existence.
It came about as an extension of the original series [Goddesses] that I did digitally a few years ago. That was inspired by my desire to place black women in a light where we truly exist. For years I had been wanting to bring that digital collage to life in order to do more effective things with it. This new series was inspired by that desire.
I used a lot of photographs of a church on the corner of 12th Street and Airport Boulevard that I grew up around. The church is an anchor for me to have in this series. As a young black woman in East Austin, being around those areas and types of spaces was very integral to my upbringing.
I grew up Baptist. That is where my relationship with the divine came from; my first understanding of what the all-powerful is. That gave me direction in creating this reality of divinity when it comes to black women.
That also proved an inspiration for bringing the series together. I used the scripture to tell the story of each goddess in the series and their role in society, the universe and my personal life. I also used flowers to connect the different pieces, because flowers remind of me of birth, beauty and life, and that’s what all of these goddesses represent to me.
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