This ongoing portfolio of woodcut and collage portraits was originally inspired by the New York Times “Overlooked” series, which since March of 2018 has been sharing the stories of remarkable women and minorities who were overlooked by the NY Times obituaries in the past.
To further illuminate their lives and legacies, each of my portraits is accompanied by a portrait poem, written by a woman poet. The poets created their pieces in response to both the women’s stories and to the portraits.
The above image is of Ida B. Wells-Barnett who was a prominent journalist, activist, and researcher, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In her lifetime, she battled sexism, racism, and violence. As a skilled writer, Wells-Barnett also used her skills as a journalist to shed light on the conditions of African Americans throughout the South.