In the Sticks – Willie Little
I am your momma… I am your momma…” The story of Willie’s two mommas from the chapter ‘This is Your Life’ – helps us understand his motivation for certain work it has inspired… work that celebrates Black women who show strength and resilience as they often persevere without thanks. His work seemingly begging forgiveness for this one sin committed when he was a mere six years old.
For the last twenty years, Willie Little has worked as a visual artist and storyteller. In the Sticks is the story of how he grew up, who he grew up with, what he experienced in the first years of integrated schools, and who he became.
“In The Sticks” is a coming of age story, and a portrait-gallery of his family dynamics; folks from a time gone by, told with candid humor and a keen eye for human foibles.
It depicts a part of the south during a time of radical change and seldom talked about outside the pages of Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright.
It is a memoir pervaded by love, shame, and reconciliation, as well as the pop culture of the late ‘sixties, and early ‘seventies.
Little’s memoir relays how art became his destiny- as seen in his life-sized sculpture installation, Juke Joint, and it shows how art helped him to overcome marginalization as a gay black man.
The 92 page book includes 20 illustrations of Little’s art, personal photos, a foreword by art historian and independent curator Bruce Guenther and a testimony by author and historian Timothy B.Tyson. The book was published by CuratorLove with grant funding awarded by the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Portland, OR. ISBN 978-0-359-97447-4
ISBN 978-0-359-97447-4
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Excerpts from In the Sticks
Play videos to hear book excerpts as read by Willie Little.