And that's when I remembered this piece by Kate Clark.
Kate Clark is an artist who does taxidermy,
and she really does buy the hide and stuff it.
And so I contacted Kate, and I said, Kate--
I didn't know her, but I wrote her email.
And I said I'd love to buy the rights to replicate that
image on the right.
And I just mentioned-- she said, well, can you send me the book?
I'll read it and maybe you could commission a piece.
And that was exciting.
I was like, I haven't commissioned a piece.
That sounds really grown up.
[LAUGHTER]
I'll do that.
So I was really excited to-- she renegotiated the price.
And she let me pick out the hide, and I picked out this.
And then after six months or so, she
emailed and said, it's done.
When you're in New York, come to my studio.
You can take a look at it.
And so I went to New York.
I went to her studio and I saw this.
And I said, I don't like it.
And she said, why not?
And I said, well, I think I want that one, because the thing
I liked about that one was the expression on the face.
The affect-- I was interested in this idea
of the way in which deer, when they see a human being come
towards them, they know to be afraid, be very afraid,
and the alertness and the vigilance that goes along
with your presence in their area.
And I thought, oh, that's close to what
it means to be a Black person in the United States.
And so that look was what I wanted.
But Kate said to me, well, I read the book,
and I thought it was so horrible all this stuff about the way--
and Kate's white.
And she said, I just think it's terrible the way
Black people are treated, and I just
think that it's great that they have survived
and have so much dignity in the face of oppression.
And so I wanted to present that.
And I said, I like that.
That's very nice.
But I'm not interested in dignity
in the face of oppression.
I'm interested in the pain that is in the face of oppression.
Because do you remember when in Charleston,
when Dylann Roof shot all those people in the basement
at the Bible study?
And the newspapers were so excited about how forgiving
the Black people were.
They couldn't stop talking about it.
And that's fine.
I'm not saying people shouldn't be forgiving.
That's fine.
But that sense that to go there means you jump over with that.
You jump over the pain.
You jump over the stress.
You jump over the devastation.
And so I went back and said, that's what's in Citizen,
the image on the right.
This is in the Racial Imaginary, because I already
paid for the rights [INAUDIBLE] so I
was like, where can I put it?
But it's also-- it's very beautiful.
I mean, Kate is a very fantastic artist.
In fact, I think I have some other examples.