EYE TO EYE – on display now through Sunday, August 22
ANNYE RAYE PITTS: WITNESS – on display now through Sunday, August 22
CATCHING GOD’S EYE: THE LANGUAGE OF HATS – Saturday, August 21, 7:00 PM
WaterFire Arts Center – 475 Valley Street, Providence, RI 02908
BAUMGARTNER: The giant main gallery at the WaterFire Arts Center is filled with photographs, large and small of a wide variety of people. What they have in common is a rare sort of intimacy that makes you feel like you’re somehow connected with the subject.
MEEHAN: In 2014 I started exploring this direct portraiture. Of really just stopping someone on the street and asking if they would collaborate with me on a picture. And I started this walking around Providence, driving all around and just talking to people, talking to strangers.
BAUMGARTNER : That’s the artist.
MEEHAN: I would say “I’m Mary Beth Meehan, a photographer based in Providence. I’m interested in how we don’t really interact with strangers, what that means, and would you be willing to talk with me and maybe let me make your portrait. Will you go into this relationship with me? I mean, I’m interested in who you are. I’m interested in making something that reflects who you are. Would you be willing to do that with me?”
BAUMGARTNER: And many times the strangers say yes. Mary Beth spends time talking with the strangers, getting to know them. Sometimes she comes back over a series of days to talk with them and take their portrait. The result is an intimate photo with a person looking directly into the camera, looking directly at you.
MEEHAN: I don’t want you to stand in front of the picture and think about me, the artist. I want you to… I want there to be a direct transmission between what the person was giving me and inviting me into and allowing me to be part of. I want that to go right through me to you as a viewer.
BAUMGARTNER: The portraits include Bidur, one of the first Syrian refugees who came to Rhode Island in 2016. The photo looks almost like a painting with her flowing pink scarf. Molly, an engineer whose portrait captures the hesitancy of a young person at the start of her career. Fernando, who leans against the doorway of a mechanic’s shop like he’s in an ad for jeans. There are a few dozen portraits in the large hall but in a smaller room to the side there’s a gallery dedicated to one portrait and many artifacts. This exhibition is called Witness: Annye Raye Pitts.
MEEHAN: I had driven up and down Rochambeau Avenue a million times past the Bethel A.M.E. church. I’d never had any opportunity to go in there. So I stopped and I introduced myself to the pastor and I told him about my project which was making portraits of people all over Providence. And he immediately said, well you need to meet Mrs. Pitts. She’s the keeper of the history and she’s been here the longest.
BAUMGARTNER: She didn’t want to be photographed, but after the two became friends, she agreed. The result is a 15-foot photo on the wall. Jonathan Pitts-Wiley is Mrs. Pitts’ grandson.
PITTS-WILEY: It’s kind of a golden-hour shot so it’s got that kind of nice warm tones. This is a marigold, sort of I would say, church suit. And then she’s wearing a fuschia-purple kind of a church hat.
BAUMGARTNER : Mrs. Pitts was in her 80s when the portrait was made. She has her arms folded over her cane, a small silver cross hangs from a necklace. After taking the portrait, Mary Beth and Mrs. Pitts continued their friendship until Mrs. Pitts passed away in 2018.
MEEHAN: Jonathan and I realized that her belongings that she had collected, newspaper clippings and books and church artifacts. But also her writings. She was a real scholar of American history and Black American history. When the family decided to sell the house, we realized that we needed to make sure that all of these belongings were kept in one place. And that maybe we could use them to continue her voice. We consider her the witness to this journey that she made.
BAUMGARTNER: One wall of the gallery is a giant collage of newspaper clippings, just part of the collection that Mrs. Pitts kept going back to the 1950s. Again, her grandson Jonathan Pitts-Wiley.
PITTS-WILEY: It is in many respects, a timeline of Black history with a focus on Black excellence. And it really travels effectively from the great migration. My grandmother’s from Alabama originally. She came up to Rhode Island. So as you see this and move along. It moves along fairly chronologically, right? But what I really appreciate about the excellence is you have Barack Obama and then you have a local pageant winner. Or you have these titans of history and then you have what you might call lesser known people. In that the value placed was “this is excellence” whether it’s… okay you’ve shattered this record or you were elected to the chamber of commerce.
MEEHAN: This one is amazing too [reading] “Matt Zeliger’s invention was so successful, attempts were made to change his race.
PITTS-WILEY: Mmm-hmm.
BAUMGARTNER: Along with the clippings, you can see the notes that Mrs. Pitts made along the margins, her thoughts on the history she was witnessing. Mary Beth read one for me.
MEEHAN: “Challenging America to forget about skin color, employment status, educational background and living locale. They just want an equal chance to prove themselves to the world as the men God created them to be. But you and I know how the chips fall in America even before we were bought and sold into slavery.”
PITTS-WILEY: In many respects, this wall is an act of rebellion and resistance. Because in this same timeline, I could give you counternarratives where Black people are the worst people ever, ‘stupid, lazy’ bwak bwak bwak. You know, narratives that unfortunately continue to varying degrees today and so you see decades worth of resistance. You see decades worth of resistance.
BAUMGARTNER: There’s the large front-page photos of people like Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, Oprah, Halle Berry, Prince, along with local notables like Judge Rogeriee Thompson, the first Black woman to be appointed to the Rhode Island Superior Court. And then there are many small clippings nestled between the large photos.
BAUMGARTNER: (reading) “Lesley R Robertson has been appointed director of the Rhode Island business/childcare service of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.”
PITTS-WILEY: Everyday excellence in that it was… in that it has been happening. That’s what she’s also trying to tell you. This ain’t new.
BAUMGARTNER: Both gallery shows: EYE TO EYE and WITNESS: ANNYE RAYE PITTS are up now at the WaterFire Arts Center, but Sunday is the last day you can see them. Saturday night at 7:00 you can see a fashion show called “Catching God’s Eye: The Language of Hats.” It’s inspired by Mrs. Pitts collection of church hats on display in the gallery. It’s all at the WaterFire Arts Center in Providence. For The Public’s Radio, I’m James Baumgartner.
