Darrell Spearman
Tending as Pink Mountain, 2021
Artist book, 8.5 x 11 inches
Tending as Pink Mountain is a collection of my writing, about a place that is home, a place that is supportive, a place that I’ve created on my own, growing up in environments that lacked creative support for black men to be open and expressive. ‘Pink Mountain’ is, although perceived as a fictional place, where I am truest to myself, my dancer, my singer, my performer, and my writer.
“Tending as Pink Mountain” is about the past decade of abandoning myself and my authentic dreams and passions—my pink mountain— to fit into the ‘big suit’ that’s given to most bipoc people growing up in a place where there is not enough creative support and strict ideas are projected onto black youth, and the unraveling of returning home to the sense of endless possibility of what will be for me through the art of staying true to myself. Included in this book is a piece titled “big suits, tiny bodies” that identifies detriment and many broken pieces of people swarm from the self-abandonment that has been taught and braided into generations.
These stories are ways to re-develop a sense of self, and to express what a revival truly feels like, while expressing the tug-a-war of actively choosing to live a truer life, as the true being I am meant.
What could have remained my life has become my prologue, inspiring me to trust the home I’ve built for myself on pink mountain as a child, and to become what I have always known. How long has it been since you’ve been on your mountain? Who and what experiences helped you abandon your mountain? I hope these two questions lead you back home, to yourself.
Tending As Reflection, Ink on canvas