Growing up in the south, I was used to seeing racists yard ornaments and confederate flags in people’s yards. As a child, those images instilled fear, we knew if we saw one of those objects in someone’s yard, black people were not welcome at that home.

The figure I call Ms. Merri Mack is a character that I like to think of as breaking through stereotypes. The image of this dark skinned little girl was used to taunt and shame those that looked like her. I refuse to believe that the color of my skin makes me inferior to anyone else.

Sun'Ra's movie Space is the Place was my first experience of someone trying to conquer racism in a way that protected the people and encouraged love and creativity. His idea was to take all the people of color to a new planet to start over without self-doubt or obstacles based on the color of your skin.

I liked the concept of creating without boarders, this thought encouraged me to start to re-write the story from my point of view. I wanted to take back images and objects that were used to instill fear against the black community and tell a different story.

This animation was created with the first painting I used Ms. Merri Mack as a main character. The full animation is 2 minutes and 50 seconds and is the 1st out of 9 animations that will be created for this series.

In this first piece Ms. Merri Mack is starting to explore the colorful landscape she has been dropped in to start her new adventure.