William Christenberry was a photographer, painter, and sculptor whose artistic work depicts his personal experiences from his childhood while living in Hale County, Alabama. He started his career as an abstract-expressionist painter moving onto photography—not as a medium but a documentary asset to capture isolated architectural spaces for references for his art creations. During his trips to Hale County, he revisited these spaces to capture the essence of decay. Places filled with silence and abandonment started to look like objects to him, and he documented those spaces periodically. He then used the photographs to recreate these buildings in his artistic language. Those structures were small in size but very detailed and proportionately created. Even though they were not complete replicas of those structures (physically), they were sculptures representing his memorial association with them. Furthermore, out of his intense curiosity with Ku Klux Klan, he spent most of his life understanding its terrifying existence and practice as he created Klansmen fabric dolls with hooded robes, masks, and conical hats with glaring eyes on them. 

The exhibition, Laying-by time: Revisiting the Works of William Christenberry, included Christenberry’s exploration of the Ku Klux Klan. As it is known, the Klan Room Tableau consists of many tightly installed objects that depict Klan imagery, figures, and accouterment that include sculptures, drawings, photographs, and neon works. Most notable are the Klansmen fabric dolls that were adorned in satin robes of white, red, and black. Some of the figures are unfettered, while others have been bound or dipped in wax. The dolls represent Christenberry’s attempt to “come to terms with such strange and evil brutality.” 

To introduce the public to Christenberry’s artistic process and notions, paralleling the Klan Room Tableau, I designed three drop-in workshops—during the months of the exhibition—to create worry dolls facilitated by community artists Ashton Page (MFA in Community Arts ’14, MICA) and myself. As mentioned earlier, the Klan's existence was a ‘worry’ and a concern to Christenberry. How could such evil exist? How could people be so cruel? In his attempts to wrestle with these questions, he directed his inquiries, worries, and anger into his creative practice. Due to the intensity of the artworks created by Christenberry, these workshops became a therapeutic bridge between his troublesome creative processes of understanding the Klan’s existence and the thought-provoking reactions of the audience. 

Additionally, there were guided stations for the viewers where educational guides and doll-making kits were available to assemble or take with them while observing Christenberry’s work.

** Due to the privacy of the space and clients, photography was not allowed; hence no workshop images are displayed.