Writer’s influence still runs deep
EATONVILLE — Artists lined this small town’s main street in the name of one of its most beloved figures.
In the small town of Eatonville, it was hard to miss to miss Zora Neale Hurston’s influence, as art, clothing and jewelry were displayed at the annual celebration of her legacy.
“Zora Neale Hurston is a global icon,” said N.Y. Nathiri, the executive director of the Association to Preserve Eatonville, said of the author who died in 1960.
And artists from around the country came to the town, known as America’s oldest black municipality, in her name for the 29th annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival for the Arts and Humanities.
“That’s what it’s about to me,” said Abe Lavalais, who has made an annual trek to Eatonville from Louisiana since 1995. “It’s about culture and community.”
Lavalais works mostly with bamboo, crafting bracelets, belts and his signature product, the “ear spear,” which is a sharplooking bamboo earring.
And last year was the first time he brought Menhati Singleton along to help, which helped bring Hurston’s words to life.
Singleton, a New Orleans native, said she grew up reading Hurston’s stories like the tale based in Eatonville, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
But upon visiting Eatonville, she was fascinated by its history and visited the Zora Neale Hurston Museum as well as the author’s old home.
“It was so surreal….my family always made sure we read black authors,” said Singleton. “As a black woman, I honor her because of all the struggles she went through for us.”
Others, like Keenyah Brooks, were first-time visitors.
A former corrections officer at a men’s maximum security prison, Brooks traded convicts for clay in the late 1990s, after determining she needed a change to improve her well-being and to spend more time at home with her children.
“I just knew that I was miserable because I was getting paid to go to jail,” said Brooks, of Atlanta. “I want to create beautiful black art that is memorable.”
Her pieces depict everything from jazz music and cigar smoking to racial injustice in the American judicial system, and she’s sold pieces to celebrity talk show host Steve Harvey and Beyonce Knowles’ mother.
But what drew the most eyes Sunday was a sculpture of four painted rear ends stacked vertically.
“The derrieres are the most popular,” Brooks said. “This is what the women inspire to have and what the men desire to have... It’s a conversation piece.”
And before long she and her sister, Shasta Phillips, were packaging up the piece called “Ass the World Turns” after it was purchased by a man from Altamonte Springs.
“It’s funny,” Brooks said. “I’m really proud of the butts.”