Teens’ portraits celebrate Toni Morrison as community-builder

Since Toni Morrison Hall opened on North Campus, scholars charged with preserving the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author's legacy at Cornell - where she earned a master's degree and later served as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large - have wanted to portray her as more than a name on a building.

"We wanted people to know whose house they were in," said Anne Adams, professor emerita of Africana studies and comparative literature in the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of Cornell's Toni Morrison Collective.

A pair of portraits now adorning the residence hall's lobby has accomplished that goal and more. The project has fostered a collaboration between upstate and downstate teens that vibrantly represents some of Morrison's literary themes - and promises to help introduce her work to new generations of New Yorkers.

Unveiled Sept. 20 during a symposium, "Toni Morrison: Literature and Public Life," the large, high-contrast images painted on wood panels - first envisioned as murals, now referred to as tableaux - frame the entrance to a public meeting space. On the left is Morrison, M.A. '55, with hands clasped, while opposite her is a young Black woman, unknown to most observers, wearing bold blue sunglasses. Colorful flowers surround both of their faces and decorate their hair, interspersed with fragments of text from Morrison's 1983 short story, "Recitatif," referencing a young girl's recurring dreams about an orchard.

The second visage belongs to London Smith, an Ithaca High School senior who provided early inspiration for a group of student artists contemplating a mural honoring Morrison. In a photo of Smith wearing the sunglasses and a flower, members of a new club open to all students, Creatives of Color, saw a literary allusion - a modern reference to Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye" - and an authenticity that resonated with their thinking about the writer.

"London's vibe in that photo matched the vibe that we really wanted to show," said Cadence Butler, a senior at Ithaca High.

In deciding to feature a young person, which the project had not initially anticipated, teachers said the students created portraits that stand in dialogue with each other, embodying Morrison's commitment to community empowerment and mentorship across generations.

"The thought was to have a mentor-mentee theme, an elder and a youth communicating to each other - symbolic of the text about characters shouting to one another - as they run through this orchard of life," said Jesse Wright, an artist and Ithaca High teacher who led the project there.

"The mural of London became a way to demonstrate that the themes of Morrison's work are latent in the everyday life experiences of an Ithaca High School student, of a Black girl in Ithaca," added Peter Robinson, B.Arch. '98, assistant professor of architecture in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP). "They could begin to see themselves through the lens of Morrison."

Robinson, whose work has focused on helping Black youth transform their communities, conceived of the project in conversation with Adams. More than a traditional portrait, he thought, a collaboration with public school students would reflect values celebrated in "The Foreigner's Home," a documentary that includes Morrison's engagement with Black youth of migrant backgrounds in Paris as guest curator, in 2006, of a monthlong series of arts events at the Louvre.

Having secured Wright's help in Ithaca, Robinson expanded the collaboration to New York City Public Schools, partnering with the superintendent of its Brooklyn South districts, Michael Prayor, whose nephew Akiel Allen is a student in AAP's master of architecture program; and the My Brother's and Sister's Keeper program run by the schools.

Supported by grants from the Einhorn Center for Community Engagementand Ithaca High School, the upstate students visited New York City. In space donated by the nonprofit Powerhouse Arts, they gathered with about 30 students from eight Brooklyn schools to paint Morrison's portrait in the same style as London's. Later, the downstate students traveled to Cornell, a visit that included painting and dancing in AAP's Milstein Hall, campus tours and conversations with faculty.

Along the way, the students read Morrison, guided by Ithaca High School English teacher Stephen D'Alterio, and watched a film about her, "The Pieces I Am." They learned skills including painting, digital design and precision wood-cutting using a computer numerical control (CNC) router, aided by Ithaca-based artist Josh Sperling. Robinson said school leaders saw the project improve some students' academic outcomes.

"It shows that when people come together, we can do things that are bigger than what people actually think could be done," 10th-grader Amir Wallace said during a panel discussion about the project that featured Wright and eight Ithaca High students.

In attendance was Amir's father, Frank Wallace, who took a break from work in nearby Toni Morrison Dining Hall to celebrate the students' work.

"When I got the news about my child working on a project that will be displayed here, I said, 'Wow, the universe works in a wonderful way,'" Wallace told the audience. "I'm going to brag and have everybody come and take a look at your artwork."

In a video message, Prayor said the portraits represented far more than art on a wall.

"It gave our students exposure to new spaces - spaces of culture, scholarship and legacy that affirmed their voices and creativity," he said. "It proved to them that they belong in these institutions."

Building on the artistic collaboration, Prayor said, his districts serving 31,000 students plan to integrate Morrison scholarship into their curricula, helping to shape how the students see themselves.

"The mural is a symbol, but the true legacy will live in the lessons, conversations and acts of courage that will follow," Prayor said. "This is what creative place-making means: starting with a few and inspiring thousands more."

In addition to Butler, Smith and Wallace, the Ithaca High students most involved in the project were D.J. Barrett, Naomi Barrett, Kaian Browne, Angelina Cunningham, Stephanie Gonzalez, Vanaeyah Jean, Denae Lawhorn, Gracelynn Lomax, Cesar Marte, Essence Sellers and Cya-Jade "C.J." Volcy. To further encourage the students to study Morrison's work, the Toni Morrison Collective presented each artist with copies of "The Bluest Eye" and "Recitatif," funded by the Cornell Society for the Humanities.