Acknowledgments

Cowan, Sarah Louise

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Acknowledgments

Sarah Louise Cowan

Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction

~So many people helped this book come into being. My deepest appreciation goes to Howardena Pindell for her generosity across our conversations and correspondence. She shared her artworks and experiences with me from the earliest days of research. Her work as an artist, activist, and thinker has been a deep well of inspiration not only for this project,...

Author

Sarah Louise Cowan

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23681

Acknowledgments

So many people helped this book come into being. My deepest appreciation goes to Howardena Pindell for her generosity across our conversations and correspondence. She shared her artworks and experiences with me from the earliest days of research. Her work as an artist, activist, and thinker has been a deep well of inspiration not only for this project, but in my life. I also thank the staff at Garth Greenan Gallery, especially Rachel Garbade and Alison Dillulio, for their cheerful, reliable support with archival materials and images.

My thanks go to all those at Yale University Press who engaged with my project, most especially Amy Canonico, Heidi Downey, Laura Hensley, Mary Mayer, and Raychel Rapazza, who shepherded me through the daunting challenge of a first book. Laura Lindgren did a wonderful job designing the book. Over the course of my research, I benefitted from the expertise of countless archivists, curators, librarians, registrars, and other professionals. I thank staff at Fales Special Collections at New York University, the Museum of Modern Art Archives, the Libraries and Archives of the Brooklyn Museum, the archives of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Rutgers Special Collections. I am appreciative of staff at the National Gallery of Art Library, the Library of Congress, and the Archives of American Art, especially Erin Gilbert, Josh Franco, and Mary Savig. At Emory University, Randall Burkett and Pellom McDaniels III were exceedingly hospitable. I thank them and the rest of the staff there, as well as at the archives of Spelman College, and the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University. My appreciation goes to curator Carol Thompson at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta for generously sharing her time. Patricia Hickson and Eileen Doyle at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, kindly pulled unwieldy materials for me. I am grateful to them, as well as to the staff at the Manuscripts and Archives at Yale University and the Yale University Art Gallery.

Throughout the development of this book, I have been fortunate to receive a number of fellowships and grants. This project has been supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, a DePauw University Fisher Course Reassignment, a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Completion Fellowship, a Townsend Center for the Humanities Fellowship, and a Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) Predoctoral Fellowship. At SAAM, I must thank Melissa Ho and Carmen Ramos for discussing Pindell’s legacy with me. This project was also supported by a Mellon Curatorial Internship Fellowship at the Brooklyn Museum. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to learn from Carmen Hermo, Rujeko Hockley, Catherine Morris, Eugenie Tsai, and Stephanie Weissberg. I received travel grants from the Getty Research Institute and Rose Library Special Collections at Emory University.

Scholars known and unknown to me have supported my research through feedback, encouragement, and their intellectual model. First, I thank those who discussed Pindell’s art and life with me, particularly Naomi Beckwith, Grace Deveney, and Valerie Cassel Oliver. They generously shared their insights and expanded the possibilities of Pindell research through their own work. My gratitude goes to Camille Billops and Jim Hatch, Linda Goode Bryant, Barry Rosen, and Lorna Simpson for spending time with me; I learned a great deal from them. Huey Copeland, Salah M. Hassan, and Steven Nelson provided intellectual inspiration and moral support. Others whose scholarship or encouragement bolstered this project in significant ways include Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Kirsten Pai Buick, Eddie Chambers, Darby English, Lisa Farrington, Jacqueline Francis, Kellie Jones, Audre Lorde, Bibiana Obler, John Ott, Joshua Shannon, Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, Michele Wallace, Judith Wilson, Tobias Wofford, and, especially, Lowery Stokes Sims, whose work has opened so many intellectual doors for me. My particular thanks go as well to Jordana Moore Saggese for her support and for incisively editing my writing about Pindell’s cut and sewn paintings when it appeared, in a different form, in Art Journal.

This book emerged from my dissertation project, which I completed in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. I am eternally grateful for the luminous intellects and kindness I encountered in Patricia Berger, Natalia Brizuela, Whitney Davis, Beate Fricke, Anneka Lenssen, Margaretta Lovell, Ivy Mills, Todd Olson, Sugata Ray, Andy Shanken, Lisa Trever, and Anne Walsh. My special thanks go to my committee members. The inimitable intellectual force of Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby has indelibly shaped my scholarship. I thank her for showing me how to dig deeper. One could not ask for a better guide through the strangeness of modernisms than Lauren Kroiz, whose patience is outshined only by her perceptiveness. Her astute advice was a balm in crucial stages of the project’s life. Leigh Raiford generously inducted me into the field of Black studies through her assiduous, ethical scholarship and her ability to make community—I am forever thankful. Her smarts, vivacity, and commitment are an inspiration. Most of all, I am profoundly grateful to Julia Bryan-Wilson for the generosity with which she shares her incisive mind, her unwavering engagement as chair, and the humanity she brings to intellectual labor. Her courageous scholarship continues to motivate me to aspire to more in my own.

At DePauw, I am grateful to the many colleagues who supported the final stages of the book’s writing, including Nahyan Fancy, Bridget Gourley, and fellow faculty writing group members. Particular thanks go to members of the Art and Art History Department, especially Meredith Brickell, Pauline Ota, and Natalia Vargas Márquez, for their encouragement. Brooke Cox, Bethany Fiechter, and Misti Scott graciously and skillfully helped me get the project over the finish line. I also am appreciative of the students I have taught there for inspiring me to keep asking questions. Special thanks must go to Alyssa Flory for her stellar assistance with copy editing and image permissions.

My deep gratitude goes to the fellow travelers who made intellectual life livable over the course of this project: Amanda Armstrong, Jamal Batts, Adam Benkato, Elizabeth Buhe, Mahasan Chaney, Ellen Feiss, Jez Flores, Aglaya Glebova, Essence Harden, Grace Harpster, Matt Kendall, Lex Lancaster, Munira Lokhandwala, Sigrid Luhr, Kappy Mintie, Ianna Hawkins Owen, Amy Rahn, Michaela Rife, Valentina Rozas-Krause, Ben Shestakofsky, and Jennifer Sichel. I am grateful for the radiant intellectual companionship of Olivia K. Young; this project is much richer for it. Sarah-Neel Smith patiently mentored me through the process of transforming the dissertation into a book. Her discerning feedback and innumerable pep talks kept me grounded and moving. Emma Silverman has been a constant interlocutor, an unflinching editor, and a dear, true friend for the life of this project. I thank her for keeping me afloat.

My family, chosen and otherwise, has supported me through this process. In the early years, the companionship of Rebecca Ewing, John Herbstritt, and Karly Stark carried me. Laurie Ellen Pellicano kept me fed and asking questions when I needed it the most. Christopher Fiorello is a firecracker of curiosity and an inspiration. When I need to phone a friend, I call Caitlin Howlett, whose wit and wisdom never fail. John and Kate Berry have become family, sharing celebrations, losses, and their comfy couch. The many branches of the Walter clan, including the Bacons and Garzolis, fill me up and keep me honest. Jonathan Love has been there since day one; what a gift. Libby is a rare gem of a sister. What would life be without the delightful Aurelius and Tallula? I am so grateful for my wonderful expanding family, especially Maria Roehrkasse, Meg Dorsey, Jack and Kara Dorsey, and Richard Roehrkasse and Ann-Caroline Davis. Elisabeth Smith has been a steadfast source of sunshine, wisdom, and strength for well over a decade. She lent her sharp eye to the manuscript at a pivotal moment. A person couldn’t ask for a more life-affirming friendship than the ones I have with her and with Emma Silverman.

Alex Roehrkasse has been my partner throughout the life of this project and deserves boundless appreciation for his patient support. My world and this work are much richer for his emotional and domestic labors, his intellectual companionship, and his big, luminous heart. My mother, Laura, died long before I started asking the questions that motivate this book. But she taught me how to express love through labor. I jointly dedicate this book to her and Alex.

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