Winifred Mason
This series is about the preservation of Winifred Mason's jewelry career through portraits of self identifying Black women sourced both from my mothers lookbooks and personal friendships with collegiate women.
Winifred Mason, a Manhattan native, is known to be the first Black commercial jeweler in America and was a pioneer in changing the narrative around jewelry to include it in fine art. The portraits are of Black identifying women primarily wearing earrings inspired by Mason’s work. These works serve as an ode to Mason’s contributions by displaying the continuity in jewelry worn by Black women to express their individualism.
The portraits include rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings created by Mason from the start of her career in 1940. The earrings include vèvès from Haiti which much of Mason’s work revolves around due to being the recipient of the 1945 Rosenwald Fellowship. Despite her fame along the East Coast, she was overshadowed by her apprentice Art Smith during the 1950s. The large portraits sit above eye level to actively direct the viewer's gaze and spatial reasoning. There are three to honor West 3rd Street, in Greenwich Village where Mason opened her store in 1948. The value of her pieces began to decline as Smith’s career surged, leaving poor documentation of her existence and contributions to the modernist movement in Greenwich Village, New York. The earrings in the portraits provide transparency through preservation as they establish context for how Mason’s work started to gain traction through the December issue of the 1946 Ebony magazine. The scale of the smaller portraits in relation to Ebony magazine offer a source of intimacy for the viewer. The palettes represent trending color combinations in each decade in relation to the continuity in Black women wearing jewelry.. Mason primarily worked with copper, bronze, and silver which is mimicked in the portraits through variations of luster. These works serve as an ode to Mason’s contributions by displaying the continuity in jewelry worn by Black women to express their individualism from 1940 to the 21st century.
Zari, Oil, 30” x 40”, 2022 Zari is a member of BASE and a friend of mine that I interviewed for the Winfred Mason series. The viewer sits slightly below eye level to give more respect to the sitter. The palette is based on Zaris favorite color, pink. The significance of this portrait are the dates that function as gold earrings. The date on the left is 1945 which is the year Mason received the Rosenwald Foundation grant to travel to Haiti and conduct work around Haitian vėvės. This acted as the catalyst for the start of her career. The accompanying date is 1948, the year in which she opened up her own store called Mason’s Haitian Bizarre located on 133 West 3rd Street Greenwich Village, New York. She was able to grow as a business woman here and a mentor to Art Smith.
Amber, Oil, 30” x 40”, 2022 Amber is also a member of BASE and a friend I interviewed for the Winifred Mason series. I wanted her gaze to lock the viewer in position while showing grace from the crown of her head to tips of her fingernails. The earrings she has are based off of a design from Masons early work before her trip to Haiti. The necklace is an ode to the work Mason did in bringing vėvės back to the states. After some research I was able to find the importance of Erzulie Dantor, a voodoo spirit that is known to be the fierce protector of women and being the closest to the Black madonna. The symbol is on the necklace which includes a heart with the handles of two swords coming from corners.
Grace, Oil, 30” x 40”, 2022 Grace is a portrait of a lifelong friend of mine. Her name is Grace Barratt and we have attended the same school together for 18 years. Her portrait is currently the final piece in the Winifred Mason series. The rings on her hands have elements from Mason’s designs. The most significant part of the portrait is the gold band on her wrist and the position in which she is in. The gold band has the signature Mason signed all of her jewelry with. It is her name Chenet in honor of her marriage with her husband Jean Chenet. The pose comes from the December issue Copper for Christmas, the 1946 Ebony magazine issue in which Mason is seen posing with her own jewelry on her wrist.