Spilling the Tea: The Kwanzaa Edition*

*As you’ll read in this and the subsequent “Spilling the Tea” entries, this originally appeared as a series of Instagram posts.

Hi everyone, Hilary’s wife Ara here. After a brief few days of holiday merriment, Hilary’s back at the easel, working on her Arabella Freeman Series. You may have heard that Arabella Freeman, a fictional landowning free black Virginian during the Civil War (pictured here hosting a tea party she’d rather not be hosting) is inspired by me. Hilary meticulously researches any time period she’s painting, so she’s quickly surpassing my command of black history - she knows things that I never learned in my predominantly white private school and just barely scratched the surface as a member of Jack and Jill. If you don’t know what Jack and Jill is, that’s okay. You can look it up after you read this post. Hilary takes the history she’s learned as a starting point, but not a predetermined destination. The tangents become foundations. I woke up this morning, realized it was the first day of Kwanzaa and thought of one of Hilary’s paintings as a perfect illustration of the first principle. And then I thought of another. And then I decided, stop thinking and get to doing. So, here I am, taking over her instagram account for what I’m calling: Spilling The Tea: The Kwanzaa Edition. During this peaceful but hopefully provocative takeover, you’ll get to see seven more Harkness paintings paired with a Kwanzaa principle. Magic will be on display. Black + White girl magic, to be exact. Before the first official pairing later today, what’s Kwanzaa? I had to remind myself with a little trip to Wikipedia which told me that it’s an annual celebration of African-American culture that takes place from December 26 to January 1. American Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 during the aftermath of the Watts riots as a specifically African-American holiday. One of his goals was to give blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the principles. Consider your first cup of tea spilled. Refreshing! In the comments, let me know - which Harkness paintings are you hoping to see in the coming days?

*This and the subsequent “Spilling the Tea” entries originally appeared as a series of Instagram posts.