OOO (Oak/Octavia/Olamina) by Tanya Nixon-Silberg

Embroidery floss and yarn on photo paper

22 x 18 inches

Artist Statement: 

I read Parable of the Sower in my 20's and it has remained one of the few books that stayed with me as I navigated my life as a Black woman in the US. 20 years later, I ceremoniously reread the book on July 20 2024, the date that the main character, Lauren Olamina started her EARTHSEED diary. And wow, I am living in the future Octavia foretold. 

While searching images of Octavia, I found one of her younger poised, head down immersed in a book and marveled how I never saw these images of her. She is perpetually presented mature, denied the wholeness of a robust life lived. I wanted to make a piece that resembled that duality, a duality I also see in Lauren Olamina. 

Tree rings chronicle a tree’s growth journey. Each ring signifies a year of growth and is formed by contrasting concentric circles, a pattern between light earlywood - formed in seasons of sun and sustenance and dark latewood- formed in seasons absent of light and material resources. Both stages of growth aids in the oak’s survival, growth, adaptation, propagation and endurance. 

Contrasting a young Octavia Butler with the tree rings of a mature oak, this is my homage to the main character in Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina and the many lessons born in early and late wood seasons to cultivate the people of EARTHSEED and the community of Acorn and by extension, Black women in the past, present and future. 

“We adapt and endure, For we are Earthseed, And God is Change.” -Lauren Olamina