Gary Jo Gardenhire
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golliwogs

Art by Gary Jo Gardenhire.
‘mrs, golliwog’ 2013 (40x40cm, oil on paper)
Art by Gary Jo Gardenhire.
‘in-flight gollies’ 2013 (25x25cm, oil on paper)
Art by Gary Jo Gardenhire.
‘mr. golliwog’ 2013 (40x40cm, oil on paper)
Art by Gary Jo Gardenhire.
‘hiding golliwogs’ 2013 (20x20cm, oil on paper)
London NW 10. February, 2013

I was having a long painting session in the studio. I'd not been out all day, maybe more. Tim wanted to have a smoke and walk the dog so he gives me a jacket and says come on out.

OK.

The wind was blowing and I put my collar up. I hadn't shaved. My hair long. And I limp.

As we turned the corner, under a lamplight, a young man on a bicycle veers near. I was startled and stared at him. The kid says, "What are you lookin' at, you golliwog?!”

I didn't know the word and Tim's explanation seemed vague.

Black middle-class son of a schoolteacher I am, I wanted a clear definition.

That evening after dinner I learned a lot about golliwogs. 

In America, I hadn't heard of them. We had Sambo. We had Uncle Tom. Maybe there were characters called Fetch and Gettit?

I asked a lot of American friends my age, black and white and nope...no one had heard of golliwog.

But a teenager in Harlesden had.

There were two places I could take my new found friend.

I could leave him on the shelf unmoved and silent. Occasionally observed. Gathering dust. Almost quaint. A racist past stuck on jam jars.

Or, why not let him shake a leg? 

In my abstract painting you'll see a shape, a color or a line repeated over and over creating a more or less dense veil covering the canvas. 

So why not dust Mr. Golliwog off and let him dance around a painting with a happy face?

If I took a superficial caricature of a black person which came to be seen as a hurtful, racist to-be-forgotten image onto a neutral blank canvas and used it as a decorative element, what sentiments would it provoke?
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