RECIPE BOX
2021
5.5” x 3” x3.5”
Mixed Media

I received a call from my good friend Shane Westmorland the other day. He is a reputable antique picker and said that he had run across something that he was dropping in the mail to me. When the package arrived, I was sickened at what I saw. It was a small, metal, Southern Recipe Box from an evangelical preacher’s wife from an estate sale in Northern Arkansas. When you opened it up, behind the Biscuit, Coffee Cakes and Main Dishes, there was a stack of ‘Come To Church’ religious tracts. I thought well, that’s nothing new considering it came from the Bible Belt. Yet behind those tracts was a folded up piece of paper slipped in.  As I unfolded the worn piece of paper, the words “Non-Working Ni**ers” almost knocked me down. The hateful hypocrisy was disgusting. At that point, the only recipe I saw was:

1. One Christian preacher
2. One Christian preacher’s wife (See the piece ‘A Benevolent Hue’)
3. Sprinkle in a stack of holy, religious tracts to saturate the community
4. Add a heaping dose of racism
5. Beat down well.
6. Share and ingest.
This recipe feeds many.