A post shared by NC State Alumni Association (@ncstatealumni)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\nBy Sarah Lindenfeld Hall<\/h4>\n\n\n\n Sometimes Dare Coulter \u201915 needed a break. The artist was trying to figure out how to illustrate a new picture book by an acclaimed writer of children\u2019s fiction, but the topic was dark\u2009\u2014\u2009the impact and trauma of slavery. Coulter\u2019s journey took her to its horrors\u2009\u2014\u2009harrowing stories of Africans\u2019 cross-Atlantic journeys and despair as families were ripped apart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was heavy work. The images and stories triggered nightmares. But her goal was to give life to the book\u2019s words and create imagery that makes the trauma of slavery tangible. <\/p>\n\n\n\nDare Coulter \u201915 with some of the head and hand sculptures she created to tell the story. Photograph by Joshua Steadman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nFor an artist like Coulter, who has focused on portraying Black joy in massive public art pieces throughout North Carolina, An American Story<\/em> might seem like an unlikely project. The story \u201cstarts in Africa and ends in horror,\u201d as its author, Kwame Alexander, writes to begin the book. But the joy Coulter is known for belongs in An American Story<\/em> too, she says: \u201cThe joy shows what\u2019s possible, but the pain is there as a reminder.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nWith an award-winning and best-selling author like Alexander attached, the book is poised to make waves in the children\u2019s book world. And when Alexander saw the first page of Coulter\u2019s art for An American Story<\/em>, he was blown away. \u201cShe did something I was not expecting with this book. She made it hers,\u201d he told School Library Journal<\/em>. \u201cShe created art for this book that I\u2019ve never seen in a children\u2019s book. I think I wrote a pretty good poem that told a pretty good story, but her art, hands down, is majestic, magical. Magnificent. It\u2019s a masterful piece of work. That\u2019s what I think of Dare Coulter\u2019s illustrations. Boom.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe cover of An American Story.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe did something I was not expecting with this book. She made it hers.\u201d \u2013 Kwame Alexander<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Coulter is eager to see An American Story, <\/em>released in January, in the hands of children. But she\u2019s also aware that the book touches on topics that have lit up school board meetings in the past year amid efforts to downplay the role of slavery and racism in U.S. history. Alexander, who won the Newbery Medal\u2009\u2014\u2009the Academy Award equivalent in children\u2019s publishing\u2009\u2014\u2009for The Crossover<\/em>, a book in verse about middle school basketball players that is being serialized by Disney Plus, has had books on banned book lists before. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIn fact, it was a \u201cracially charged incident\u201d in the fourth-grade classroom of Alexander\u2019s daughter that prompted him to write An American Story.<\/em> He realized many schools weren\u2019t preparing students to \u201cfully understand the truth about slavery,\u201d he wrote in the book\u2019s endnotes. <\/p>\n\n\n\nCoulter, 29, considers herself lucky to have had teachers who taught slavery in a fair and balanced way. She expects Alexander\u2019s words and her images won\u2019t be welcome by all, but she also believes the story needs to be told, so society can do better. \u201cThere\u2019s this pessimism almost that says the intention is to forget about it so that people don\u2019t know, so that it can be repeated,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s scary.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In just a few years, Coulter\u2019s artistic career has been on an upward trajectory with commissions from the likes of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Smiling, proud and powerful faces grace her sprawling murals of a quiet, peaceful Black girl along the West Ellerbee Creek Trail in Durham, protesters in downtown Raleigh and Black cowboys in Greensboro. In late summer, she was busy opening a laser cutting business called DareSay Signs and Gifts near Raleigh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\nCoulter spent roughly two years creating the sculptures, charcoal drawings and paintings that illustrate An American Story.<\/em> Her pin-up, above, shows some early drawings. Below, Dare sculpts one of the figures out of clay while three heads of historical figures \u2014 Robert Smalls, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman \u2014 are being painted. Photographs courtesy of Dare Coulter \u201915.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\nIllustrating a book by Alexander is a potentially career-transforming opportunity for Coulter\u2009\u2014\u2009and she took a unique, but risky and possibly more costly approach to the illustrations, which required buy-in from the publisher, says her agent, Rubin Pfeffer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of turning in oil or acrylic paintings, as originally envisioned, Coulter incorporated charcoal drawings, acrylic and spray paint paintings and 3D sculptures. She spent about two years creating the pieces, almost entirely from her home near Raleigh, sometimes scrapping work as she fine-tuned how best to tell the story through art. The final illustrations include photographs of her sculptures paired with her paintings or placed on sets built for each scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCoulter\u2019s colorful studio is filled with paintings, drawings and sculptures from her many projects. Photograph by Joshua Steadman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe design moves the reader between a present-day classroom, depicted in charcoal, where a teacher and students grapple with questions of slavery, and past settings in Africa and the United States, portrayed in sculpture and vivid acrylics. That visual language was intentional. The sculptures bring the historical figures\u2009\u2014\u2009a joyful father, with whip marks, holding his babies, and a weeping mother, crying out for her son, for example\u2009\u2014\u2009to life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n