Armor of God: Equipping Ourselves to do Social Justice Work
I, Steve A. Prince, am a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and I currently reside in Williamsburg, Virginia. I am the Director of Engagement and Distinguished Artist in Residence at the Muscarelle Museum at William and Mary. I received my BFA from Xavier University of Louisiana and my MFA in Printmaking and Sculpture from Michigan State University. I am a mixed media artist, master printmaker, lecturer, educator, and art evangelist. I have taught middle school, high school, community college, 4-year public and 4-year private, and conducted workshops internationally in various media.
I have worked with several church’s of various denominations across the nation spreading a message of hope and renewal. I work with both two-dimensional and three-dimensional artistic practices while working with virtually every age bracket and multiple ethnicities. I am represented by Eyekons Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Black Art in America in Columbus, Georgia, and Zucot Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Armor of God: Equipping Ourselves to do Social Justice Work” is a Linoleum Cut on Paper. The image reveals 9 African American youth entering Central High School in 1957, marking the integration of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. On the students bodies are symbolic elements representative of a breastplate, a two-edged sword, and a helmet. They are protected as they enter the school amidst jeers, death threats, and racial epithets. Their bodies become one and mimetic of a train of inevitability that became the spark to end segregation in America. The youth are girded with protection symbolized by the “AOG” patch, as they deconstruct the segregated structure that denied their access to equal education. The image encourages us all to put on the whole armor of God in whatever we do.
The image draws from the book of Ephesians in that the children entering the school on that fateful day were not battling against flesh and blood but against principalities. Each day they entered the school not armed to wage a physical war, but a spiritual one that spoke to the soul of America and racist power structures. This image offers a contemporary signifyer of the power that Paul spoke of that we need to access daily. The image also speaks to the timelessness of God’s word.
The image is a Linoleum Cut print on paper. I made an intricate drawing on the surface of a piece of linoleum and utilized intricate cutting tools to remove the negative space around my positive lines, rolled the block up with ink, placed a piece of paper on top of the inked block, and ran block through a press under thousands of pounds of pressure. Then I slowly peeled the paper back to reveal the print on the paper. The original image retails for $6,000. To purchase my work please go to: https://artcld.com/artist/steve-prince.
I produce commissioned artwork, I lecture, deliver Visual Sermons to various denominational church’s, and I conduct hands-on workshops for all age brackets in a variety of media including; drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. My hands-on workshops range from 1 day to 7 days, 1 hour to 7 hours per day. Here is one of my free workshops I produce on YouTube.
