Your #Panel61 by Melissa Lowry Mosley

In keeping with Lawrence’s Migration theme of internal personal shift and external societal movement, my artwork commemorates the first African American NASA astronaut, (Guion “Guy” Bluford, August 30, 1983) in space, and therein remembers the thirteen African American men and women who would follow him into space–two of whom were killed in space shuttle disasters (including the 2nd African American man in space), the two who would retire having never flown in space, the very first named African American Astronaut trainee who would die in an aircraft accident, and those waiting still! The watercolor bears the caption “Continuing to move North: True North. No boundaries. Slipping our surly bonds of “space” and claiming our place among the stars.”

When asked about his Migration Series, Lawrence said: “It was … so much part of my life. I became conscious of these things when I was 8 or 9 years old, and this consciousness remained, and this is what you see in the Migrations.” My watercolor continues the migration patterns established by Lawrence’s paintings in 1940-41, but with the notable exception that I was born into a shifting world of amazing positive change, and when I was 8 and 9 years old, I was beginning to be taught that I could do or be anything, and now, at this time–there were no boundaries.