Artist, Diamond Stingily: My name is Diamond Stingily. This is Entryways from 2021.
I remember, one day, in my early twenties, I was living with my Grandma Estelle and someone knocked at the door. And while she was asking “who is it,” she picked up the bat that is always next to her door. That was very poetic for me. I'm 6'2" and my grandma is probably like 5'3", 5'4" on a good day, but she still wanted to protect me.
I wanted the door to look like a lot of things in my grandmother's house that could be "better," in quotations. But a lot of older people from that generation, they like what they have. They don't want a new door, so don't come in they house trying to switch it up or tell them what they need to do.
The bats, to me, represent Chicago. A lot of people that I know from that city have some type of homemade weapon in their home. To be nonviolent is a privilege. I don't know that many people in the world that has never had to face some type of violence, or be violent themselves. That's a form of wealth, and most people don't live like that. You can't have change without some type of violence, you can't progress without some type of aggression. You have to push.
Being raised by both of my grandmothers, I look at those doors and I'm like—I came from matriarch, a powerful one. So that's what the doors represent to me is the duality, 'cause there's a lot of tenderness in the work, but there's also a lot of toughness in the work.
I hope when you look at this, you can see someone that you love in it.
