Growing up my grandmother: Maria Winley used to have this nodding head doll, I think as a child I was afraid of it, but the doll wasn't going anywhere so we quickly became friends. The doll is a Bisque Bank that nods and was painted black during ca. 1940-1950. I decided to take works that depicted African Americans as Mammy and other disparaging figures and turn them into beautiful works of art, by decoupaging this figure along with florals, embellished with large pearls on plates, I created what is now known as the baby with the watermelon.
