WILLIAM EVANS
William Evans created Stars, Stripes & Satin Threads: A Stitch in Black America as an endeavor to understand the intersectional pride of being Black, Queer, American and Human. Evans utilized flags and materials passed down from his forefathers, aiming to harness their significance to drive a narrative of self-identified power and belonging. Stitching together a combination of past experiences, critical thoughts, and societal awareness, Evans reinterprets everyday cultural staples—such as welcome mats and durags—by obscuring their usual meanings. In doing so, he invites viewers to engage with his works of introspection and reflect on their own past, identity, human value, and contribution to society.
Evans constructed the confederate flag from artificial grass turf in order to explore his childhood experiences passing confederate flags in the front yards of neighbors growing up in the South. He understood this flag embodied an intense love that those who flew them had for a historical preservation of patriotism and power. On the other hand, it symbolized a generational history that involves pain, death and oppression for many people that came before him.
Evans’s grandfather emphasized the importance of Black respectability in physical appearances, not only for societal acceptance but for survival. One tradition passed down from father to father in Evans’s family was the practice of sewing a hair bonnet into the son’s car seat—an act of love and care intended to protect the son’s crown as well as his body. Evans stitches his grandfather’s heirloom neckties into a durag, paying homage to his grandfather’s efforts to survive with dignity as a Southern Black man in protest against the oppression he experienced. Evans incorporates traditional practices of sewing and quilting with tangible tools and materials to create representations of personal cultural staples, belonging and power.
The welcome mats and the use of black flags, neckties and found materials fabricated into durags are influenced by the teachings of Evans’s forefathers, as well as how his queer Blackness is seen, defined, and regarded by society. Evans invites an examination of the threads of U.S. history and the complexities of identity through representations of joy, resilience, and inquiry into his Black, queer life.
— Kenia LaMarr, OSU Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy, MA Candidate
EXHIBITION DOCUMENTATION BY SAM LO, OSU MFA PHOTOGRAPHY 2026