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As a child I made many summer trips to visit my grandmother in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. There, bottle trees were a common sight in the front yards of Black people's homes. These trees are made from empty blue glass bottles placed upside-down on the pruned branches of dead crape [sic] myrtle trees. The bottles trap spirits--evil or just mischievous--who might threaten the safety and well-being of the home's residents. The Bottle Tree at the End of the Universe expands on the idea of the Black woman as universal mother, common in many African belief systems, but also implied in the scientific concept of mitochondrial Eve. It reimagines the bottles on the tree not as vessels for confinement, but as spaces for transformation and rebirth. Here, the spirits that have been trapped in the old woman’s bottles are being reborn as galaxies, comets, and worlds.

Ajuan Mance

8rockart@gmail.com