IYKYK: The Weight of the Story We Choose to Carry

 

My Father: Jimmy Lovejoy- Colorado 1978

There are some series that arrive gently. And then there are the ones that interrupt you. Note: I have added links below with a little more information. 

This body of work centered on Black Cowboys and Buffalo Soldiers did not come from trend, timing, or aesthetic curiosity. It came with weight, with lots of questions, with responsibility. And if I’m being honest, it made me take many breaks within creating the body of work.

Because the truth is this: you cannot approach the story of the Buffalo Soldiers without also facing the harm tied to it. 

Their history is as complex as it comes, and at times contradictory. These were men who were once enslaved or born into the aftermath of slavery, who found identity, purpose, and survival within a system that had denied them humanity even if they were willing to give their lives. At the same time, they became part of that system, used in the displacement and violence against Indigenous peoples.

There is no clean version of that story. And I’m not interested in creating one.

There was a moment I considered walking away. However, once you understand the full context, the trauma inflicted on Indigenous communities, the brutality of westward expansion, you don’t get to unknow it. And you shouldn’t.

But walking away would have been easier. And easy is not why I create, not that I wouldn't have liked that option. 

This series came to me differently. It asked something of me. It asked if I could hold complexity without collapsing it. If I could speak about resilience without erasing pain, I struggled and still do as I lean into finishing this series. Question to self: Could create work that acknowledges both?

Because the reality is, these histories are not separate. You cannot speak about resilience without acknowledging what someone had to survive. And you cannot acknowledge survival without facing what caused it.

My work is not about glorifying the Buffalo Soldiers. It is not about rewriting history, and it is not about ignoring the harm done to Indigenous communities. It is about resilience, but not the kind that feels polished or heroic.

It is the kind that is complicated & extremely messed up. The kind that exists inside impossible choices. The kind that asks what it means to survive within systems that cause harm. The kind that does not resolve neatly.

Reading Man's Search for Meaning (2014) shifted something in me permanently.

Viktor Frankl speaks to a truth that has stayed with me throughout this series: resilience is not the absence of suffering, but the ability to hold onto purpose and human dignity in the midst of it. His work reminds us that meaning can survive even in the most brutal circumstances.

That is the line I bring into this body of work.

Not to excuse history’s atrocities. Not to soften what should never be softened. But to honor resilience in its most honest and complicated form.

Because resilience is not redemption. It does not justify harm, and it does not erase the suffering that surrounds it. It is simply the act of continuing while still carrying the weight of what was endured and what was done.

Part of this work is also personal. I was raised with deep respect for both lived experience and truth. Joanne and Gordon Bird, who are Indigenious & best friends to my parents, they were an important part of my life growing up. Through that relationship, I learned to listen, to hold space, and to understand that history is not something you speak over, it is something you approach with care.

At the same time, my own family history is rooted in slavery, and in the legacy that carried forward into Black cowboys and Buffalo Soldiers. This is not distant history for me. It is mine to learn from, to question, and to explore.

That dual awareness is something I infused into this work. It asks me to be honest. It asks me to be accountable. And it asks me to create without turning away from any part of the story.

So when I approach this series, I am not doing it from a distance. I am asking myself what responsibility comes with telling it, and whether I am listening as much as I am creating. If I cannot answer those honestly, then the work does not deserve to exist.

This series lives in tension. It holds resilience and harm, identity and contradiction, survival and consequence. Not as opposites, but as realities that exist at the same time.

We are often more comfortable choosing one side of a story, calling something either honorable or unforgivable. But history does not work that way, and neither does humanity.

This work is not asking you to agree. It is asking you to sit with it. To feel the weight of it. To question what you have been told. To consider what resilience really means when it exists inside systems that are broken.

If you feel unsettled, that is not a failure of the work. That is the work doing what it is supposed to do.

I will not romanticize this history, and I will not ignore it. I will continue to create from a place that is informed, questioning, and willing to hold discomfort, because that is the only place where this work has integrity.

And if you know, you know.