Carole Byard’s The Gathering is a multi-media piece that incorporates painting and sculpture.  The work was created from earth, branches, canvas, acrylics and bamboo.  Carole is an African American painter, sculptor, muralist, illustrator and earthworks-artist.  She is a founding member of the Black Artist Guild. In 1972 she received a Ford Foundation travel grant and went to Africa.  Her piece is quite exciting and very bold.  It consists of a large painting of a cloudy sky that has several sculpted figures gathered at the top of the canvas.  These figures are created from sticks and earth-ridden cloth that is wrapped around the forms to create expressive bodies and heads.  The figures seem to have just come from their graves in the earth.  It looks as though a family longs dead and buried is reuniting atop the sky.
The figures are almost freighting with their decaying, dirt filled garments that wrap them from head to toe, like mummies.  Yet, the figures seem very peaceful and happy to be amongst one another.  They hold one another tightly and compassionately.  The group is together and wants to be.  Some of their body parts are actually wrapped together emphasizing this point.  They seem to be looking down across the sky to what we assume is earth.  They are above the world, possibly even reborn.  Reborn out of the earth, it’s the same earth used to create this work of art.  The works provoke ideas of life, death, survival, persistence and the ever-powerful human sprit.  The artist might be suggesting an act of pondering on life and the struggle humans endure.  She explains her use of torn cloth to symbolize internal and external forces we strive to overcome.  Is this the pledge to love life, to celebrate the efforts of being human?
 The Gathering is similar to Swentzell’s The Emergence of the Clowns in many ways.  The earth influences them both and it is represented in their work.  They have both used the earth to create their art.  In many cultures, earth is considered the source of life.  It makes sense that both these works depict a rebirth out of the dirt of earth.  The pieces have used two completely different styles and techniques to create very expressive figures. They also want the viewers to open their eyes to life and to consider struggles and what is worth struggling for. However, they are created and influenced in very different ways.  Where Swentzell has evolved her traditional methods with realistic figures, Carole as combined modern materials and techniques with culturally influenced style and natural materials.  Cultural myths from childhood inspired Swentzell.  Carole studied and revisited her cultural history of Africa.  She has chosen almost frightening look figures that ironically project a very similar theme as Swentzell’s cute clowns.  The artists are obviously on the same page but their cultures and influences produce extremely different works of art.  The viewer instantly sees cultural influences and styles in each piece but when studied finds very similar themes.  The students can see we are all human and we all have similar concerns and emotions.  They will also be able to see a similar theme expressed in completely different ways and how a person's culture has an effect on their expression.