Yonkers-based artist and sculptor Vinnie Bagwell recently held a private reception at her studio to discuss the status of the Enslaved Africans Rain Garden project and to allow guests to see up close the life-sized sculpture of the next piece to be casted, “Sola and Olumide.”
All four sculptures are slated to be placed at the Yonkers waterfront this fall near the Modera apartments. Bagwell was especially delighted to have world-renowned artist Otto Neals pay a visit from Brooklyn.
Bagwell has been working on the public-art initiative commemorating the lives of enslaved Africans who lived at the Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers, six of whom were the first to be manumitted by law in the United States, in 1799 (66 years before the Emancipation Proclamation). The law was written in New York State by U.S. Founding Father John Jay, future first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former City Councilwoman Patricia McDow brought the story to the attention of Bagwell in 2009, and Bagwell’s Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden received a New York State Council on the Arts grant for the lifesized bronze sculptures for an urban-heritage sculpture garden on the shore of the Hudson River. The City of Yonkers has designated nearly an acre of land on the shore of the Hudson River for the construction of the Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden.
Those on social media may follow Bagwell’s weekly updates on Facebook and Instagram under by searching “Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden.”
