American Liturgy, 2025
Historic Navy Yard
North Charleston, South Carolina
About the Work
American Divinity borrows the visual language of stained glass, but the structure is less church window than barricade. Blue glass panels sit inside a steel frame that reads like a gate or fence. Light passes through it, but the structure itself feels defensive—closer to the iron barriers historically built to protect property and power. The piece reflects the intensity with which American ideals—liberty, property, nation—can be held and defended, often with a devotion that approaches religious faith.
Freedman’s Flag is cut from a rusted sheet of tin salvaged from the remains of a burned Freedman’s cottage in Charleston, South Carolina. The flag feels somewhere between artifact and invention—a relic from a personal mythology. The material carries the physical memory of a place tied to the promise of freedom after the Civil War, while the corrosion suggests how fragile and uneven that promise has always been.
The text rubbings, Dreaming and White Ice, come from a plate engraved repeatedly with the phrase “WHITE PICKET FENCE AMERICAN DREAM.” By applying pressure selectively across the plate, fragments of text emerge—WHITE, AMERICA, DREAM, PICKET, ICE, along with phrases like “I Can Dream” and “Am I A Picket.” The rubbings work like a stream of consciousness—almost like a quiet chant or hymn—revealing the associations that surface when thinking through the mythology of American life.
Williams treats the flag, the fence, and a national ideal as parts of a shared ritual—an American liturgy built from aspiration, property, identity, belief, and a devotion to the nation sustained as much by faith as by fear.
Works Exhibited
American Divinity, 2023
(Floor Sculpture)
Steel and Stained Glass
96 × 96 × 22 in. | 244 × 244 × 56 cm
Freedman’s Flag, 2025
(Flag)
Patinated Tin Roof
96 × 96 × 22 in. | 244 × 244 × 56 cm
White Ice, 2025
(Framed Blue Rubbing, Right)
Acrylic on Paper
22 × 30 in. | 56 × 76 cm
Pick A Dream, 2025
(Framed Blue Rubbing, Left)
Acrylic on Paper
22 × 30 in. | 56 × 76 cm
