In My Obsession, one creative person reveals their most prized collection. Allison Janae Hamilton is greeted by seven generations of women in her family every time she enters her Chelsea, Manhattan, studio. The 40-year-old artist, who worked in the fashion industry before she began to make paintings, films and installations inspired by landscapes in the American South, grew up in Florida and visited her family’s farm in Carroll County, Tenn., every summer. A few years ago, she began digitizing copies of ancestral records — letters, yearbooks, handwritten recipes — all stored in boxes and albums on the property. She also found family records online, including her grandfather’s World War I draft card and an 1860 “slave schedule,” an official government record of enslaved people that was part of the U.S. census. Most prized are the photographs that show relatives on the farm as they feed animals and raise children. When “everyone has been born and passed away” on the same land, “you have just a massive amount of artifacts,” she says.
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