Nancy O’Connor, "Welcome Table" 

by Donna Tennant

Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston

Exhibition continues through July 6, 2024

Nancy O’Connor, (front) “Welcome Table,” 2024i installation view. (back) “The Condition of the Heart,” 2024, photograph printed on fabric and audio recording, 132 x 48 x 10”. All images courtesy of Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston

A long, rectangular table sits in the gallery, its sides and legs showing the patina of age. Rose petals are scattered across the worn oilcloth. This is the “Welcome Table” for which Nancy O’Connor’s exhibition is named. Usually it resides in a now-empty church on a ranch in south Texas. O’Connor first saw this church in 1976 when she attended the memorial service of a beloved friend, Spencer Cook. O’Connor was just 19 then, and Cook had been one of a community of Black cowboys who worked her family ranch and others like it in the Luis Bend area along the San Antonio River.

The church was the Greater Zion Baptist Church. It was a pillar of the community, a gathering place for the cowboys and their families. O’Connor borrowed the table for this exhibition of photographs of members of that community, as well as a video directed by Pita Rivas shot inside the church, vintage photographs, and even Cook’s well-worn cowboy hat. His funeral so moved her that it prompted O’Connor to embark on her life’s work — documenting a way of life that was fast disappearing.

Nancy O’Connor, “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray,” 2024, framed photograph and audio recording, 43 1/2 x 67 1/2 x 4 1/2”

“This was a community of people who got on their horses and talked about life,” said O’Connor. “They looked at the moon, assessed the weather, and decided where they were going and what they would do. I just wanted to press the STOP button.”

A film and photography student at the time, O’Connor began capturing what she could. Over nearly 50 years, she has recorded more than 500 hours of interviews, taken countless photographs, collected artifacts, and collaborated with videographers. She even took sheets of brown paper to the cowboys and asked them to write down things they would like to tell their grandchildren. Photographs of “Bill” and “Sonny” in this exhibition include these testimonials. O’Connor painstakingly engraved their words on glass and installed them with the portraits so they cast shadow words on the wall beneath them, a ghostly re-creation of their recollections of what it was like to work the cattle that grazed the vast prairies of South Texas.

Nancy O’Connor, “Untitled,” 2024, photograph, engrave4ed glass, and wood shelf, 48 x 49 x 6”

O’Connor includes several women in the show. She captured “Alice” singing “Just One Moment,” a clip that is available on the gallery website. A photograph of Greater Zion Baptist Church at night, its windows glowing with light, is titled “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray” and includes an audio recording. For “The Condition of the Heart,” the artist printed a portrait of Greater Zion’s Reverend Johnson on gauzy fabric that hangs from the ceiling, wafting in response to air currents in the room.

In 1980, O’Connor recreated the interior of the church inside a Houston gallery, borrowing pews, programs, and fans for the installation. In 1985, she paid homage to Milam, a close friend she taught to read. Displayed at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston was “Dream Chair,” Milam’s chair, upon which O’Connor draped his chef’s hat and apron. Milam made the chair himself, saying he wanted a chair that was tall enough for the kitchen counter. He added wheels so that he could sit in it and roll around when he got old. The artist surrounds the chair with photographs of Milam cooking.

Everyone pictured in the current exhibition has now passed on. “When I entered the church in 1976, I felt an incredible sense of loss,” O’Connor said. “I became aware of the presence of absence. It has been a language I grew up with since I was a little girl — having my mother talk about the negative space between the clouds, and growing up as a Catholic and making rings for my guardian angel. Even though there was tremendous sadness in the loss of Spence, there was also incredible joy in the very palpable presence of this community.”

Nancy O’Connor, “Alice,” 2024, framed photograph, audio recording, engraved glass and wood shelf, 43 1/2 x 67 x 4 1/2”

The Luis Bend community embraced O’Connor. “That is what I love about the table,” she said. “So many of the recordings were done at this table. I remember Alice sitting at this table singing ‘Amazing Grace.’”

O’Connor thus honors those who welcomed her into their lives and taught her to appreciate their way of life and their relationship with the land. In return, she ensures they will not be forgotten. The power of the documentation is that it resonates with compassion andprovides an understanding of the culture in which O’Connor was raised. “Their generosity has never left me, and I hope it informs my work because it was such a large part of my life,” she said. “Hopefully, there is something in the show that people can take with them to help acknowledge the people in their lives they love and care about.”

Donna Tennant is a Houston-based art writer who writes reviews for various publications. Over the past 40 years, she has written about art for local and national publications, including Visual Art Source, Houston Chronicle, ARTnews, Southwest Art, Artlies, and the Houston Press. She has a bachelor of arts in art history from the University of Rochester and a master of arts in art history from the University of New Mexico.