averylawrence.com

Team Photo

Team Photo
April 26th, 2018
Friendship Court Field, Charlottesville, VA
Co-organized with The Garage

In 2018, I collaborated with The Garage art space to create Team Photo. The project was featured in the Charlottesville, VA edition of Ed Woodham’s Art in Odd Places. One year after the white supremacist “Unite the Right Rally,” I invited community members to come together to play soccer, have a picnic dinner, and pose for a really wide team portrait. With this project, an artwork created space for play and togetherness in a community that had recently suffered a nationally-broadcast trauma.

The work is inspired by my mom. In the mid-1990s, Winx Lawrence started what informally became known as the Garrett Square Soccer Team. It was a way for her to be involved in my after-school activities and to get my friends living in Garrett Square (known today as Friendship Court) more interested in soccer. Each day, after work, she became Coach. For about five years, Winx taught her team how to play soccer and work together. Each season, the group took a team photo. Arranging themselves in two rows (the first row usually requiring an awkward kneel), the players posed in uniform with a soccer ball placed on the ground, front and center.
credits
Winx Lawrence - inspiration
Sam Bush - co-organizer
Ross McDermott - camera logistics
Damian Washington - teammate
A photo of a youth soccer team from the 1990s. Wearing yellow jerseys, the team is arranged in two rows. The kids in the back stand and the kids in the front kneel. Four adult coaches stand behind the kids.
[A photograph from the mid-1990s of Avery Lawrence’s youth soccer team and the adult coaches, including head coach Winx Lawrence, Avery’s mom. On a grass field, the four adult coaches stand behind two rows of youth players, half kneel, half stand. The players wear mustard yellow jerseys with white collars and binded cuffs. Behind the team is a white soccer goal with a yellow net that is lighter than the jerseys but brighter than the spots of dry grass in the photo. Text at the bottom of the photo notes that the image resides in the University of Virginia Library Special Collections. ]
An extra-long horizontal photo of dozens of people wearing yellow soccer jerseys and standing in two rows in a grassy field.
[The final extra-wide composite photograph documenting the Team Photo project. Standing, kneeling, and crouching in two messy rows, approximately 90 people (kids and adults) wear yellow jerseys printed with a white, pink, and light blue abstract floral design. Before this photo, they played pickup soccer. After the photo, they shared a picnic dinner.]
The left third of an extra-long horizontal photo of dozens of people wearing yellow soccer jerseys and standing in two rows in a grassy field.
The left third of the Team Photo (2018) photograph with about 30 people
The middle third of an extra-long horizontal photo of dozens of people wearing yellow soccer jerseys and standing in two rows in a grassy field.
The middle third of the Team Photo (2018) photograph with about 30 people
The right third of an extra-long horizontal photo of dozens of people wearing yellow soccer jerseys and standing in two rows in a grassy field.
The right third of the Team Photo (2018) photograph with about 30 people
A dozen children and one adult wear matching yellow shirts while playing on a soccer field.
[A photograph of an adult playing soccer with about a dozen children on a grass field. They wear matching yellow jerseys. Sam Bush, the adult in the photo and former director of The Garage art space in Charlottesville, collaborated with Avery to organize the pickup soccer and picnic event. Sam seeks a high-five. One kid seems to be preparing her hand. A soccer goal and play structure are visible in the distance behind the players. Centered in the image is one child, mid-step, looking off to the right and away from the activity behind her.]
A photograph of a group of two dozen people chatting and eating a picnic dinner on a grass field. Most wear matching yellow jerseys.
[A photograph with long shadows shows dozens of people in matching yellow jerseys in a grassy field during Team Photo. Some people collect their picnic dinners. Some sit and eat. Some stand and chat. There are adults, kids, and babies. In the background, on top of a knoll, are tall leafless trees and parked cars.]
Two children try on matching yellow soccer jerseys while standing on a grassy field.
[In the foreground of this photograph, one child helps another child put on the yellow jersey for Team Photo. Looking down, the children seem to inspect the white, pink, and light blue abstract design on the front of the jersey. In the background, 3 adults wearing matching jerseys, while another (Fran Lawrence, Avery’s dad) secures sign-up forms on a folding table.]
A poster featuring a ribbon-like graphic on which a group of low-poly 3D models of people pose for a team photograph. The poster advertises an event called Team Photo.
[The advertising poster for Team Photo. Central to the poster is a rendering of dozens of human-like figures with polyhedron heads, standing in two rows, displayed on a folded-ribbon graphic. The figures wear yellow jerseys. The ribbon graphic is defined by shades of green. A textured and very subtle orange-to-red gradient fills the poster’s background. In large, white text the poster reads “Team Photo, Friday, April 26th 5:30 - 7pm.” In small, white text: “free jersey. group photo. picnic dinner. all are welcome. Friendship Court Field. 4th and Garrett Street. sign up at averylawrence.com/Team-Photo. organized by Avery Lawrence and The Garage.”]
A screenshot of an Adobe Illustrator workspace featuring multiple floral designs, some on graphics of t-shirts.
[A screenshot of Avery’s design process in Adobe Illustrator for the Team Photo jersey. Scattered across the medium gray background are a variety of floral designs. Most of the designs feature scribbly lines and blobby shapes. Some shapes in the designs have fuzzy or blurry edges, suggestive of an airbrush’s mark. Apart from the gray workspace, the dominant colors in the screenshot are yellow, orange, white, and light blue. Text at the top of the image reads “Adobe Illustrator 2023.”]
A photograph of three adults standing in a field wearing matching yellow jerseys that have an abstract floral graphic printed on them. The people have their arms around each other as they pose for the photo.
[Three adults, Damian Washington, Winx Lawrence, and Whitney Washington, pose in this photograph wearing the matching yellow jerseys of Team Photo. Winx coached Damian and Avery Lawrence in soccer for multiple years in the 1990s. Damian, Winx, and Whitney are wearing street clothes under their jerseys. Damian has on a Chicago Bulls flat-brimmed hat. Leafless trees above a grassy field fill up the background. ]
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