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Chapter 61
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Piecing Me Together, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Intersectionality, Identity, and Discrimination
The Power of Language
Mentorship, Opportunity, and Dignity
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
In the car on the way to Mia’s gallery, Jade and Maxine sing along loudly to the radio. They arrive just in time for Sabrina’s introduction. Mia talks about her journey to becoming a business owner and she shows slides of her gallery when it was just an abandoned building. She says she thinks of her gallery as the people’s gallery, since she tries to curate work about current events or by artists from minority groups. The current show is paintings by Kehinde Wiley. They’re portraits of women from New York City, but based off of work by historical painters. Jade takes her time to inspect all the paintings and when Maxine finds her, she says this is the best outing they’ve had.
Kehinde Wiley’s work seeks to do much the same thing as Jade tries to do through her collages of York. Just as Jade wants to humanize York and give him power in her images, Wiley’s paintings place black subjects in empowering poses and situations. Seeing another artist working with similar ideas helps Jade continue to understand that there are successful black people in the art world if she chooses to enter it. Mia also shows Jade that it’s possible to be a successful black entrepreneur, given what she did to get her gallery off the ground.
Themes
Maxine admits that she was concerned, since Jade hasn’t said anything. Jade says she has a question but didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with the group: she wants to know if Mia offers internships. Maxine tells Jade to go ask. Jade insists she can’t, but Maxine insists she can. Jade steels herself, approaches Mia, and asks if she could bring a few of her pieces by and if Mia offers internships. Mia gives Jade an application and Jade joins the group for their final exercise. Sabrina asks the mentees to think of one word that describes their experience. Jade chooses “inspired.”
Now that Maxine and Jade have an understanding and more of a rapport, Maxine can give Jade the real talk she needs to work up the confidence and ask Mia about internships. And again, when Jade does ask, it’s very anticlimactic—Mia doesn’t try to make Jade feel bad, she just hands over the application. This shows Jade that it’s not scary to ask for what she wants and that she’s more likely to get it if she does.
Themes
