Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Diana Ross, Joe Louis, Mr. T., Michael Jackson, and Flip Wilson as well as characters like "a California Black Panther", interracial couples, The Black Mona Lisa and The Zulu Girl with the Blue Hair. In Black Hunger: Soul Food in America, Le Ravin is listed alongside Robert Colescott and Joyce Scott as an African American artist "appropriator" of Aunt Jemima. Her themes have also been described as touching on "racism, rape, homelessness, the struggles of women, and other forms of social injustice." Le Ravin described her own art as "African bone art" and explained her use of bones in both symbolic and practical terms. For Le Ravin, bones represented the sacred cycle of life, death, and rebirth. In addition to her perception of bones as spiritual objects, their ready availability also made them a practical medium to work with. Le Ravin once said, "I imagine the Lord gave me bones to work with because I could easily get them from the food I ate." Her process, which she claimed to have received directly through her spiritual visions, involved boiling and bleaching bones, drilling and running wire through them, and, finally, arranging them for painting and adornment. Though Le Ravin reported being accused of practicing witchcraft and voodoo, she found justification for her sacred view and use of bones in the Book of Ezekiel (37:1-10) wherein dry bones are breathed back to life. In response to her critics, she replied, "There was nothing wrong with those bones when they had meat on them and you were chewing on them, and now I took those bones and cleaned them, so what could be wrong with them now?" Exhibits 1990 Cavin Morris Gallery, New York City, NY 1990 The African Marketplace, Rancho Cienega Park, Los Angeles, CA 1990 William Grant Still Community Arts Center, Los Angeles, CA 1991 Religious Visionaries, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin 1992 Religious Visionaries: Simon Sparrow/Mary Le Ravin. Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, IL References 1905 births 1992 deaths Visionary artists 20th-century American women artists African-American women artists Women outsider artists Folk artists Artists from Mississippi People from Jefferson County, Mississippi Sculptors from California Artists from Los Angeles African-American sculptors 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American artists