Schoolhouse (The Wood Boy)

Rembert was imprisoned for protesting during the Civil Rights movement. During this time, he served time on a chain gang and learned leathering tooling from a fellow inmate. Twenty-five years after his release from incarceration, Rembert revisited leatherworking at the suggestion of his wife, and he began to transpose stories from his life onto painted leather canvases. Only intermittently attending school and dropping out in his early teens, Rembert references his challenging educational journey in Schoolhouse. Due to his sporadic attendance, Rembert’s instructors felt he could not learn. This doubt was a source of frustration that he depicted with a self-instert as the small boy carrying firewood instead of participating in the lesson.