Take me to the Water II

The little white church sits back on the bank with its steeple catching the light, and its reflection lies quiet on the water below. Above it, a long wooden trestle bridge carries the whole congregation out over the creek. Below, in the shallows, the minister stands, waiting with the candidates in white robes and white headwraps. It is baptism Sunday, and Ted Ellis painted every part of it. Take Me to the Water II is a full account of a day that Black families across the South have kept for generations. Ellis fills the bridge with Sunday finery: cloche hats and wide brims, rust and crimson dresses, dark suits, parasols raised against the sun. He puts children on the bank and flowers blooming along the water's edge. The eye travels the way the day itself traveled, from the sanctuary on the hill to the bridge to the water where the work of the morning was done. The greens are deep and layered, the water holds every reflection, and the whole composition carries the hush that falls over a crowd right before somebody goes under. "Take Me to the Water" is one of the few African American spirituals written directly about baptism itself. Its verses are plain and repeated: "Take me to the water to be baptized; none but the righteous shall see God." The text first appeared in print in a 1982 Church of God in Christ hymnal, though recordings and references in the narratives of formerly enslaved people place its roots much further back. Scholars point out that river baptism carried layered meaning for enslaved Africans and their descendants, joining Christian practice to older African understandings of water as a source of life, a means of purification, and a place of spiritual regeneration. When a congregation walked down to the creek, they were doing something with a very long memory behind it. Ted Ellis came up in New Orleans and traces the church scenes in his work back to Sundays spent with his mother at Beulah Land Church. He spent a decade as an environmental chemist before painting full-time, and his first real breakthrough came through a baptism painting: an African American boutique catalog carried his print Thee Baptism, and he sold 42,610 signed copies, autographing them on his lunch breaks while still working his day job. Ellis calls himself a creative historian and coined the term "Tedism" for his blend of impressionism, soul, and folk storytelling. His work is held in the permanent collections of the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Charles H. Wright Museum, the McKenna Museum, and the Amistad Research Center, and since 2023, he has served as director of Florida State University's Civil Rights Institute. Hang Take Me to the Water II where the family gathers, and let it start the conversation. Signed, numbered, and limited to 3,500. Order yours today.