"I remembered as a child seeing people, mostly black - but not all - picking 
cotton.  Until the early 1970's, I had never walked through a field of 
blossoming cotton.  In that year I produced a series of paintings entitled 
"End of the Cotton Season".  "Ripe Cotton" was inspired by a trip we took to 
northern Mississippi in early January.  Some fields of cotton were unpicked 
and others partially picked, residue after the machine had passed through the 
field.  It seemed appropriate to foil the cotton in front of an abandoned 
shack.  Its service, as well as the people who lived in it were no longer 
needed.  Technology had replaced humans, speedy and less expensive.  But, I 
doubt any cotton balls would have remained, if humans were responsible for 
the pickin'."
(C) Rolland Golden