Dial grew to be vocal about his progression as an artist, and his evolving style was influenced by other self-taught artists such as Holly and Bendolph, and his collector, Arnett. The American studies scholar, Charles Russell states that, in Dial’s early stage as a nationally recognized artist in the late 1980s, he experimented with welding.[42] He also made dense sculptures made from readily available objects and building materials that frequently contained rusted metals, rope, wire, clothing pieces, wood, and various paints.[43] After his introduction to Arnett in 1987, he began creating watercolor paintings and chalk drawings.[44] In the 1990s, Dial’s figural imagery appeared less. Russel is referring to the Dial’s decreased use of iconographic animals such as tigers, birds, or mules. Instead Dial experimented more with new media such as plastic pieces, burlap bags, furs, quilts, and rugs.[45] His later works included stronger painterly expression, abstractions, and larger scales.[46] This brief historical outline of Dial’s changing style offers a glimpse into how Dial may have conceptualized his large-scale work, History Refused to Die.

Dial’s interest in found objects can also be attributed to his participation in creative communities. Scholarly attention to the shared experiences between Black artists’ communities in the South has been discussion in relation to the use of discarded materials, which stemmed from their experience of impoverishment. Raina Lampkins-Fielder, a curator of the exhibition The Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South, argued that African American works by Dial, the Gee’s Bend quilters, and yard artists such as Holly came from a recuperative power of recycling materials.[47] In other words, the significance of the artwork comes from the act of retrieving found objects. The process of selecting objects was just as fundamental as the finished work. In Dial’s case, the process and the technical application were significant to his work.

Dial was particularly drawn to the fabric patching process by the Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, to whom Arnett introduced Dial in 2001, and quilters in his own family, specifically his great aunt, Sarah Dial Lockett.[48] Dial’s tribute to the quilters’ history and their process was demonstrated by his creation of painted and assembled artworks about the women quilters he met and for the Gee’s Bend quilt community. Many of his works were made to convey his admiration for their quilting efforts and being in a line of work that was primarily conducted by women. Although scholars have established a relationship between Dial and the history of Gee’s Bend quilters, these social connections between Dial and the Gee’s Bend quilters have not been sufficiently addressed in relation to History Refused to Die.[49] American art historian and curator, Joanne Cubbs introduced the shared experience of racial oppression between Dial and the Gee’s Bend quilters, but she did not examine how Dial examined their creative processes that would later be deployed by him in History Refused to Die.[50]

History Refused to Die additionally borrows from yard art methods, though not itself a yard artwork. This connection between Dial and yard art is derived from his interaction with Holly in 1987. A primary reason this form of art is explored for History Refused to Die is because of Dial and Holly’s relationship which began in 1987.[51] Dial had created homage pieces to Holly because of their shared experiences as self-taught artists.[52] Further, both transformed discarded objects into public sculptural yard art. According to Cubbs, “Black yard art is a widespread tr51. adition of found object sculpture made by African American artists throughout the South.”[53] Yard art is assembled along back roads, houses, or in fields and is composed of everyday materials. According to Arnett, yard art is defined as the use of specific signs, groupings of objects or materials, plantings, and landscaping.[54] Some yard displays incorporate decorations for ritualistic, spiritual, and historical reasons.[55] Dial participated in this tradition and once publicly displayed yard art outside of his house in Bessemer as a form of communication and connection which parallels Holly’s public yard displays. While History Refused to Die is not yard work, it does borrow traditional practices of Black vernacular yard art with its amalgamation of cast-off things from the immediate environment, which will be explored further in the next chapter.