Celebrate the Arts in the MLK Neighborhood!

Collaborations: Artist Talk

Hmmmm?

From the Chicago Tribune

Earlier this year, I wrote a story about the increasing number of white professors teaching African-American studies. At the center of the discussion was/is authenticity and whether white people can teach in a discipline that requires such an immersion into black culture. A story by the Los Angeles Times asks essentially this same question about playwrights. Should white playwrights direct plays about black folk? The story goes on to ask: Should black, Asian, Hispanic playwrights direct plays about white folk?
This is a controversy that has been brewing in the American theater world since this spring when a white director was tapped to stage a revival of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," which opened on Broadway.
According to the L. A. Times story:
“The American theater has been engaged in a racially charged discussion of who should direct what. Should white artists direct plays that are black in authorship and subject? And by extension, should black -- and Latino, Asian, mixed-race and other -- directors be hired to stage plays written by white authors? Such are the questions being posed.
"I don't think there is a simple and satisfactory answer," says black playwright Lynn Nottage, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Ruined." "This conversation is part of our cultural growing pains, and it's one of the many steps in the road to defining our creative and cultural identity."
The controversy was ignited when Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher was tapped to helm the Wilson revival. Wilson, who died in 2005, had insisted that only black directors stage his work. But his widow, Constanza Romero, approved the choice of Sher, who is white. This production marked the first time a Wilson play had been directed by a white director on Broadway. And black artists have voiced concern about the precedent.”
Part of the concern for some black artists is that this only further limits their opportunities, which already are few and far between. There was a similar sentiment shared by a few African-American studies professors, lamenting the limited number of slots for professors on college campuses So here’s the question: Does one have to live a certain experience in order to be the best at putting it on stage? Or is an intense love of the subject (and the craft) enough to make it authentic?
(As a novelist, I would hate to be limited only to writing about and creating black characters.)

Read the Rest of the Story and Comments at the Chicago Tribune.

Ebony, Jet, Going the Way of Vibe?

Recently, I posted about an exhibit of Ebony Magazine covers in Portsmouth. This morning while perusing one of my favorite blogs, The Black Snob, I came across this post about how Johnson Publications' Ebony and Jet Magazines are struggling financially. What do you think? The comments are very interesting and present a variety of theories about why the publications are facing financial challenges: lack of support from the African American Community, lack of quality writing, lack of advertising revenue for all magazines. It's something to think about. I would hate to see such mainstays of the African American community go under; but, I have to admit the only time I read either publication is when I'm waiting at the barber shop.
Here's a link to the post on The Black Snob

Chemistry of Color

In 1988, renowned artist Jacob Lawrence visited the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) to give the school’s commencement address. During that trip, he wandered through the extensive American Art collection there, making a comment to then-Board Director Harold A. Sorgenti that would soon change the programming at the museum.
Lawrence pointed out the lack of African-American artists included in the collection. Sorgenti, also the president of ARCO Chemical Company, realized that Lawrence was scathingly correct; he set off to build the ARCO’s art collection to make up for the PAFA oversight.
The company began to collect only work by contemporary African American artists, concentrating on the time after the 1960s civil rights battles. ARCO amassed a treasure trove, but soon the company was swallowed up. Rather than allow the collection to be sold off piecemeal, Sorgenti bought it and donated it to PAFA.
The exhibition currently on view at the Taft Museum of Art, The Chemistry of Color: The Sorgenti Collection of African American Art, highlights some of the key artists in the PAFA collection: Saar, Faith Ringgold, Howerdina Pindell, Sam Gilliam, Beverly Buchanan and Romare Bearden, as well as Lawrence himself.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

Richard Mayhew @ MOAD SF

Museum of the African Diaspora: The Art of Richard Mayhew, Oct. 9-Jan. 10, 2010. Deep, lush, brilliant color that will knock your socks off is just one of the many pleasures offered by Mayhew's paintings in a retrospective that includes landscapes and figurative works from the late 1950s through the 1970s. Mayhew, an activist and artist of African and Native American descent swept up in the fervor of the 1960s, was, along with Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis, a founding member of Spiral, a legendary coterie of black artists who addressed issues of racial equality through their art. http://www.moadsf.org/

Sister Gertrude Morgan

Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980) was a preacher, missionary, artist, musician, and poet who worked in New Orleans in the 1960s and '70s, notable primarily for her folk art.
She was born in 1900 in Lafayette, Alabama, and moved to Columbus, Georgia at the age of eighteen. She was married to Will Morgan in 1928, but at the age of 38 heard a voice from God telling her to become a street evangelist. She left her family and husband to move to New Orleans, where she organized an orphanage with two other missionaries.

God told her to begin painting in 1956 and in 1957 heard a voice telling her that she was the Bride of Christ. Hearing this news, she adopted a white habit and moved out of the orphanage to establish "The Everlasting Gospel Mission" in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Music was one of the tools of her ministry, and in the early 1970s, Let's Make A Record was recorded in order to capture Morgan singing and playing her tambourine.
She painted in order to create visual aids for her preaching, and her paintings use a colorful religious iconography. Some of her favorite subjects are the Book of Revelation and her and Jesus flying in an airplane, this last accompanied by the poem "Jesus is my air Plane." She painted on whatever was at hand, including styrofoam trays, window shades and even toilet paper rolls.
Her art brought her fame and notoriety, and in 1974 she announced that the Lord had ordered her to cease painting in order to concentrate on her preaching and poetry. She died in 1980.
In 2005, the New Orleans Museum of Art presented the first comprehensive collection of her art. Also in 2005, the Ropeadope label released King Britt presents Sister Gertrude Morgan, which took the a cappella/tambourine recordings of Let's Make A Record and added contemporary beat programming and instrumentation. The album received rave reviews and created a new, young audience for Sister Gertrude Morgan. The album artwork featured her paintings.

Gordon Parks Remembers

Parks Collection to SUNY Purchase

In the 1940s, a photographer named Gordon Parks broke into a scene that had previously been dominated by white men. He was the first black photographer to work for magazines like Life and Vogue, and the first to work for the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information. Born into poverty and the youngest of 15, he had a sensibility about poor living conditions. But as a renowned photographer, he also had access to some of the most famed athletes and celebrities, like Muhammad Ali and Ingrid Bergman.

This summer, it was announced that more that 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives of Parks' work will be moved to Purchase College/State University of New York to be preserved, cataloged and made available for public view and study. The groundbreaking photographer died in 2006, and the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation acquired his work the following year. The foundation will also be sending photos by Timothy O'Sullivan, Mathew Brady and Ed Clarke along with Parks' collection to be housed by Purchase.

Read the Rest of the Story Here.

Ebony Cover Exhibit

PORTSMOUTH — For the next two months, a new art exhibit at the Seacoast African American Cultural Center will bring visitors on a visual journey through six decades of African-American history, as chronicled by Ebony magazine.
Local artist Shawn Pelech and SAACC Vice President Kelvin Edwards spent three months collecting covers of the magazines from people throughout the country. Ebony is a monthly magazine for the African-American market that has been published continuously since 1945. Some of the covers were framed and are now part of the 40-image display — the first exhibit at the SAACC since it moved to the Discover Portsmouth Center at the city's former library.

"We borrowed and begged from all around and got them up," Pelech said. "It's the first show in the new space, and I think it looks pretty good."
The exhibit opened last weekend and will remain on display until early October. The covers feature African-Americans who made contributions in all realms of society over the past 60 years, from politics, the arts, religion, sports, science and education.
Pelech said it was a pleasure putting the exhibit together and she learned a lot by doing it. She said she also felt it was important to highlight the publication in a time when so much is material is read online.
"It's printed material, it's visual and we don't want to lose that printed word," she said. "As we were doing it, I was thinking of how magazines are becoming extinct and how special it is to be able to show this at this time."
SAACC President Vernis Jackson said the first exhibit in the new space is fitting because Ebony is the only African-American magazine to have chronicled the lives of African-Americans continuously during a period of enormous changes.
"When I saw the covers it just sort of jolted me back and I remembered all contributions these people have made," Jackson said. "I expect to see African-American culture and history to be displayed here and I think we've accomplished that goal."
Pelech said she'd like to share the exhibit with another cultural group in another city and perhaps bring a different outside exhibit to Portsmouth.

For More Information, Click Here.

Majora Carter, Speaker in the Hunter Series

Activist and environmental leader, Majora Carter, will be the next speaker in the 2009 George
T. Hunter Lecture Series on September 15, 2009. Ms. Carter is a leader in the environmental
justice and green‐collar job movements. In 2006, Ms. Carter was the recipient of a MacArthur
genius grant for her work in bringing sustainable development and green‐collar jobs to her
South Bronx neighborhood. The George T. Hunter Lecture Series is sponsored by the Benwood
Foundation, in partnership with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the Ochs Center
for Metropolitan Studies, and CreateHere.
Ms. Carter will replace Van Jones in the lineup of George T. Hunter Lecture Series speakers. Mr.
Jones was recently appointed by President Obama as Special Adviser on Green Jobs. “We regret
that Mr. Jones won’t be available for the September lecture, but we understand that his new
position in the Obama Administration will require his full and undivided attention,” said Corinne
Allen, Executive Director of the Benwood Foundation, “However, we couldn’t have found a
better replacement speaker than Majora Carter. Like Mr. Jones, Majora is a young leader in the
green collar job movement and can speak about the importance of creating healthy and
sustainable communities for all residents.”
Born, raised, and continuing to live in the South Bronx, Ms. Carter’s work takes her around the
world in pursuit of resources and ideas to improve the quality of life in environmentally
challenged communities. She founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 and since then, she has
been instrumental in creating riverfront parks, building green roofs, working to remove poorly
planned highways in favor of positive economic development, and successfully implementing
the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (BEST) program— a pioneering green‐collar job
training and placement system ‐‐ seeding a community with a skilled workforce that has both a
personal & economic stake in their urban environment. Ms. Carter worked with Van Jones to
co‐found Green For All, a national initiative dedicated to creating quality jobs in green
industries by collaborating with government, business, labor, and grassroots communities.
“Given the involvement in the green movement within the UTC community, we are proud to
have Ms. Carter, a dynamic environmental leader, participate in the lecture series,” said UTC
Chancellor Roger Brown. “We know she will be an engaging speaker for our students and
faculty, as well as the broader community.”
Ms. Carter will be the third speaker in the 2009 George T. Hunter Lecture Series. Prior speakers
were author and historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and PBS Education Correspondent, John
Merrow. The lecture will be at 7pm at the Roland Hayes Concert Hall located inside the UTC
Fine Arts Center. All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, visit
www.benwood.org.
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Struggling to survive, and still making art

In 2006, Brian Joiner's life was as wide open as the landscapes he painted. His work hung in the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. His exhibits drew crowds to the Weston Art Gallery. His salary was edging on six figures and his artistic star rising.

By January 2009, Joiner was three months behind on his mortgage and not only fearing foreclosure but wondering what an artist does with the years of work he's accumulated if he becomes homeless.
He didn't need anybody's quarterly reports to tell him the economy was writhing. For two years, attendance at art shows had been dwindling. Some of his most ardent collectors couldn't buy the work he was selling cut-rate.
Hard times hit artists differently than they hit the rest of us. Harder, for one thing.
A National Endowment for the Arts survey shows the unemployment rate for artists was double that for other professionals for the last quarter of 2008, leaving 129,000 artists out of work. While the labor force grew by 800,000 that year, the artist work force shrank by 74,000.
The loss of a job for an artist isn't just the loss of a paycheck and benefits. An artist's career is built on vision and self-belief. It's seeing a world different from the one everyone else sees and believing not only that he can capture it in paint, but indeed that he must.
Artistic visions are singular things. They can't be outsourced. They can't be handed off to a lower-paid colleague or wrapped into someone else's job descriptions. Each time a talented artist walks away from his calling, there is a hole in the firmament no one else can fill.
Leaving one's art isn't departing a career but is as Joiner puts it, "throwing away an inheritance."
It should surprise no one, then, when Joiner's first reaction to his dire economic straits was to be "balled up in my bed in the middle of the afternoon thinking of a new career path."
He did not, however, stay there.
The reconstitution of this man and the rebirth of his work is art in and of itself. First Brian Joiner painted self-doubt, struggle and overcoming. Then he lived it.
At age 46, he got out of bed, applied everywhere from hospitals to Ikea to do everything from housekeeping to inventory and finally landed a job in a company's mailroom. "Human beings are made for adjustments," he says simply.
The sensitive, slim-fingered painter who used to make rounds greeting supporters at exhibit openings now makes rounds delivering memos and magazines. He does it with gratitude and humility, and a constant eye for scenes that can feed into his art.
Joiner's vision never left him or, more precisely, he never let it go. With a mystic sense of destiny, he heard about the Taft Museum of Art's Robert S. Duncanson Artist-in-Residence competition and began saving vacation days.
He applied and was selected. He will spend two weeks this fall giving gallery talks, presenting school programs and hosting his own lecture at the Taft.
More important, he will create a new exhibit of paintings that echo those of Duncanson, an African-American artist of the mid-19th century, but will incorporate modern social issues and modern art techniques.
Then he will go back to the mailroom - except for nights and weekends, when you can be sure he will be painting.
"For everyone else who has a dream and is going through a difficult time, I'd just say this," Joiner says. "Sometimes our dreams become our reality. But sometimes our reality also becomes our dreams."

From Cincinatti.com.

Brian Joiner Artwork