Vision & Sound: An African American Arts Event

by | Jan 15, 2025 | Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Learning, Live Performance

 

10th Anniversary  *  February 7 – 28, 2025

Vision & Sound creates an educational experience and environment that broadens the understanding and appreciation of African American visual and performing arts for multigenerational and multicultural audiences. We strive to build supportive relationships to encourage cultural equity throughout Arizona and beyond – recognizing that professional American artists of African descent are too often overlooked.

Opening Reception & Celebrate Sedona
Friday, February 7, 2025, 4-6 pm

In Sedona Arts Center’s Special Exhibitions Gallery & Upper Parking Lot
15 Art Barn Road, Sedona, Arizona 86336
Free event parking is located behind Sedona Arts Center’s Art Barn.

Featured Artists:

Anjola Ayodele

Patricia Bohannon

Dorrell Bradford

Antoinette Cauley

Jacqueline Chanda

Michael Cunningham

Lizz Denneau

Amber Doe

Debra Edgerton

Chas Frisco

Isse Maloi

Bob Martin

Philip Gabriel Steverson

George Welch

Shoreigh Williams

~Schedule of Events and Exhibitions~

Presented by Sedona Arts Center in partnership with the ASU Center for the Study of Race & Democracy

Celebrate Black History Month and enjoy artist demonstrations, food, wine, beer and music by the Tommy Dukes Band.
Friday, February 7-28, 2025

15 Art Barn Road, Sedona, Arizona 86336
The exhibition is on view in the Special Exhibitions Gallery.
Free event parking is located behind Sedona Arts Center’s Art Barn.
Featuring: Patricia Bohannon, Dorrell Bradford, Antoinette Cauley, Jacqueline Chanda, Michael Cunningham, Amber Doe, Lizz Denneau, Debra Edgerton, Chas Frisco, Isse Maloi, Bob Martin, Philip Gabriel Steverson, George Welch, and Shoreigh Williams

 

Vision & Sound Symposium
Saturday, February 8, 2025, 8:30 am-5 pm

Sedona Arts Center, 15 Art Barn Road, Sedona, Arizona 86336

Featuring keynote speaker and renowned dancer, choreographer and scholar LaTasha Barnes
as well as panel discussions, performances, receptions and reflections.
Free event parking is located behind Sedona Arts Center’s Art Barn.

Global Sounds Concert
Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 7-8:30 pm

Free tickets

Peoria Center for the Performing Arts, 10580 N 83rd Dr, Peoria, Arizona 85345
Enjoy a special concert by Gabriel Bey and Friends featuring Jazz, R&B and Funk.

Goodyear Jazz in the Park
Saturday, February 15, 2025, 5-8 pm 

Goodyear Civic Center, 1900 N. Civic Square, Goodyear, Arizona 85395
Celebrate Black History month and enjoy an evening of jazz.

Goodyear Teen Workshop
Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 3-5 pm

Fabric Tales – A workshop driven towards spontaneous creativity and instinctive imagination utilizing textiles.
During this workshop, participants will brainstorm, visualize, then create collage style artworks depicting characters and scenes from their imaginations with an array of fabrics provided by the artist. From scenic views of the mountains to abstract color compositions, each piece will be unique to the artist’s hand.
Participants will have the opportunity to work with pre-cut materials to create their own character, or roam freely by rummaging through curated fabrics to bring their imagined pieces to life. Click here to sign up.

Goodyear Recreation Campus, 420 S Estrella Parkway, Goodyear, Arizona 85338
(ages 12-17) with Philip Gabriel Steverson

Artist Demo with Jacqueline Chanda
Thursday, February 20, 2025, 4-6 pm 

Tolleson Public Library Gallery, 9055 W. Van Buren Street, Tolleson, Arizona  85353
Visit us at the Tolleson Public Library at 3 pm on Thursday, February 20 for catered snacks and a demo from featured Vision and Sound exhibit artist Jacqueline Chanda.

Peoria Arts & Cultural Festival
Saturday, March 1, 2024, 9 am-3 pm

Old Town Peoria (Peoria/Grand Avenues)
Enjoy artist demonstrations and workshops by select artists

Exhibitions in Sedona, Goodyear, Peoria & Tolleson

Peoria Main Library
Showing through March 28, 2025

8463 W. Monroe Street, Peoria, Arizona 85345
Featuring: Anjola Ayodele, Jacqueline Chanda, Isse Maloi, Bob Martin, Philip Gabriel Steverson, and Shoreigh Williams

Sunrise Mountain Library
Showing through March 28, 2025

21109 N 98th Ave, Peoria, Arizona 85382
Featuring: Michael Cunningham, Jacqueline Chanda, and Dorrell Bradford

Tolleson Public Library
Showing through March 29, 2025

9055 W. Van Buren Street, Tolleson, Arizona  85353
Featuring: Anjola Ayodele, Patricia Bohannon, Dorrell Bradford, Michael Cunningham, Jacqueline Chanda,
Lizz Denneau, Isse Maloi, Bob Martin, Philip Gabriel Steverson, and Shoreigh Williams

Georgia T. Lord Library
January 30-March 30, 2025

Featuring: Dorrell Bradford, Jacqueline Chanda, Isse Maloi, Bob Martin, Philip Gabriel Steverson, and Shoreigh Williams

1900 N. Civic Square, Goodyear, Arizona 85395

 

Harlem Renaissance Art at The MET!

by | Jul 14, 2024 | Art, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums

A current presentation at The MET, Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, is  the “first art museum survey of the subject in New York City since 1987, the exhibition establishes the Harlem Renaissance and its radically new development of the modern Black subject as central to the development of international modern art.”

“Featured artists include Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Winold Reiss, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee, and Laura Wheeler Waring.”

The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism

*~* Until July 28, 2024 *~*

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC

~*~*~*

 

Art Conversation Series: Artist and Teacher, Dr. J. Eugene Grigsby Jr.

by | Jun 2, 2024 | Art, Artist, Creativity, Culture

Artist Eugene Grigsby,1918 – 2013, taught at Arizona State for 20 years and spent two decades teaching in Phoenix public schools.

  1. What are the ideas or points of view that you’ve wanted to communicate in your paintings? I don’t know what I am communicating really until the painting is done. While I am working I am concentrating on design and how to cover a white canvas or paper. Using themes or patterns that I’ve found in African Sculpture or fabrics I wait until I’m done to see what’s there in terms of a social nature.
  2. Is there any one of your paintings that you feel epitomizes your thinking about art? The “Family” it represents design as well as a family which is an integrated family and is pulled together with design of faces and figures influenced by the artThe Family by JEGrigsby of the Kuba people of the Congo. This is a multiracial family, White mother, Black father and bi-racial children, a situation that was seen as illegal not long ago in this country. It is not lost on me that this portrays the family of some one who may become the President of the US.
  3. Is there anyone, who’s work you appreciate and that you feel is communicating along the same line? Samella Lewis' oil painting ``Interior,`` painted in 1996Rip Woods and Samella Lewis, who has written several books on Black/African American Artist and was the founder of International Review of African American Art, which has been taken over by Hampton University.
  4. You’ve spent a long time teaching and training young artists. Do you feel that your ideas/methods, what and how you taught, are being carried forward by new instructors? I feel that my major contribution is that of teaching more so then in my art. Many of my students have gone on to teaching art and have been, I believe, influenced by my teaching and method of teaching.
  5. Tell me about your teaching method? I’ve worked with my students on all aspects of their creativity. Each of my students was a class, meaning if I had ten students in one room I approached this as if I was teaching ten classes, because each student could be doing something different and with a different ability level. Some students would be working with jewelry, fashion design or painting etc. They would create a work book, which was a plan on what they wanted to get accomplished in my class, the materials they would use and the steps they would take to have their goal completed. Students were responsible for grading themselves and evaluating their progress based on what they said they wanted vs. what they actually did. Home work for my classes was to have students observe something in their lives, memorize what they had seen and as part next days class to compose a painting of what they observed the day before. They had a goal of completing a painting each day, and seeing the progress in their work. I also encourage students to make contact with an artist they admired. One of the students was interested in fashion design and wrote to “Coco Chanel”. Not only did she receive a response but continued for a while to receive information, advice and feedback that supported her in her studies. Something else I did was to have students study artists and their method of working. Later on they would do a self portrait in the style of the artist they studied. This way of learning I believe provided the students with a deeper understanding of the artist. Over the years many of my students were able to accomplish wonderful results, some in the arts and others in different fields. Many of them have stayed in touch and recount how what they had learned had assisted them with their careers as historian, nurses, writers and teachers. My goal was always to recognize individual ability and to see if I could help maximize their results.
  6. Activism, do you think that art can change the world? Some of my heroes, great artist like Picasso and Goya created work that spoke about a time in the world’s history that needed to change. They and others painted and wrote about an unvarnished truth that I feel may have helped to motivate people and governments to do something different. Art can free people up to think.
  7. Over the years, you have known many great artists, would they be surprised about the diversity in art today? I don’t think they would be surprised at all, they were all so different. Many of our African American painters and writers were forerunners to some of what we see now coming from our communities. No I don’t think they would be surprised, but they would be pleased.
    *** ~ ***

Faith Ringgold, R.I.P. * American Artist ~ 1930 – 2024

by | Apr 15, 2024 | Artist, Blogroll, Culture, Exhibits, Museums

“Faith Ringgold: American People”  was her West Coast debut at the de Young museum in San Francisco, CA November 2022.

“Bringing together fifty years of work, this is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Faith Ringgold’s groundbreaking vision…”

“From creating some of the most indelible artworks of the civil rights era to challenging accepted hierarchies of art versus craft through her experimental story quilts, Faith Ringgold’s body of work bears witness to the complexity of the American experience.”

Faith Ringgold: American People

de Young Museum: Golden Gate Park \ 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive,  SF, CA

(Image: Faith Ringgold, pictured before her 1997 painting, “The Flag Is Bleeding #2”)

~~~***~~~

 

Learning How “YOU” Draw

Learning How “YOU” Draw

by | Jan 27, 2024 | Art, Creativity, Drawing, Education

(Originally posted 8/13/09)

This week I participated in another sketch class and struck up a conversation with a couple of the artists  about how different artists have a philosophy about or  an approach  to life drawing, painting, music etc and that it is important, regardless of what artistic discipline you are involved with, that you find and be comfortable with your own “voice”.  In many aspects of our daily lives, we compromise ourselves so that we can fit in at work, school and maybe even family, however being creative is about not fitting in. The term self expression is not meant to mean “our expression”.

Tony Ryder

Tony Ryder

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele

So I’ve always cautioned artists  (myself included) in avoiding  mimicking or embeding

themselves totally in the philosophy of other artists. Here are some drawings from artists who’s work I admire –  yet they are very different from each other and from my own drawings.

 

The keywords are “Self Expression”

 

Bob Martin

Bob Martin

 

 

~~ ** ~~

Amoako Boafo at SAM

by | Oct 11, 2023 | Art, Blogroll, Culture

“Experience the beauty and complexity of Blackness in Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo’s debut solo museum exhibition Soul of Black Folks.”

Love his portraits. Love how he does skin.

“When I’m making paintings,

I want the characters to be strong,

I want them to be free,

I want them to be independent,

I want them to be unapologetic.”

— Amoako Boafo

Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks

SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
Simonyi Special Exhibition Galleries