If you are lucky, you might find yourself in the capable hands of 17-year-old Saba Tesfay as your youth docent when you visit this hidden gem of a museum this summer.
The graduating senior and aspiring physician will lead you through the remarkable, 10,000-square-foot wall of African-American history murals, sharing her deep knowledge and sharp commentary. And she might begin the tour with this:
“I love history. We don’t get taught our part of history at school. We get acknowledgment during Black History Month, but we only learn about slavery and segregation.”
The Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum celebrates, through art and historical documentation, both Black struggle and achievement throughout history in Sacramento, the United States, and around the world.
Shonna McDaniels
Artist Shonna McDaniels, supported by a cadre of other creatives, developed the museum with grants and donations over many years. The busy, colorful place was designed to use art, much of it created locally, to educate the community, and to revel in the rich contributions of Black entrepreneurs, architects, educators, artists, entertainers, sports figures, racial justice fighters, and political leaders.
After struggling for years to land a larger location to house the museum’s growing collection, a tenant departure at Florin Square opened up another 2,500 square feet of space. The additional rooms are now full of engaging exhibits, many of which include explanatory audio recordings and artifacts to help tell their stories. One space, for example, teaches about Sacramento’s first Black-owned restaurant, Dunlap’s Dining Room, an Oak Park establishment that could serve only whites. Another celebrates Black people who escaped slavery and became millionaires.
“God has shown me that I need to stay put and stay focused,” McDaniels says. “We are able to serve the community in a way no other museum can.”
In addition to the murals and exhibits, the museum offers tours, workshops, and art experiences for student groups, as well as frequent events, including Second Sunday Family Days and Second Saturday with music, art tables, food, and films. Visitors to Florin Square also will find more than 75 minority-owned businesses from ethnic art shops to aestheticians and nonprofit social services organizations.
Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum
Location: Florin Square, 2251 Florin Road Hours: Thursday–Sunday noon–5 p.m., Wednesday by appointment Price: $4 for adults; $3 seniors; $2 ages 13–17; free for children 12 and younger More information:sojoartsmuseum.org
Let's look at one another again - freed from Zoom screens and lonely living rooms. Let’s see each other as humans in the three-dimensional wild.
Come and join 10-min participatory drawing actions. Community performance artist Petra Kuppers invites people to create surreal contour drawings of one another, of dancing participants, and of quietly meditating ones. All materials provided, zero drawing experience necessary, grounded in disability culture values.
Enjoy spending a few minutes to look deeply at and witness another human being.
Register today. This event is free and open to the public.
Alpha M Bruton and Adero J Knott’s artistic vision entails an intergenerational curatorial practice that seeks to provide a model for emerging and established curators to innovate in curating inclusive experience, gain practical curating experience and critically reflect on how their curatorial style will imprint on the Evanston community and the world.
Throughout the exhibition, Bruton and Adero have invited artists to participate in a series of virtual dialogues. These dialogues explore ways artists examine their environment through themes of Racism, Spirituality, Documentation, and Art as Wellness, as well as the intersection of art and social justice – how does identity and intersectionality affect our lived experiences, as seen in the practice of an artist?
"Reaching for Our Mother... Earth" by Caryl Henry Alexander
FEATURED ARTISTS
Daphne Burgess, Talver Germany-Miller, Liz Gómez, Tracie Hall, Caryl Henry Alexander, LaKesha Howard, Candace Hunter, Larissa Johnson-Akinremi, Petra Kuppers, Shonna McDaniels, Sandy Steinbrecher, Andrea Yarbrough
Let's look at one another again - freed from Zoom screens and lonely living rooms. Let’s see each other as humans in the 3-dimensional wild.
Come and join 10-min participatory drawing actions. Community performance artist Petra Kuppers invites people to create surreal contour drawings of one another, of dancing participants, and of quietly meditating ones. All materials provided, zero drawing experience necessary, grounded in disability culture values.
Enjoy spending a few minutes to look deeply at and witness another human being.
"Art is Business" Reposted article by Brian Zimmerman , Aug. 12, 2016
Pianist and educator Ann E. Ward, one of the most recognized female composers of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, July 18 at her home on the South Side of Chicago. She was 67.
A gifted improviser who was also an accomplished vocalist and African percussionist, Ward was born into a musical family in Chicago in 1949. Her career began as a concert pianist at the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University. After graduating from Kentucky State University with a degree in music composition, she performed with the Ken Chaney Experience.
A tireless supporter of the Chicago arts community, Ward frequently appeared in productions with the city’s more prominent theater companies, including Steppenwolf and North Light, serving as pianist and music director. Later, she became an integral part of the AACM, especially as a member of the Great Black Music Ensemble, in which she performed boldly and brilliantly alongside vocalist Dee Alexander, reedist Douglas Ewart, trombonist George Lewis, flutist Nicole Mitchell, reedist Mwata Bowden, and saxophonist Ed Wilkerson, among others.
Ward was a musician whose commitment to furthering the creative arts was matched only by her passion for educating and inspiring new artists. She was a teacher in the Arts and Humanities Programs for the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools on Chicago’s South Side. She served as MIn addition, shester of Music at Chatham Bethlehem Presbyterian Church for more than 20 years. Ward also volunteered her time to serve as the director of the AACM School of Music on the campus of Chicago State University.
“I attribute my experiences in music and the arts to the wonderful people who have shared their knowledge, time, talent, and support with me over the years. With God and my special ‘musical family,’ I have been blessed to sustain myself as a viable performer, educator, and artist,” Ward wrote on the Great Black Music Ensemble’s website.
On Facebook, friends, colleagues, and family offered condolences and expressed gratitude for Ward's contributions to the Chicago creative music community.
“We lost one of the pillars of the AACM Chicago today: the gifted vocalist, pianist, teacher and administrator of the AACM, Mama Ann E. Ward,” wrote Art “Turk” Burton, a Chicago-based percussionist and AACM member. “She spent many years unselfishly giving of herself to the community and the AACM. I am honored to have performed with her on many occasions locally and internationally. I am sure she will be in the celestial orchestra doing what she does best.”
Alpha Bruton is the Chief Curator at Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, a project that connects artists with temporary installation spaces. She aims to examine the current changes in curatorial production and develop innovative displays concerning virtual spaces. "Curatorial Practice" explores the impact of the urban environment on the artist and their work and the contributions that artists make to the vitality of a city.
Alpha Bruton completed her studies in art education at California State University, Sacramento, and earned an MAAA in Art Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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