10 African American female artists invited to exhibit at the Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum have proved unafraid of provoking controversy. Through their artwork, these women confront the injustices of misrepresentation done to black women throughout history and disrupt the built-in prejudices they have faced. Importantly they also prove that the importance of black females' bodies runs more than just skin deep.
"Women's bodies have constantly stirred within society, especially from the seeming contradiction between female sexuality and motherhood.
Often called the “Madonna and whore dichotomy,” this ambivalence makes the site of the female body a contentious spectacle for men and women alike. Add to this mixture the sight of a black female body and the racial context it elicits, and we find ourselves in the middle of a textured conversation about womanhood, race, and inevitably society’s opinions upon it.”Christabel Johanson is a writer and a curator from London.
Curator Talver Germany Miller:
A native of Sacramento, California, I was educated like many other artists from grammar to graduate school. I received a BA degree in Studio Art, BA in Social Science/ Anthropology, and an MS. Degree in Counseling Education all from the California State University of Sacramento. I am an Associate Professor of Art at Folsom Lake College, a member of the Placerville Arts Association, San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, Sacramento African American Art Collection, Phantom Gallery Chicago Network on LinkedIn, and a member of the California Arts Association.
The Phantom Gallery Chicago is proud to announce a collaboration with composer and musician Reggie Nicholson as resident artists for the 2022 program year.
"Mettle" (2018) features his second solo recording for percussion.
The instantly recognizable style and sound of Reggie Nicholson have elevated him to one of the most distinctive, inventive, and inspirational drummer/percussionists of his generation, a formidable technician but one who uses his considerable skills constructively and with infinite taste.
Born in Chicago, his drum concept perfectly fitted the needs of many extraordinary Chicago musicians. An active member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1979, Nicholson has absorbed the musical influences of each AACM member learning the skills to compose and improvise original music.
Nicholson has performed and recorded with a wide variety of jazz and new music luminaries such as Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, Leroy Jenkins, Anthony Braxton, Sam Newsome, Myra Melford, Wilber Morris, Elektra Kurtis, Billy Bang, Butch Morris, James Spaulding, Yuko Fujiyama, Oliver Lake, Fay Victor, Roy Campbell, just to name a few. In addition, Reggie has toured throughout Europe and Japan.
As a composer, he was nominated twice for the Cal Arts Composition Award in 1993/1994. His compositions were performed throughout NYC, including concerts for Roulette, Interpretations, Vision Festival, and the AACM.
Nicholson's recordings, which have highlighted his compositions, are "Unnecessary Noise Allowed (1997)," which features his quintet, The Reggie Nicholson Concept. "Percussion Peace" (2005) is a solo recording experimenting with electronics and percussion instruments. In 2007, the premiere of "Timbre Suite" (Tone Colors) was recorded for a percussion ensemble." Surreal Feel" (2008) shows the maturity and growth of his composing skills with music for brass instruments and percussion. "Mettle" (2018) features his second solo recording for percussion. His latest recording, "No Preservatives Added" (2020), features new compositions for the percussion ensemble.
Currently, Nicholson is continuing to explore the aesthetics of his musical ideas.
Reggie Nicholson, Composer/Percussionist
Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape
"Soundscape Tapestry."
He will work directly with the lead artist and chief curator, Alpha Bruton. In addition, Phantom Gallery Chicago will provide technical and administrative support for creating new work and exploring new ideas with a two-month sound and video exhibition at the end of the project.
Phantom Gallery Chicago's mission is to promote the betterment of the visual arts community through the arts and to promote cultural activities in exhibits, workshops, and artists-in-residence projects. This collaborative project will utilize sound and visual art in a public installation. Soundscape Tapestry will echo the African American music experience unique to the sounds of Chicago. As a visual artist, Alpha Bruton will experiment with abstractions, vibrational sound narratives, and vibrational sound narrations in response to the experimental sound of composer/percussionists Reggie Nicholson in an eight-week series of concentrated studio time to develop platforms for exploration and creation of new works.
Elastic Arts and AMP- CHI Presents: Intersections, Chicago Jazz Fest Afterfest AACM
Phantom Gallery Chicago realizes artists need to keep creating and inventing at their best and that they need time to reflect and work seriously or just for fun. The journey to becoming a skilled and accomplished artist is lifelong. When you invest in your talent, you can reinvigorate your passion for making art. But, an essential part of the process is building into your schedule a time for renewal, new experiences, and a different perspective. Self-directed artist residency, "artist vacations," is not taken to get away from their work but to find ways to inspire their work with new vitality and energy.
The goal is to give artists a space to imagine new work methods. The AIR is followed by a two-month exhibition created, fully documented, and a full-color exhibition catalog. Collaborating artists are encouraged to share their ideas and complete a visual diary of drawings, collages, videos, or photography. This visual journal will reflect the on-site experience, employing themes, contemporary narratives, and personal or historical regarding the course or discourse of their work.
Elastic Arts and AMP- CHI Presents: Intersections, Chicago Jazz Fest Afterfest AACM
While artist residencies have traditionally provided opportunities for artists to work in solitude, many residency programs today are designed specifically around artists engaging the local community. Increasingly, organizations still primarily offering retreat-style residencies are expanding into community-engaged work and looking for best practices from peers.
This collaboration is curated by the chief curator of the Phantom Gallery Chicago Network and is an ambitious new sector using tactical urbanism and contributing to the horizontal landscape. With the intent of exposing pedestrians and tourists to the experience of what is viewed inside the gallery—creating a dynamic platform for large-scale installations, moving image works, and sound performances, which has had a dedicated space at the Bronzeville Artist Lofts since 2014 years.
Past presenting film and media artists: "The Kaleidoscope Effect" by Tali Farchi and Royce Deans (2011), "Vacation Spot" curated by Janelle Vaughn Dowell (2014); Collective Voices "CV Film Festival" curated by Ife Olatunji; (2015-2016). "Wabi House Media" Presents "Pop-Up Movie Theater," "Tactical Urbanism," "Experimental Screenings," and RACE Films" curated by Renee Baker (2017- 2021). "Ceremonial Teas," the Social Move initiative, was curated by Larissa J. Akeremi (2020).
All the projections are accompanied by original soundscapes juxtaposed with the urban sounds of Bronzeville @ 47th Street and various intersections of the community.
"Art is Business" https://cleancalifornia.dot.ca.gov/local-grants/local-grant-program.
The Florin Road Community Beautification Project is a public outreach campaign, youth engagement, and beautification effort to improve the area from Tamoshanter Way through Franklin Boulevard on Florin Road. The project will coordinate with Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum, Luther Burbank High School, Florin Road Partnership, local non-profits, and businesses to address litter and illegal dumping hot spots. This project will create public spaces for showcasing the culture and diversity of the Meadowview community. The project will include art installations on Florin Road, such as banners, murals, interactive structures, landscaping, museum signage, and public seating. High school interns conduct litter source assessments, adopt litter hot spots for clean-up, and design and promote litter abatement solutions. There will be opportunities for the community to participate in beautification efforts through community art projects, youth programming, and outreach events.
The Office of Arts and Culture (OAC) was established in 1977 by a City and County Ordinance. OAC is a public agency devoted to supporting, promoting, and advancing the arts in the region. Funded by the Sacramento City and County, OAC provides funding to local artists and arts groups; promotes the skills through marketing, outreach, and education initiatives; provides resources to support and increase regional arts education activities; and serves as a community partner and resource.
Clean California Local Grant Program (CCLGP) Awardee Announcement
Congratulations to the Clean California Grant Program award recipients! Today the Governor's Office announced the award of 105 local projects approved for nearly $300 million in Clean California grants for communities throughout the state. Caltrans received more than 300 applications for local grant projects. Proposals included many community enhancements, such as litter abatement, landscaping and art installations, greening, and community identification projects. Check out the list of awarded projects here!
Awards were given to 105 projects, or approximately 30% of the received applications, totaling $295,993,146 in requested grant funds. The CCLGP team received 329 applications by the deadline of February 1, 2022, which sought $758,485,147 in grant funds. Check out the "Program Results" section on the CCLGP website for more information.
The CCLGP team appreciates all the interest and participation in this program from agencies throughout California!
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
FRAN JOY, a recipient of the Evanston Mayor's Individual Artist of the Year Award, is known for her works depicting women's issues and topics of social injustice. Her subjects are wide-ranging, including intimate portraiture, ethereal figures, historical portrayals, tribal imagery, scenes of violent injustice, and cosmic vistas.
Fran is a visual artist, curator, designer, and life coach who grew up in a small town in southern Illinois, but who subsequently has called New Orleans, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Evanston home, and who makes frequent visits to New York. Fran has a depth of experience in curating. She created and curated the? Justice for Peace? exhibit for the Noyes Cultural Art Center, which included local and Chicago artists as well as ETHS art students. She produced and curated shows for the Executive Director of the Illinois Arts Alliance at the time, Ra Joy for the Chicago Home Theater Art and Music Festival.
She helped curate one of Evanston's World Lakefront festivals and the Illinois One State Art Convention for the Arts held at Evanston's Orrington Hotel. She curated a show for Art Encounter at the three-story historic home of collectors Ra and Falona Joy in Bronzeville.
"Art is Business"
Using tactical urbanism as a tool and art in placemaking, Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum kicked off its Community Mural Beautification and Educational Workshops on July 15th,2019. Professional artists working with the museum provided workshops and mural training. The first project of this series was held at the Mack Road Valley High Community center. Youth were introduced to film documentaries from the artist of the Harlem Renaissance, youth who attended learned about jazz artists, poets and writers, and visual artists who were legendary and made a historical impact through the arts. The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion centered in Harlem, New York, from 1918–37. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement," named after The New Negro, a 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke.
Shonna McDaniels, Executive Director, a visual artist, and community activist, envisioned an institution to preserve Black history and celebrate the accomplishments of African American people and their legacy. Offering resources to document, preserve and educate the public on African Americans' history, life, and culture.
Want to join me in making a difference? Shonna asked David Washington the question he said yes. He is a motivated muralist with five years' experience and enthusiasm for developing a curriculum for community arts education. In addition, he brings with him deep architecture and art history knowledge. He started at SOJO Summer Camp as a volunteer-created fun and educational activity for campers.
David painted images on a bench themed after W.H. Johnson, with one of Langston Hughes Poetry benches, also the raised bed, and other elements of the garden.
"Art is Business" Project Description- for gallery hours call 773-681-6570
Network
presents new works by artist Lois Stone
Friday, August 16, 2019
Pre-boarding Viewing 5pm -6pm, Boarding 6-9pm
440 E. 47th Street, Chicago IL 60653
Green Abstract, 12" x 12", 2019 Lois Stone
Artist Lois Stone
Intuitive Space Intuitive Space is a collection of abstract paintings I have created in an exploration of mark-making. Decided or automatic expressions, marks are created in a push and pull manner with spontaneous movement and expression to discover, free, and reveal my own creativity. Through this process, I hope to evoke that same joy of the process to the viewer.
Untitled Abstract, Lois Stone
September 8th, 2019 3-6pm, Sunday Salon Series
September 13th, Closing 6pm - 9pm
Untitled Abstract, Lois Stone
Join us for the August 16th, 2019 Trolley Tour, during the Bronzeville Art District 3rd Friday Open Studio at the
"Art is Business" Please check the weather before voyaging out, a notice will go out if this event is canceled due to extreme weather.
SILENT SMILES: INTERIOR INVISIBILITY
Renee Baker Artworks on Paper
Feb 1- March 15
CLOSING RECEPTION MARCH 1st, 6-9 pm
Phantom Gallery Chicago Network
436 E 47th St
Suite #205
773-681-6570 for more information.
The Phantom Gallery Chicago Network is proud to announce Renee Baker as guest- artist in residency. Her residency will take place between Feb 1st - September 30th, 2019. She will be working directly with Phantom Gallery Chicago’s chief curator Alpha Bruton. The Phantom Gallery Chicago will provide AIR with technical and administrative support, support for the creation of new work and the exploration of new ideas with a monthly exhibition featuring new works.
First Friday Salon Series- "Creative Conversation"
Description: "Salon" is a room or series of rooms where works of art are exhibited, thus the Phantom Gallery Chicago Loft Gallery, located in the Bronzeville Artist Lofts, 2nd floor, Room 205 are hosting a series of creative conversations, and artist talks hosted by featured artists in the network.
Renee Baker for the month of February will feature the works of N. Masani Landfair.
A month-long showcase of installations and interactive events in and around Woodlawn provokes questions of our place in nature and its place in our communities
Patric McCoy and Kahari Black discuss environmentalism, art, and Woodlawn's history (Matthew Searle / Experimental Station)
In his art gallery, which inhabits a small brick house at 64th and Dorchester, originally purchased by his grandfather in 1946, artist William Hill, a co-curator of the Experimental Station showcase “Environmental Concerns,” explained the project’s concept.
“The key is by establishing, fusing art, environment, and community, we begin to raise really important questions and conversations about who we are, and how we explore creativity, art and an important lifestyle that’s sort of connected or involved in the community,” Hill said. “Our goal is to have ongoing shows or exhibitions that would focus on various problems or issues that relate to the environment.”
“I wanted more of a local-global experience, where we would concentrate on youth and communities in underserved areas of the city within the parameters of Englewood, Woodlawn, and South Shore,” Hill said. He contacted art instructors at Hyde Park Academy High School, artist Gerald Sanders, and others to participate in the showcase.
Sanders, who teaches art at his Bronzeville studio, contributed his own and his students’ paintings to the exhibit at Hill’s gallery, one of four physical spaces “Environmental Concerns” is inhabiting and connecting in the project. The paintings explore themes of environmental degradation, animal population dynamics, and humans’ impacts on natural spaces. In one watercolor, a Bengal tiger, sharply in focus, considers a blurry reflection of itself in a stream. In another painting, scrawny trees peek out from a landscape crowded with shotgun houses.
Artists in multiple disciplines from across the city contributed to the showcase. Rhonda Ghoulston’s students at Hyde Park Academy made papier-mâché animals for a “Zoo of Endangered Animals.” Sound artist Norman Long led guided sound walks that explored how the soundscape in the neighborhood around the Experimental Station defines the experience of moving through it. Alpha Bruton, an art consultant and chief curator for the Phantom Gallery Chicago, created an art installation that hangs in the Experimental Station’s foyer. The piece incorporates projected slides, sound elements, computer monitor shells, shards of mirrors, and other found objects.
When she began conceptualizing the installation, she considered different ways of entering the space as well as questions around technology as a source of physical and mental pollution, Bruton told the Weekly. She collected some of the installation’s components, and Hill alongside Experimental Station assistant director Matthew Searle provided others.
“All the things that are in the installation have to have a story of where they came from and why they’re purposed,” said Bruton.
The monitor shells represent her concerns about our reliance on the internet. “Even now, we have little kids that are plugged into their iPhones,” Bruton said. “These monitors were precursors to this little phone.” The monitors hang amid triangular shards of former mirrors. That element reminds the viewer to reflect on how humans have treated the environment. “What’s our legacy, what are we going to pass on to our grandchildren?” she said.
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Ground Yourself
In addition to site-specific art installations, the “Environmental Concerns” showcase has also incorporated public events.
One of those events, on October 13, gave shoppers at the 61st Street Farmers Market (also run by the Experimental Station) the opportunity to bury their fears—literally. Artists from Cream Co., a Pilsen-based art collective that creates interactive installations to explore alternative, sharing-oriented economies, hosted an interactive event titled “Plant Your Fears,” which invited market attendees to write down their sources of fear on slips of paper that the artists wrapped around allium and fritillaria bulbs. The artists later planted the bulbs at the nearby Woodlawn Botanical Nature Center, which Hill also manages.
“The intention was to create the art around the experience rather than the product,” Brett Swinney, a project manager at Cream Co., told the Weekly. “I think we always struggle with our fears—just personally we always have these things, and we always kind of feel the need to expel them without really thinking about putting them to use.” Whatever someone’s background, they would be able to contribute something that would take on a transformed nature as it grew into a garden, he said.
The artists chose bulbs that have been described by writers and on gardening websites with fear-provoking words. They found that allium plants, for example, have been variously called unpredictable, zealous, clingy, aggressive, wild, and persistent.
“It was fun to look at the flower and read different people’s descriptions of it and find the words that we thought were particular to how you could describe a fear,” said Sasha Earle, a creative director at Cream Co. “So that was another thing we considered. Is your fear weighty, is it hair-raising? These are all words that came from different people writing about these flowers.”
Participants offered a variety of fears to be buried. Climate change featured heavily, as did what Swinney called the “heavy hitters”: dying alone, death, and loneliness.
“People who participate are usually so open to just putting their feelings and hearts out there,” Earle said. “And we never know that’s going to happen, so it’s always a great reminder to us that people want a place to have their voice heard.”
The bulbs will spend the winter underground. “In the late spring, we should have a fear comfort garden,” Earle said.
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What Makes an Art Collector?
At a well-attended public conversation, Kahari Black, co-director of the Youth/Police Project at the Invisible Institute (another tenant of the Experimental Station) and a visuals contributor to the Weekly, discussed environmentalism, art, and Woodlawn’s history with Patric McCoy, a longtime EPA scientist and a cofounder of Diasporal Rhythms. Through the organization, McCoy collects, promotes, and preserves art from the African diaspora.
McCoy, who grew up in a two-room apartment in Woodlawn, began collecting art when he purchased a lithograph from his college roommate for ten dollars. In his home gallery McCoy now has over 1,000 pieces of fine art, the majority of which are by Chicago artists. But for many years, he never considered himself to be an art collector. McCoy told the audience that there are implicit barriers that prevent most people, himself included, from thinking they can access the art world.
“We tend to think immediately when you say ‘art collector’ that the person is super-wealthy,” McCoy said. This reinforces the notion that art is for the ultra-rich, he explained, and it tells the average person art isn’t for them. Another assumption is that art collectors “squirrel away their art and hide it,” he said. He also believed that he had to be “academic” and “encyclopedic” about art to be a collector. “I’d never taken an art history class,” McCoy said. Finally, the idea that fine art is an investment, in which every purchase must lead to future value, was not something he agreed with. “So I had four strikes in my head that were keeping me from thinking I was an art collector,” he said.
McCoy said he had an epiphany when he started considering other cultural touch points such as music, poetry, or fashion.
“I thought, well, everybody is a music collector in some way, shape, or form,” he said. “And the first thing you do in your music collection is you want to share it. So I said, you don’t have to be wealthy; you clearly share this thing; and you don’t have to know a thing about music to like it and acquire it; and you don’t think of it in terms of investment.” These things all happen in the art world, but not in other cultural spheres, he said.
McCoy and Black also discussed the history of the Black Arts Movement, how the environmental movement impacted national and local policy, and the relevance of both struggles today.
McCoy welcomed questions from the audience, several of whom asked what he thought the best strategies are for artists and community members to tackle critical challenges like climate change. McCoy argued for putting pressure on corporations by affecting their bottom line. “Corporations are not necessarily anti-environment,” he said. “They’re pro-money. They do what they have to do. If you don’t push them, they won’t do it.”
He said he’s almost resigned to the idea that things will get worse before they get better. Just almost: “But I’m an optimistic person, I believe it can turn around,” he said.
Editors’ Note: The Weekly is a tenant of the Experimental Station (come visit our newsroom!), which also serves as our nonprofit fiscal sponsor.
The closing event of “Environmental Concerns” will be held Tuesday, November 13, from 6pm–7:30pm. Participants will ceremoniously remove the art installation “Solo Saw,” a double-chainsaw creation by Erik Peterson, from its perch on a ledge inside the Experimental Station. The send off will feature performances, tastings, and sensory stimulation for guests. Searle plans to bake bread, and volunteers will make jams, jellies, and compotes to share.
“Environmental Concerns.” Experimental Station and Blackstone Bicycle Works, 6100 S. Blackstone Ave.; William Hill Gallery and Sculpture Garden & Dorchester Botanical Garden, 6442 S. Dorchester Ave.; Woodlawn Botanical Nature Center, 6300 S. Stony Island Ave. Exhibits open through Sunday, November 18. Free. (773) 241-6044. experimentalstation.org
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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