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Artist a Day, Super Bowl Edition: Ernie Barnes
Today, I’m celebrating Super Bowl Sunday my way, by honoring a great Black artist whose career began as a professional football player. Ernie Barnes was from Durham, North Carolina where he endured Jim Crow segregation and childhood bullying, using football and art to strengthen his body and his resolve. He earned a scholarship to play…
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Artist a Day: Karen Collins
It’s February 1, and I’m back at it again! Last year I continued to pivot away from the blog to pursue more freelance/paid work, which meant that my Artist a Day and Culture Shock Art posts had to rest on the back burner for a bit. Oh, and I also relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina…
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Repost: Mark Bradford’s Scorched Earth at the Hammer
Been thinking about the process of excavating memory as it relates to history and the NYT’s 1619 Project. This is a repost from my old blog TONDI from a few years ago. Thought I’d share.~ Colony Original Post: SEPTEMBER 15, 2015, TONDI On a summer day in May an entire community was wiped off…
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A Case for Black Art History Month in Los Angeles
We tend to define key visual art moments through seminal shows that seek to define, map, and place an artist’s work in a historical context. In Los Angeles, many of these moments revolve around large-scale exhibitions like the Hammer’s Made in L.A. biennial or the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time. When they are executed well, these…
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Sustaining Simplicity: The Sea Ranch
It’s not your typical beach destination: the rocky cliffs are steep, the coastline is enveloped by thick fog embankments, the winds are ferocious, and the beaches aren’t swimmable, but that doesn’t deter many Bay Area residents from visiting this special seaside community. Tucked away in a coastal enclave 100 miles north of San Francisco, The…
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Artist a Day: Evangeline J Montgomery
In 2017 I dedicated a series of Artist a Day posts to Ruth Waddy, whose influence guided and amplified the careers of Los Angeles artists in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Her impact and legacy in documenting Black art is immeasurable and “as a champion for African-American artists, Waddy’s advocacy created a powerful…
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Artist a Day: Cleveland Bellow
The hardest part of this Artist a Day series is when I come across an artist where limited biographical information exists. Bay area artist and printmaker Cleveland Bellow showed work in over 60 shows throughout his career and taught art in addition to his civic engagement as Alameda County’s Art Commissioner. Bellow passed away from…
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Artist a Day: Fred Eversley
“The genesis of energy is central to the mystery of our existence as animate beings in an inanimate universe.” Fred Eversley Fred Eversley was an electronic engineer who turned curiosity and experimentation into sculptures that capture his fascination with light and energy. His work beautifully merges art and science in a practice that’s defined by…
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Artist a Day: Amoako Boafo
My Artist a Day posts at the beginning of the month centered on the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s where I focused on some of the artists that will be featured in the Broad’s upcoming Soul of a Nation exhibition. One of the most important themes to come out of that era…
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Artist a Day: Karon Davis
As a spectacle, Frieze didn’t disappoint. Fair organizers commissioned 12 artists to create site specific work on Paramount Studio’s New York backlot in a collaborative undertaking called Frieze Projects. The backlot was definitely the show stopper, and my favorite installation came from Karon Davis who transformed a building facade into a Junior High School in…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 