Category: Los Angeles
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Artist a Day Challenge (8): The Unknown Collective of Eleven Associated
I mentioned in my first Artist a Day Challenge post how instrumental the Hammer’s digital catalog for Now Dig This! was in documenting many of the incredible artists that came out of the black arts movement between the 1960s’-1970’s. The curator for the show, Dr. Kellie Jones and her team uncovered some interesting themes, one of which was the…
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Artist a Day Challenge (7): William Pajaud
William Pajaud was a New Orleans based artist who lived in Los Angeles and specialized in design and watercolor. He was also the first appointed art director for Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company. During his tenure as art director and later as a public relations director he amassed a collection of over 200 works…
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Artist a Day Challenge (6): The Disrupters
Change is not always an organic process, sometimes it needs a little nudge. When it came to diverse cultural representation within Los Angeles museums in the 1960s, LACMA in particular needed a few nudges… and a good push toward progress. One late December evening on Wilshire Boulevard in 1968, a curious crowd formed around the Ahmanson’ building…
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Artist a Day Challenge (5) Beulah Ecton Woodard
In Los Angeles in the 1960’s many black artists including Charles White, Ruth Waddy and Samella Lewis fought for representation in local museums including LACMA. Little did I know that at least one artist had been given a solo show there decades prior. Beulah Ecton Woodard was an artist/sculptor born in Ohio in 1895 who grew up in Los Angeles.…
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Artist a Day Challenge (4) Charles White
Black artists that came of age in the 1940’s formed a tight network of trailblazers, visionaries, influencers and connectors. When I think of the legendary Charles White I see a connector. Nearly every black artist that created art between the 1940’s and 1980’s were influenced in some way by Charles White. His guidance and advocacy ignited the careers of many artists.…
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Artist a Day Challenge (2) Samella Lewis
In 1920’s New Orleans a young Samella Lewis first picked up a paint brush and through it she found her voice in an environment that didn’t encourage speaking one’s mind. “It might get me in trouble”, Lewis explains in a 2006 interview, “and so I had to find a way to express my feelings.” What originally began as a private expression, Samella…
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Artist a Day Challenge 2017
Back again! Today marks the 3rd edition of my Artist a Day challenge! During Black History Month I share daily posts featuring African-American artists and artists of African descent throughout the diaspora. In 2017 I will focus on artists who have committed to promoting and amplifying the artistic voices of others. They may be mentors, organizers, writers, scholars, curators,…
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Artist a Day Challenge (1): Ruth Waddy
In the fall of 1962 a group of black artists gathered in the back of Safety Savings and Loan’s community room. Brought together by a 53-year-old woman with no formal knowledge of art and limited resources, Ruth Waddy’s pitch to the group was a simple one: Her goal was to create a juried art show at a…
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“So Be It, See To It.”
Yesterday’s post on Radio Imagination at the Armory Center for the Arts focused on one artist’s creative interpretation of Octavia Butler’s famous novels, Kindred. The show also featured digital snapshots of Butler’s papers currently cataloged at the Huntington Library in Pasadena. Manuscripts, character sketches, childhood stories, and journal entries all provide us with an expositive look into Butler’s creative process including…
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Octavia Butler’s Radio Imagination
One of the best books I read in 2016 was Kindred by Octavia Butler and one of the most powerful essays I read in 2016 was “Broken Defaced and Unseen: the Hidden Black Female Figures of Western Art”, by Robin Coste Lewis. One work explored time travel, slavery and the black female body while the other takes the…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 