Artistic Statement
My artistic practice is a fusion of my visual arts works in collage/montage, fused glass and monoprint paintings with my jazz vocals and compositions. As a visual artist, Black music practitioner, and scholar, I create imagery that draws on African American visual arts and music aesthetics, like blues and jazz, dense textures, rhythm, theme and variation, asymmetric juxtaposition and improvisation to tell stories about Black history and personal narratives. I invite viewers into experiences with color, texture and botanical experiences that comment on social justice and life issues. My art invites my African American community to engage with pride in their cultural heritage by connecting them to histories and cultures of Africa and African America. My art invites all people to engage with our experience.
I aim to translates Black music into visual narratives. For example, my fused glass piece “Beneath the Desert Moonlight” interprets jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan’s composition with an image of the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu, the first university in the world, in the Mali Empire. The piece allows my community to learn about African American heritage roots in the Mali Empire and the larger Senegambia region of West Africa, exemplified by the story of Alex Haley’s family and his Mandinka ancestor Kunta Kinte, who was from this area. My painting “Grandmother – When Malindy Sings” interprets Abbey Lincoln’s recording, and my performance, of this Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem that was set to music by Randy Weston. Malindy is the cultural figure of the powerful Black woman singer. It serves as a self-portrait of me as an African American woman singer.
I am currently working on two artistic series that use fused glass, collage, montage and monoprints to interpret my musical essays/recording projects. The first, “All Africa” is a fused glass series that interprets narratives of jazz songs that I perform, inspired by Africa, including my songs about the Mali Empire, landscapes observed during my field work on the Continent, and songs I learned from Botswana, South Africa and Ghana. The second, “Grandmother,” is a collage, monoprint and fused ‘glass quilt’ series about the African American woman vocal tradition. It includes collages about spirituals that developed during slavery’s hush arbor meetings and narrative portraits and signature songs of classic African American jazz singers.
I aim to translates Black music into visual narratives. For example, my fused glass piece “Beneath the Desert Moonlight” interprets jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan’s composition with an image of the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu, the first university in the world, in the Mali Empire. The piece allows my community to learn about African American heritage roots in the Mali Empire and the larger Senegambia region of West Africa, exemplified by the story of Alex Haley’s family and his Mandinka ancestor Kunta Kinte, who was from this area. My painting “Grandmother – When Malindy Sings” interprets Abbey Lincoln’s recording, and my performance, of this Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem that was set to music by Randy Weston. Malindy is the cultural figure of the powerful Black woman singer. It serves as a self-portrait of me as an African American woman singer.
I am currently working on two artistic series that use fused glass, collage, montage and monoprints to interpret my musical essays/recording projects. The first, “All Africa” is a fused glass series that interprets narratives of jazz songs that I perform, inspired by Africa, including my songs about the Mali Empire, landscapes observed during my field work on the Continent, and songs I learned from Botswana, South Africa and Ghana. The second, “Grandmother,” is a collage, monoprint and fused ‘glass quilt’ series about the African American woman vocal tradition. It includes collages about spirituals that developed during slavery’s hush arbor meetings and narrative portraits and signature songs of classic African American jazz singers.