September 12 – October 7, 2023 @ Various Venues
The East Tennessee State University Department of ArtDesign's Slocumb Galleries with Tennessee Craft and partners presents Crafting Blackness Initiative's "Black Bodies Making Form" exhibition series and panel. Featuring Black Tennessee Craft artists since 1920, the public is invited to theCrafting Blackness Panel Thursday,Sept. 28,from 4-6 p.m. at the Ball Hall Auditorium with closing reception for andBlack Bodies Making Form atSlocumb Galleries at 6 p.m. with guests of honor Tennessee Craft Executive Director Kim Waag and ETSU Board of Regent Dorothy Grisham.
The exhibitions are co curated by Karlota Contreras-Koterbay with ETSU Advancement director and Umoja board member Karen LeBlanc Sullivan featuring influential and contemporary Black Craft artists from Tennessee including historical figures like William Edmondson, Bessie Harvey, Greg Ridley, Fritz Massaquoiand Sammie Nicely. Governor's art awardees Hattie Marshall-Duncan and Bill Capshaw are also included in the stellar line up of this unprecedented project that will tour the rest of our state until 2027 culminating with blockbuster exhibitions and publications.
Co-curator Karen Sullivan describes the project as “works memorializing history, celebrating protest, venerating faithand honoring family. We came across works that encompassed, celebrated, elevatedand revealed Black life through craft.”She added, “found and concocted materials transformed into figures expected and unexpected were discovered in humble locations with diverse and talented makers expressing themselves through their creations utilized a broad range of techniques, and points of view.” Both curators described the craft practitioners as “visual griots,” with the exhibition offering opportunities to expand perceptions in viewing Black life through creations of craft.
The "Black Bodies Making Form" exhibitions highlight works by master craft artists like peach pit carver Roger Smith, masking tape sculptor Willard Hill, gourd carver Jane Buis, ceramicist Jackie Schlicher and Tina Curry, with influential doll makers Aundra McCoy and Ludie Amos. Emerging and nationally renowned contemporary Black artists like Samuel Dunson, Althea Murphy-Price, Viola Spells, Gary White, Elisheba Mrozik, Elise Kendrick, Cynthia Gasden, James McKissic, Wokie Massaquoi-Wicks and sister Tobertha Jackson, Jernicya Onyekwelu, Nija Woods,Jimmy Mumford, Kimberly Dummons, Rahn Marion,William ‘Bill Johnson, Arthur Eubanks, C.E. McGruger, Keisha & Sean Marshall-Duncan,Calvin Nicely, Carlton Wilkinson, are joined by Black Appalachian Highland artists Jason Flack, Pam Faw & sister Charlotte Faw, Javan Collie, mother and daughter Donna Olujani & Doniqua Joyner, Dawn Smith, Akintayo Akintobi, Shai Perry, Jerry Marchen, Lydia Wilson+,and 82-year old quilter family of Magdalena Story with Ella Combs, mother Maddie B. Preston and children Delores & Gordon Story; as well as collective mural work by Orange Mound Artists of Memphis including founder LueElla Marshall,Shamek Weddle, Andrew Travisand Lurlynn Franklin.
The Crafting Blackness Panelists areBrigette Jones, associate Director at Arabica National State Park and previous curator at Tennessee State Museum; Dr. Daryl Carter, Director of ETSU Black American Studies and Associate Dean of CAS for Diversity & Inclusion; Dr Cynthia Gadsden, faculty at Tennessee State University, Bonnie Matthews, co-director of Crafting Blackness Initiative and representative of Tennesee Craft; Elisheba Mrozik, featured artist at Black Bodies Making Form exhibit series. Guests of honor are ETSU Board member f Regent Dorothy Grisham and Tennesse Craft's executive director Kim Waag, moderated by Co curators Karen Sullivan and Karlota Contreras-Koterbay.
The Crafting Blackness Initiative is supported by Arts Fund of East Tennessee State Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission's Arts Project Support and Arts Build Communitiesgrants, and In These Mountains Project Grant from South Arts with ETSU's Student Activities Allocation Committee and Mary B. Martin School of the Arts. The exhibitions also boasts some of our partner institutions’ collections including the Hiram Van Gordon Gallery from Tennessee State University, the Sammie Nicely Collection of the Reece Museum, West West Tennessee Regional Art Center, Knoxville Museum of Art's Bessie Harvey and Austin Peay University's William Edmondson, the first African American artist featured at MoMA in 1930s that opened immense opportunities for Black folk artists.
The Tipton Gallery exhibit is open for viewing on Thursdays and Fridays from 5-7 p.m. until Sept. 29 while the Slocumb Galleries exhibit is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Oct.7. The Tipton Gallery is located at 126 Spring St., downtown Johnson city, while Slocumb Galleries is located at Ernest C. Ball Hall, 232 Sherrod Drive, ETSU campus. For more information, contactcontrera@etsu.edu.
Category: Exhibits