Fall 2022-Spring/Summer 2023
Ashé Holiday Market
The Community Artists’ Collective kicked off its fifteenth Annual Ashé Holiday Market December 17 at The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116.
The market features artistic and unique gift items made by local artists.
Hearts, Hands & Heritage
Rich autumn colors and fanciful designs emerge in quilted fabric for the Community Artists’ Collective annual Hearts, Hands and Heritage Quilt Show opening Saturday, October 29, with a reception at 2 p.m.
Quilts from 12 talented quilters will be on display at The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116, through November 19.
Quilt designers include Leslie Abrams, Sean Casey, Laura Casmore, Carolyn Crump, Lady Trish Henderson, Gabriel Martinez, Shavon Morris, Sakeenah Mubashshir, Hastie Murray, Phyllis Simpson, Rose Southall and Daniel Williams, Jr. The exhibition is in collaboration with CERCL (Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning at Rice University).
Every Body
Shani Crowe, an interdisciplinary artist from Chicago’s South Side, celebrates the diversity of women’s bodies and interconnectedness in “Every Body,” the exhibition opening Saturday, September 10, at the Community Artists’ Collective, 4101 San Jacinto St., Suite 116.
A reception and artist talk from 1 to 5 p.m. on opening day launches the show, which is part of FOTOFEST Biennial 2022. The exhibition continues through October 22.
Crowe explains, “No matter the size, we are all a part of the same divine whole. Self-love is the most important love. Material wealth and interpersonal relationships are all temporal. The only true constant in life is you.”
She asks, “Why not show yourself some love? Right now. As you are.”
Crowe, who received her BFA in film production from Howard University’s John H. Johnson School of Communications in 2011, centers her work on traditional African coiffure, beauty ritual and how African aesthetics can be re-contextualized to foster connectivity and unity among people of African descent. A life-long braider, she most notably creates complex braided hairstyles and captures them as photographic portraits. Beyond her portraiture, Crowe applies the materials and techniques of braiding to sculpture, performance, fibers and installation art.
Her work and performances have been featured on “Saturday Night Live” in collaboration with Solange Knowles, the Broad in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary African and Diasporan Art in Brooklyn, N.Y., the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Mich., the August Wilson African American Culture Center in Pittsburgh, Penn., and at Miami Art Basel. She was also part of the ensemble that represented the United States at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Fall 2021-Spring-Summer 2022
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What Remains
Atlanta based artist and educator Tokie Rome-Taylor examines themes of time, spirituality, visibility and identity through photography and cyanotype in “What Remains,” the exhibition opening Saturday, July 2, at 2 p.m. at the Community Artists’ Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116.
The exhibition, which continues through August 27, is part of PrintMatters Houston, a biennial city-wide celebration of original prints, the artists who create them and the people who collect them.
“My practice is grounded in the understanding that one’s self perception and sense of belonging in a society begins in childhood,” Rome-Taylor explained.
“Children are the subjects I use to explore how we gain a sense of belonging within our society,” she continued.
“These works explore what we pass down. From our family, our culture and our life experiences, we pass down artifacts in the physical and spiritual. Here, digital photographs have been converted into large scale negatives, which are then exposed on fabric and cotton rag paper that has been coated with cyanotype chemicals. ‘What Remains’ after the prints are washed is a visual image of family artifacts and an exploration of history and spirit. It is what remains of our archives, ancestors and artifacts.
Rome-Taylor is a Funds for Teachers Fellowship recipient and studied photography in Santa Fe, N.M., and in San Francisco, Calif. Her work has been a part of many national and international exhibitions and is held in multiple public and private collections and was recently acquired by the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art. Her work is a part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, The Fralin Museum at University of Virginia, and the Southeastern Museum of Photography.
Jewel Brown: A Legacy
“Jewel Brown: A Legacy” will celebrate Black Music Month and the month’s Juneteenth festivities at the Community Artists’ Collective June 11-25.
The exhibition is in partnership with the Community Music Center of Houston and Harambee Art Gallery.
Brown, who grew up in Houston’s Third Ward and still lives there, is an American jazz and blues singer who sang and toured with Louis Armstrong’s All Star Band from 1961 to 1968. She continues to perform at clubs in Houston at the age of 85.
The exhibition opens Saturday, June 11, at 3 p.m. at The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto St., Suite 116, with a reception/interview. Artwork celebrating Black Music Month will be on display by artists Tamirah Collins, Khaili Sam-Sin, JustCesca, Walt Haller and others.
The Community Music Center, 3020 Holman St., a nonprofit music performing arts and education organization with the mission of preserving Black music traditions, will host another exhibition Sunday, June 12, at 2:30 p.m. with an interview with Brown from 3 to 4 p.m.
Nuanced Black
“Nuanced Black,” which opened at The Collective May 7 and runs through May 28, features art works by Black participants in the University of Houston’s Masters of Fine Arts program.
Seven artists (Brian Ellison, Mark Francis, Catherine Davila-Martinez, Garrett Griffin, Saran Alderson, Marc Furi and Christopher Paul) are showing works of various disciplines in the gallery at 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116.
Francis’ “Mother With Protector” painting is part of an ongoing series called “You Are Art: A love letter to 5th Ward,” a mixed media portrait-based project that seeks to highlight the individual residents of Fifth Ward Houston as the most important parts of the community as opposed to highlighting a geographic location.
Ellison’s three photographs documenting the everyday Black experience replicate the cover of Life Magazines with its prominent red and white logo displayed in the upper left hand corner.
Garrett’s painting “Inward” was motivated by hearing about his dad’s families’ migration from Texas to California in the 40s and by reading “Warmth of Other Suns.” He used those readings along with the charts and migration paths included to synthesize his own topographic grid.
Davila-Martinez’s “Migration” is about recognizing Black ancestors’ stories of migration and Black Americans taking control of their lives and their destinies. She says “my translation of these experiences into art is to raise up my ancestors and bring recognition to their tireless unsung efforts for survival and to make a better life for us today to live freely, create freely and exist freely.” T
Furi presents his iconic “Third Ward Gentrified” digital print (the Monopoly board game of the Third Ward) and “Frenchy’s Day” print.
In the corner a continuous video loop delivers Paul’s “Spatiality in Transmigration” message.
Alderson offers eight digital prints featuring portraits of hair.
Coffee//Kool Aid & the Tabernacle of (Re) Memory
Viktor Givens, a multimodal performance artist, brings his creative arts initiative project “Coffee//Kool Aid & the Tabernacle of (Re)Memory” to the Community Artists’ Collective March 5 through April 23.
The exhibition opens Saturday, March 5, at noon with a reading reception at The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116.
In the ensuing weeks Givens will conduct semi-public workshops and interventions that explore conceptual and material themes around notions of domestic archive, preservation, genealogy, ecology, reparations and ritual theater. Interventions explored involve collage, photo fiction, intergenerational dialogue, experiential readings, textile arts and canning.
Givens and his Southern Android Productions organization is a research-based creative arts initiative designed to collect and reinterpret cultural data relating to the migration histories, memories and material archives of African American urban settlers and their ancestral rural settlements.
His material archive consists mostly of forgotten and discarded domestic detritus found during excavations of vacant African American residential estates. Givens then takes these fragmented objects, their narratives, their interior poetry and reimagines both form and function to suit an array of aesthetic and spiritual needs. Through the accumulation of these rich cultural artifacts, Givens seeks to create spaces that inspire the activation of cultural and spiritual (re)memory in relation to Africa and its Diaspora.
Wisdom and Hope
The Collective welcomes the new year with “Wisdom and Hope,” the creative offerings of local artists Hardy Allen, Daniel Tesfai and Zymora Eikner.
The exhibition opens January 21, and a reception will be held Saturday, January 22, from 3 to 5 p.m. at The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116. The exhibition continues through February 26.
Many of Eikner’s paintings reflect her fond memories of spending time on her grandpa’s tobacco farm in Virginia and scenes of wheat fields with mountains in the background.
The retired public school teacher plans to paint even more memories when she gets settled in her new home in a local senior facility.
“A 4” Christmas poinsettia in an 8” pot that I nurtured for four years grew into a plant as high as my house,” she said.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t survive the freeze last year,” she lamented, “but I have a photograph that I can use to paint it.”
Allen’s highly detailed art, rendered in charcoal and graphite, recalls significant scenes from his boyhood and family.
Allen, also retired, studied under John Biggers at Texas Southern University for one year and is grateful for what he learned. Biggers encouraged him to pay attention to details and to invest the time in creating his piece.
“Biggers said that we could all paint the same picture, but each would be different. It means to me that no other artist can do what I do,” Allen explained.
The youngest of the trio, Tesfai, a lifelong artist, studied art at TSU. His acrylic on canvas paintings speak to the gentrification of cultures that don’t easily survive our western civilization.
“Some cultures are being swallowed,” he said, “and we dismiss them because we don’t understand them.
“Art is a medium which gives those cultures a voice and the hope to live on.”
Video by @RiskyCereal
Ashé Holiday Market
The Community Artists’ Collective kicks off its fourteenth Annual Ashé Holiday Market December 10 at The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116.
The market features artistic gift items by Monae Jacobs, Sandi Patterson, Patrick Grady, Shanequa Smith and others.
Special activities are planned for children and their families from 1 to 3 p.m. on the last two days (December 30-31) of the market.
Newer Forms
Five artists will displayed their works in “Newer Forms,” opening Friday, October 29.. A reception was held from 5 to 7 p.m. that evening.
Amanda Quintanilla, Troi Speaks, Kaijah Ward, Aliah Carmen and Preston Gaines create their own worlds to respond to a range of external and internal environments, channeling the chaos and oftentimes absurdness of life to the serenity that nature and religion can hold for us.
This exhibition, curated by Miles Payne, also serves as a new point in a few of the artists’ careers as they test the boundaries by exploring and defining what sculpture means to them.
The exhibit continues through November 27.
From left: Flash Gordon Parks, Risky Cereal, Marc Furi, Rabéa Ballin, Miles Payne, Brian Ellison, Michelle Barnes
Visit Houston’s iconic Third Ward neighborhood through the lenses of six photographers with deep roots in the area at the Community Artists’ Collective’s August exhibit.
“Third Ward Special,” which opened August 11, features the works of Marc Furi, Flash Gordon Parks, Rabéa Ballin, Risky Cereal, Brian Ellison and Derrell Boson.
The art is inspired by the many facets of the cultural, historic epicenter and is curated by Miles Payne and Marc Newsome.
The Third Ward, one of Houston’s oldest neighborhoods, is a historically Black community with a neighborhood park originally purchased by former slaves. It is home to Texas Southern University, a historically Black college. The community is considered by some to be the cradle to the city’s civil rights movement. Many Black artists, activists, judges and politicians grew up in the area.
An opening reception will be held Saturday, August 14, from 5 to 7 p.m., the exhibit continues through September 25. The Collective, 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116, is open Thursdays through Saturdays from 12 noon until 5 p.m. and by appointment.
For more information about the exhibit contact The Collective at 713-523-1616 or visit www.thecollective.org.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jason Woods aka Flash Gordon Parks is an ethnomusicologist in Houston. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography at Sam Houston State University in 2001.
In 2005 Parks published a book of photography and poetry called “The Beautiful Side of Ugly” with Eric Blaylock. TBSOU combined the poetic words of Blaylock with the striking images of FGP to document the beauty of urban areas of Houston, Texas.
He has also maintained several DJ residencies which range from Blues to Jazz to Soul/Funk to Hip Hop since 2004. As a DJ, he strives to educate the audience through carefully thought-out selections. Parks often collects, documents and lectures on the importance of Houston’s rich music history and has lectured at such institutions as Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Rice University, Art League Houston and more.
In 2015 Parks directed the documentary “This Thing We Do Houston DJ Culture Revealed,” which is an introduction to the world of DeeJaying in the City of Houston.
In 2019 Parks directed the documentary “Archie Bell,” celebrating the achievements of Soul Music Icon Mr. Tighten Up (Archie Bell).
Most notable events include Motown on Mondays Houston and a Fistful of Soul
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Rabéa Ballin was born in Germany and raised in Louisiana. The Houston-based artist earned her BFA in design at McNeese State University and her MFA in drawing and painting at the University of Houston, Her multi-disciplinary works explore the uniqueness of self-identity, hair politics and social commentary. She documents these themes primarily through drawing, digital photography and various printmaking practices. In addition to working as an independent artist, she has been a member of the all-female ROUX printmaking collective since 2011. Ballin has served as an artist board member at both Art League Houston and DiverseWorks and has completed residencies at DiverseWorks, Tougaloo College and Project Row Houses. Ballin currently serves as department chair and assistant professor of art history and drawing at Lone Star College. She currently lives and works in Houston’s historic Third Ward community.
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Andrew ‘Risky Cereal’ Evans was born in Los Angeles in 1972 and came up during a time of thriving beauty and extreme violence in his city. He became an observer of detail through his immersion in the LA scene. After attending Grambling State University and receiving a BA in Communications in TV production, Risky took what he learned and returned to Los Angeles to implement his education. Through this, he thrived and became involved in the fashion, music and the film industry, working with such groups as Jurassic 5, Mad Lion, Pharcyde, Shafiq Hussain, Anthony David and Dove Society. Risky also worked as a sales, marketing and branding manager for urban fashion labels Live Mechanics, Green Apple Tree, GAT Jeans and Sedgwick & Cedar.
When Risky moved to Houston in 2005, he quickly established himself as a music manager, creating the production company, Milky Wayv, which led to the rise of artists like Indie label Stone Throw’s Peyton. Maintaining his fashion and music and film experience, he began to produce and direct much of the music videos and short films for his production company.
By 2016, Risky was working with Amazon series writers, educational documentary short creators and creating personal artistic expressions through photography and film.
Risky has fused all of his work through co-hosting and DJ’ng the Tre Brew Morning Show on All Real Radio.com, where he is able to funnel all of his links to bring the Los Angeles, Houston and world connection. He currently resides in Third Ward- Houston. His community and world view forces his audience to question their own views through simplistic, artful, thoughtful mixed mediums. He is currently working on film and radio projects and continues to collaborate and bring forth his own ideas through film, music and fashion.
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Marc Newsome aka Marc Furi is a multidisciplinary concept artist based in Houston. His primary mediums are storytelling, photography, documentary filmmaking, graphic design, social practice and soundscape. His recent focus of inspiration comes from the stories of his own neighborhood of Third Ward - an area of Houston currently undergoing the rapid socioeconomic changes of gentrification.
Newsome, who also goes by his artist moniker, Marc Furi, recently designed a 10’ x 10’ game board art piece satirically depicting a gentrified Third Ward as a game of Monopoly displayed at the exterior of the Station Museum of Contemporary Arts. Summer 2020 he partnered with the Lululemon organization and designed an anti-racism public art campaign called De-Racism as a series of wheat paste posters posted as street art in various Houston locations. He was an exhibitionist in the FotoFest 2020 Biennial – African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other for his documentary photography of Third Ward printed on metal. His participation in the Mini Murals project was a collaborative project with legendary muralist Israel McCloud. Together they designed and McCloud implemented the transforming of two public lightboxes which included odes to historic Third Ward musicians, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Arnett Cobb.
His previous I Love 3rd Ward solo photography, video and soundscape show at Art League Houston took place 2018-2019. Prior to that (2017) he participated in the 47th round of artists at Project Row Houses for his I (heart) 3rd Ward project.
His numerous grant awards for documentary projects including his I LOVE 3RD WARD Series where interviewees are asked what they love about the Third Ward area (2018), EXTRAORDINARY ELDERS, a short form docu-series where elders are interviewed by children (2019 – present), The Legendary Dr. Thomas F. Freeman and the TSU Debate Team (2020).
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Brian Ellison is a photographer, cinematographer and creative director. Brian believes that art is a universal language that can be the catalyst for healing. Through his lens, Brian documents the everyday Black experience such as gentrification's impact on historical communities, under-publicized Black love and comradery, parenthood and the persistent courage of Black women and men.
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Derrell Boson is a photographer and videographer in Houston.