Tag: Memphis College of Art

Deep Cuts: Local Comic Crowdfunding Campaign

Post author By Jesse Davis
Post date June 7, 2019

For the past three years, a group of Memphis-based artists and illustrators have been working away in semi-secret, hunched over sketch pads and digital illustration tablets, emailing each other ideas, and hogging the big table at Memphis Pizza Cafe when they met up to discuss their project in person.

Now, after three years of script-writing, character designs, and story-boarding, the creators of the Paper Cuts comics anthology have announced the project along with a crowdfunding campaign that runs until Thursday, July 4th.

Joni Miller

Paper Cuts is a full-color, 170-page independent comics anthology inspired, in part, by the popular Flight comics anthology. The project, presided over by editor Shane McDermott and art director Elliot Boyette, was announced to the world via its Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday and is available exclusively via Kickstarter pledge. The goal is set at $12,800, and as of this writing, the campaign has garnered $1,816 in pledges.

“It wasn’t super organised at first because I’m not super organised,” says McDermott, a freelance graphic designer and former editorial illustrator for The Commercial Appeal and professor at Memphis College of Art (MCA). After making the move to freelancing, McDermott found himself thinking about a comics project he had kept on the back burner for what seemed like too long. So he started making calls, seeing who might be interested in contributing to an independent comics anthology. As both a former professor and student at MCA, it was only natural for McDermott to look to his former classmates and students to fill out the ranks of the anthology. “A lot of us met for pizza one night and started talking about it and formed our core group.

Shane McDermott

“Most of us are alums of the Memphis College of Art,” McDermott says before taking pains to stress that, while he might have taught some of the anthology’s contributors, when it came to Paper Cuts, they were peers and equals. “Since the school is closing, it’s really important to us that this book does succeed, because it’s a tribute to the school and to the program,” he adds.

“We debated on whether or not to have a theme early on, but we decided to just let everybody do what they want,” McDermott says of the eclectic collection. “If there’s any commonality between us, it’s that we’re all indie artists making our own thing,” adds Boyette, the anthology’s art director and a graphic designer for the city of Memphis.

That freedom allowed the artists to follow their passions — and has made for some seriously strange and exciting subject matter. Included in the anthology are stories about a nurturing velociraptor mom, space adventures, love stories, and a guy with T-rex heads for hands. McDermott’s entry is a side story from a larger work of his called Sea Horse. “It’s about this guy who gets stuck in the imaginative worlds he created as a child, but it’s sort of run down because he hasn’t been there in a while because he’s an adult,” McDermott says before describing his submission for Paper Cuts, a story that somehow manages to cleverly wrangle all my favorite genres into one comic. “[It’s] called ‘The Ghouls, the Bat, and the Ugly.’ It’s a haunted Western. It has zombies and a vampire and a wicked witch of the wild west getting into a shoot-out at the Black Lagoon Saloon.”

Elliot Boyette

Boyette, a fan of both silly comic humor and post-apocalyptic scenarios, decided to marry the two seemingly disparate styles for his offering. “It’s about what happens when a calamity happens in the world and people band together in a run-down Hardee’s and make up a whole new cult religion,” he says. “It was true, pure fun making this comic.” Boyette didn’t actually set the story in a Hardee’s, though; he made up his own fast foot setting for his comic-book showdown: Nova Burger.

McDermott’s and Boyette’s graphic short stories will be in good company in Paper Cuts, alongside works by Rachel Stovall Davis, Nick Hewlett, Joni Miller, April Rodriguez, and a packed lineup of creative others. Fans of weird comics and out-there stories have until Independence Day 2019 to support this collection from independent artists.

Tags comic book, comics, Memphis College of Art

News News Blog

City Seeks Re-use Ideas for Brooks, Memphis College of Art Buildings

Post author By Maya Smith
Post date May 2, 2019

CREDIT: City of Memphis

City of Memphis

Memphis College of Art is closing in 2020.

The city is seeking “bold visions” for the two soon-to-be-vacant historic buildings in Overton Park.

Officials with the Brooks Museum of Art first announced in 2017 an interest in relocating the museum to Downtown. Soon after, Memphis College of Art (MCA) officials said that the college would be closing in 2020.

Now, the city is seeking ideas for the 86,000-square-foot museum, slated to be vacant in 2024, as well as the 75,000-square-foot MCA building. This call is open to individuals, groups, and organizations from Memphis and around the country.

The city’s goal is to “create a new blueprint for these cornerstone anchors located in the heart of Memphis at Overton Park to ensure that they remain accessible cultural assets for the entire Greater Memphis community and beyond.”

The city released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Brooks Museum last year, but decided to relaunch the process to include MCA because of the buildings’ proximity.

Submitted proposals can be for one, both, or part of the buildings. There are five guiding principles identified through community meetings that all submissions should follow. They include assurance of long-term financial sustainability, creative and respectful re-uses, enhancing the park and connecting the spaces to the surrounding community, accessibility, and being a community resource.

[pullquote-1]

The deadline to submit proposals is Friday, May 10th. An 11-member selection committee, comprised of civic and art leaders, will choose the best ideas. Proposals will be selected based on how well ideas adhere to the guiding principles, the impact the idea would have on the Memphis community, and the financial sustainability of the proposal, as funding won’t be available.

The top proposers will be asked to expand on their ideas through a Request for Proposal process. Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland will make the final decision, which then must be approved by the Memphis City Council.

Submit an idea here.

City of Memphis

Brooks Museum of Art is slated to relocate in 2024.

The Brooks Museum, which has stood in Overton Park for more than 100 years, is slated to relocate to Monroe and Front in 2024. Officials have said that that facility can no longer serve the needs of and requirements of a 21st-century accredited art museum.”

The new building, an approximate $105 million project, dubbed Brooks on the Bluff, will be a “larger and more efficient facility that will elevate the Brooks nationally and internationally with an art museum as unique as its location,” Brooks officials said late last year.

A request for qualifications from design architects for the new building was released in October last year, and Brooks officials are expected to announce its selection in the coming months.

Less than a month later, after Brooks officials expressed interest in moving Downtown in 2017, MCA officials said the school had stopped accepting new students, as it would close soon.

Officials said the school, which was established in 1947, faces “declining enrollment, overwhelming real estate debt, and no viable long-term plan for financial sustainability.”

Tags Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis College of Art, Overton Park, Request for Proposal

News News Blog

Midtown Projects: New Overton Park Sidewalks; New Evergreen Mural

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date April 29, 2019

CREDIT: Amanda Gillvery

Amanda Gillvery

A rendering shows the west end of the sidewalk.

If you’re driving around Midtown, be on the lookout for these two projects to get underway soon.

Overton Park Sidewalk

Construction was set to being Monday on a new sidewalk for Overton Park. It’ll run on the north side of Poplar from Kenilworth to Veterans Plaza, according to the Bike/Ped Memphis blog.

Google Maps

The black line shows where the new sidewalk will go.

The overall project will also include ”a curb extension at the northeast corner of Kenilworth and Poplar, reconstruction of the median island on the north side of the same intersection, and crosswalk enhancements.”

“The goal of the project is to improve safe pedestrian access to Overton Park and the existing bus stops on this segment of Poplar, which are currently inaccessible by people using wheelchairs or other mobility devices,” reads the post by Nicholas Oyler, Bikeway & Pedestrian program manager for the city of Memphis.
Amanda Gillvery

The lack of an accessible path poses a hazard to people with limited mobility or child strollers, according to Oyler.

A later phase of the project will extend the new sidewalk east of Veterans Plaza to a future entrance plaza at Cooper, according to Oyler. The extension and plaza are currently under design, and should begin construction in the next two years.

As the sidewalk is built, the westbound, outside lane of Poplar will be closed from 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. on weekdays. Construction is expected to last about 45 days.

Amanda Gillvery

A rendering shows the east end of the new sidewalk.

Evergreen Mural
Memphis College of Arts

A rendering shows what the mural might look like on the building.

A new mural may soon grace the west-facing wall of Evergreen Presbyterian Church, one that its designers say highlights “the pedestrian-friendly culture of the Evergreen Historic District.”

That mural is now up for approval by the Memphis Landmarks Commission. A final vote on the mural is set for the commission’s meeting on Thursday, May 23rd.

The mural was conceived by the Memphis College of Arts (MCA) office of Community Outreach and Student Affairs. Student artists Chongjin Won and Anna Bearman. Their design was informed by comments from Evergreen neighbors gathered at three listening sessions in January and February.

Here’s what the artists said about the design in their application to the Landmarks Commission:

“Our goal for the mural is to highlight the pedestrian friendly culture of the Evergreen Historic District. Evergreen is defined by its cohesive architecture, rich history, and sense of community. We find these features to be the defining characteristics of the neighborhood.”

“On any given evening, too will find the residents running, biking, walking or strolling through the neighborhood. As the evening winds down, you will find neighbors on their front porches chatting with one another with the gentle sound of the rustling leaves and cars passing in the distance.
Memphis College of Arts

An artist’s rendering of the mural.

”The design incorporated all of these elements into a mural that truly represents Evergreen Historic District. Set at the golden hour of dusk, our mural depicts the neighborhood teeming with activity: children playing, dogs being walked, parents strolling with their infants, and neighbors biking.”

Read the full application here: [pdf-1]

Tags Evergreen, Landmarks Commission, Memphis College of Art, mural, Overton Park, pedestrians, sidewalks

Art Art Feature

“Take Note” at MCA

Post author By Jon W. Sparks
Post date March 7, 2019

It was bittersweet last Friday at the Memphis College of Art. There was the sort of exuberance that attends opening receptions for exhibitions, but there was also melancholy as suggested by the show’s title: “Take Note: The Final Faculty Biennial Exhibition.”

A robust presentation of artwork by current faculty and professors emeriti is on display through March 17th. Faculty exhibitions put on display the pieces by those who teach, or, as professor emeritus Tom Lee puts it, to show the students that they really can do it.

But MCA is closing its doors next year and there won’t be any more faculty shows. Laura Hine, the college’s president, says wistfully that maybe someone will organize the school’s long-running Horn Island show, Holiday Bazaar, and faculty exhibitions in the post-MCA future. “You can’t stop artists,” she says.

Heather F. Wetzel with her 2012 work ‘Mapping|Mending|Missing Memory’

“When I started working here I’d walk through the doors and think ‘My God, this is so joyful.’ Everything is tinged by the closure now, but for me tonight, I’ve talked with three artists who went to school here and are now teachers. I take heart that these people are going out and teaching another generation of kids. That’s the happy part for me.”

Dolph Smith started attending what was then the Memphis Academy of Art on Adams Street in 1957. He went on to teach there and retired in the 1990s, but still manages to be there in one capacity or another, as artist and inspiration. But on this night, he steps away, saying, “I’m going to burst out sobbing.”

His work at this final faculty show is Tennarkippi Penthouse, a 2005 sculpture. It shares space on the landing between floors in MCA’s main exhibition area with Lee’s 2019 witty and sly installation Fin de Skirt, which connects with a “bouquet” on another wall. Lee’s emeriti status was awarded at last May’s commencement. Looking back at previous faculty shows, he says, “It’s all the same thing that I’ve been doing since time began in one way or another. It just looks a lot different than what I was doing 30 years ago. But it’s pretty much the same. That’s not a real good answer, is it?”

with their works: Tennarkippi Penthouse, 2005 and Fin de Skirt, 2019

He’s in the mood to say goodbye. “The bouquet that’s kind of dead and falling apart is pretty obvious and pretty funny, too,” he says of one part of his installation. “The other is the skirt that covers everything. This place has always had a lot more female energy in it and so does the artwork because, a) they’re smarter, and b) because they actually feel life when it’s happening and we try to ignore it, so it’s an image of that. Plus a lot of other kind of hidden things that refer to specific people, most of whom I admire and who I’ve learned a lot from while I was here, and a few kind of digs that nobody’s ever gonna get. Plus I just like the word ‘skirt.'”

Jean Holmgren’s digital illustrations are, she says, a bit of a sea change. “I fought digital tooth and nail when computers came out, saying ‘that’s not real art!’ and I still have problems with that most of the time,” she says. “But I’m loving my iPad Pro — it’s so fast and easy and forgiving, and it’s never done. You can always go back and tweak.” One of her works at the exhibition is a 2019 homage to IKEA instructions, an assembly of an impossible machine with impossible directions, titled Some Assembly Required.

Heather F. Wetzel, the head of MCA’s photo area, started teaching at the college in the fall of 2017. Weeks later, it was announced that the institution would close. “It was sad and disappointing to find that out,” she says. But also: “It’s a wonderful place, and I’ve gotten a taste of it.” Even through her sadness at what will be her abbreviated time at MCA, she still says, “I’m happy and honored to be part of this.”

Tags Dolph Smith, Memphis College of Art, Take Note, Tom Lee

News News Blog

Metal Museum Eyes Overton Park Expansion

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date November 20, 2018

CREDIT: Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

Metal Museum leaders are looking to expand the museum to Memphis College of Art’s (MCA) Rust Hall in Overton Park in a $45 million proposed project.

MCA officials announced in October 2017 the school would close because of ”declining enrollment, overwhelming real estate debt, and no viable long-term plan for financial sustainability.” The school is expected to be fully closed by 2020.

Earlier this year, city leaders launched Project Overton Park to envision the future for Rust Hall and the Brooks Museum of Art, as its leaders eye a move to a new location on the Memphis riverfront.
[pullquote-1] Carissa Hussong, the Metal Museum’s executive director, said when the city issues a request for proposals for Rust Hall, the museum intends to submit an application.

The museum would keep its French Fort location on the river for residency programs. Rust Hall would be the site of the museum’s exhibition spaces, metalworking facilities with apprentices, commissions, and repairs, and an expanded education program, Hussong said.

To get there, the Metal Museum has kicked off a $45 million capital campaign. It includes $21 million for renovations to Rust Hall, $4 million in renovations to its existing campus, and a $20 million endowment “to ensure the museum’s ongoing financial stability and to provide adequate resources to maintain Rust Hall.”

“At first, when the idea of Rust Hall was mentioned to me, I thought, why would we do that?” Hussong said. “We have such a beautiful location that is such a part of our history. But the more I thought about it, I thought, maybe we could do both.”

The Metal Museum is six years into a process to re-envision its campus, Hussong said. They’ve been working with Looney Ricks Kiss, a local architectural, planning, and interior design firm, on a new campus master plan. They’ve also been conducting surveys “to see what people want and to what we’re doing well and not doing well,” she said.

“What we’ve gotten from that process is more — people have said we want more of everything,” Hussong said.

Metal Museum/Facebook

Should the museum be chosen for expansion into Rust Hall, the French Fort location could be home to am artist-in-residency program that “does not exist elsewhere in the United States.“ Metalworking requires lots of heavy equipment, Hussong said, and moving it is expensive. That makes traditional metalworking residencies long (lasting years) and costly.

The Metal Museum’s on-site equipment would give ”emerging metalsmiths access to equipment they not afford early in their careers.” Its onsite housing could also lower the cost and shorten the time of residencies.

At Rust Hall, the museum would have the opportunity for a “more robust class offering.” It has no dedicated classrooms now, Hussong said. Also, no indoor space means they haven’t offered summer camps or courses.

“There are a lot of things we would be able to do in a larger location and we’d really be able to expand our programming,” she said.

The museum now has about 25,000 square feet, a staff of 19, an annual operating budget of about $1.5 million, and about 30,000 visitors each year.

Museum leaders have said the move would also allow the museum to triple its exhibition space, triple its annual visitor number, educate at least 3,800 students each year, triple the metalworking space, enlarge the museum store, and more.

Tags Carissa Hussong, Memphis College of Art, Metal Museum

Opinion Viewpoint

Memphis Could Learn From Glasgow’s “Miracle”

Post author By Sabe Lewellyn
Post date May 30, 2018

CREDIT: Jaime Pharr | Dreamstime.com

The alarm blares and the baggage carousel starts moving. It is Friday, opening night of the Beale Street Music Festival, and my fellow passengers from the Toronto flight chat excitedly of heading straight downtown to catch the action. Me, I’m just happy to be back home.

I’ve just returned from Glasgow, Scotland, after experiencing a cultural extravaganza of a different kind: the Glasgow International. This 18-day feast of contemporary art brings together 270 artists taking part in 80-plus events in 80 different venues and attracts visitors from around the world to see a plethora of boundary-pushing works.

This high-profile biennial is just one facet of the sprawling creative landscape that has helped transform the Scottish city. And with Memphis currently at something of a cultural crossroads, I keep asking myself what lessons we can learn.

Since the 1990s, Glasgow has been a major European hub for contemporary art, a timescale that encompassed the so-called Glasgow Miracle, the transformation of the city from a struggling industrial backwater into an international cultural powerhouse.

Unemployment has fallen significantly, and vacant and run-down buildings have become galleries and studios housing creatives from every artform.

Greater Glasgow’s population is similar to that of Memphis. Creative industries now represent a larger sector than life sciences, employing more people than the energy sector. In real terms, they contribute £4.6 billion to the Scottish economy.

The creative and economic boost for Glasgow cannot be underestimated. Young artists, musicians, and writers come from all over the world, increasing tourism and growing a wider cultural economy and bringing business to bars, restaurants, clubs, and hotels. Glasgow is a destination that woos young creatives with its comparatively cheap rental property prices. The people are charming, and being a small, cozy city — like Memphis — gives it many advantages over the likes of London. Glasgow’s DIY work ethic and cultural transformation have put it on the world stage.

Jaime Pharr | Dreamstime.com

Glasgow School of Art

The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) — alma mater of the architect that so defines Glasgow, Charles Rennie Mackintosh — has been central to this recent transformation, just as it has been at the heart of the city’s cultural landscape for 150 years. It is one of the highest-ranking post-graduate visual art schools in the world, and its MFA program is what brought me to the city in the first place.

As well as world-renowned artists — including five winners and 30 percent of the nominees of the prestigious Turner Prize in recent years — the school is just as well known for the musicians and bands that have attended, including Belle and Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, and the Vaselines, Nirvana’s favorite band. Interestingly, all were influenced by our own Big Star. GSA continues to play a pivotal role across the city’s arts scene.

And yet Memphis is about to lose its own art school, the Memphis College of Art, which has played a similarly important role in our city’s cultural life.

Earlier this year, I corresponded with the director of GSA, Tom Inns, about the current situation at MCA, specifically his approach to fund-raising. He said that when looking for funding and support he always emphasizes the importance of the arts in building the economy, as well as growing the wider collective narrative of Glasgow. One question he asked hit me hard: “How can you possibly be a global city if you don’t have an art school? Wherever I travel, particularly to rapidly developing dynamic economies like China or South East Asian countries, cities are trying to establish art schools, not close them.”

I don’t have an answer for his question. But I’ll ask it of all Memphians in a different way: How can we maintain our respect and influence in the world while losing a vital part of our city’s history and culture?

The city’s art school is set to close, yet Memphis has three art districts that MCA helped create and maintain. The school’s legacy and impact have been intertwined with the music the city has been so famous for making for more than 70 years. We need to ask ourselves what the future will hold without one of our cultural pillars — and whether we are truly prepared to let MCA fade away. And if so, why?

Why allow this legacy of art and culture to be covered up like the recent covering up of the new murals painted around town? Why are we downgrading the global status of our city?

I don’t know that saving Memphis College of Art will give Memphis a Glasgow Miracle. What I do know is that it is less likely that something miraculous will happen without it.

Sabe Lewellyn is a conceptual artist based in Memphis and Glasgow.

Tags arts scene in Memphis, Glasgow Miracle, Memphis College of Art, Sabe Lewellyn

Art Exhibit M

Make Art Great Again

Post author By Dwayne Butcher
Post date February 17, 2017

I hate Trump. We are less than a month into his presidency and I think I am going to have a heart attack at how enraged I get just listening to his voice. The press conference this week just about sent me to Regional One. My social media timelines can be summed up with three words, “What the fuck?” The art world is responding. The scene in Memphis is no exception.

Toni Roberts

Melissa Farris

At the beginning of February, Marshall Arts was host to an exhibition that I organized of protest signs that were used in Women’s Marches around the country. Through the weekend, the exhibition “Nasty Women,” is on view. Nasty Women is an exhibition curated locally by Chelle Ellis and Danielle Sumler as a response to the Trump presidency, “because sitting around and bitching was never an option for us,” according to Ellis. Some of the proceeds from sales of this politically charged exhibition are going to Planned Parenthood, over $1,700 thus far, another $600 coming just from a donation/tip jar collected at the opening reception. The work can be seen at the gallery Friday and Saturday, 6-9 pm and Sunday, 9 am-1 pm, and by visiting nastywomenmemphis.com. There will be a Q&A with the curators and artists during opening hours Saturday.

On view at the Orange Mound Gallery is “The Black Experience, a Rebirth of Black History Month.” The exhibition examines the notion that “although we’ve had a black president for 8 years…we still don’t celebrate Black History Month beyond the use of predictable image and icons.” The exhibition is to celebrate African American history old and new. The show includes the work of well-known Memphis artists Jamond Bullock, Lurlynn Franklin, Lawrence Matthews, Lester Merriweather, Carl Moore, et al. Started by Linda Steele, OMG is located in the Lamar Airways shopping strip, and has been the host of several important community events recently. They are currently only open by appointment, so be sure to follow their schedule of events.

Black Experience

Since I returned from Baltimore seven months ago, there has been no exhibition potentially more important than the Fidencio Fifield-Perez installation at the Memphis College of Art. An undocumented immigrant, his work is strong and impactful. He is an alum of MCA and returns for a lecture March 2nd at the very exact time of 12:15pm. The opening is scheduled for March 3rd, 6-8pm. He was profiled recently in the NY Times as part of the American Dreamers series, stories from young immigrants who were spared from deportations and permitted to work during the Obama administration. Do not miss this exhibition. It is currently on view now until April 18th.

One of the many disastrous things Trumps plans to do as our illegitimate president is to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH). On Monday, February 20, 4-6 p.m., ArtsMemphis is combatting these threats with hosting a postcard writing event at Memphis Made Brewery, that includes beer!! The Art Center has donated supplies to create the postcards and ArtsMemphis will provide all necessary information needed to write the cards.

Image Credits:

Black Experience courtesy of Carl Moore.

Toni Roberts and Melissa Farris courtesy of Dwayne Butcher

Tags ArtsMemphis, Chelle Ellis, Danielle Sumler, Fidencio Fifield-Perez, Memphis College of Art, Nasty Women, Orange Mound Gallery, Trump

Opinion The Last Word

Renaissance and Resistance

Post author By Troy L. Wiggins
Post date February 16, 2017

Toni Morrison said that art must be beautiful and political. Nina Simone said that the responsibility of an artist is to reflect the times. James Baldwin said that artists exist to disturb the peace.

Artists set the tone for their cities’ cultural presence, and their work creates a lens for citizens to engage with tough issues facing their cities and their worlds. Memphis has never been a city devoid of amazing public art and talented artists, but I can’t be alone in feeling like we are beyond lucky to be witnessing Memphis’ arts renaissance — and the attendant art/artist resistance movements — right now.

We all know that Memphis is music. Music is protest and power, and our city’s musicians are producing some extraordinary sounds. My own musical predilections trend toward hip-hop, R&B, and soul, all genres that my ancestors used to reason and reckon with their realities. Marco Pavé’s Welcome to Grc Lnd promises to be a soul-stirring, historical look at resistance and existence in Memphis. IMAKEMADBEATS and his Unapologetic crew have been working for years to provide some nextwave musicology to the Memphis scene, and his work is without peer. Collectives like the PRIZM Ensemble not only craft moving works of musical art, but give us a glimpse of an inclusive musical revolution. The Soulsville Festival and Memphis Slim House serve as incubators of new, grassroots celebrations of Memphis’ eternal musical spirit and the communities that bear that spirit. Angel Street, the Memphis Music Initiative, and the Stax Music Academy ensure that Memphis’ children will carry that spirit of musical reckoning and resistance onward.

Art of resistance

Memphians’ artistic commitment to resistance goes beyond music. A beautifully hued photo of dancers from the Collage Dance Collective recently went viral and showcases Collage’s commitment to inclusivity in their troupe. This photo, alongside their RISE performance, show us what dance as an inclusive form of artistic resistance truly looks like.

The Baobab Filmhouse and Hattiloo Theatre show the complexity of existence for people of color throughout history and dare to imagine stories for them that do not rely solely on their pain.

The Indie Memphis Film Festival brings a diverse array of films and filmmakers to our city every year. Spaces and collectives that focus on multidisciplinary works of art — like the CLTV, Centro Cultural, the Memphis Black Arts Alliance, Young Arts Patrons, and story booth — provide space for Memphians to engage critically with art that challenges their perceptions of their place in the world and of art itself. The events that these collaboratives present, such as the Young Arts Patrons’ Young Collectors event, Centro Cultural’s Tamale Fest, and the CLTV’s Black in Amurica, spotlight collective cultural resistance to forces that would erase or oppress not just artistic production, but the rights and personhood of these community members. Each of these spaces spotlights talented local creators.

Gallery spaces like the Orange Mound Gallery, Memphis Slim House, Crosstown Arts, and the Memphis College of Art allow for public consumption of paradigm-challenging work from artists like Fidencio Fifield-Perez, Kong Wee Pang, Vanessa González, and Darlene Newman.

Andrea Morales’ photography gives us an unabashed glimpse at what Memphis-style grit actually looks like, and Ziggy Mack’s ephemeral shots provide a vision of Memphis’ best people and our alternative futures.

Joseph Boyd’s “It’s Beautiful Where You Are” and Vitus Shell’s “Protect Her” center black women as subjects of and inspiration for our collective struggle (94 percent of black women voted against our current political quagmire). Siphne Sylve’s art graces various areas of the city and proclaims a deep sense of love and pride for Memphis. Jamond Bullock’s murals provide much needed whimsy and color to everything they touch. Michael Roy’s engrossing work can be found from downtown high-rises to coffeehouse bathrooms and grants his unique complexity to a wide range of subjects.

The written and spoken word is important in determining what resistance looks, reads, and sounds like. Dr. Zandria Robinson’s “Listening for the Country,” featured in the Oxford American, invited readers to take a trip into an emotive space that helps citizens remember their essential humanity as they struggle with systems.

Public readings like the recent Writers Resist event, The Word, and Impossible Language reinforce that Memphis is full of revolutionary writers. Jamey Hatley and Sheree Renée Thomas are award-winning authors who dare us to address our pasts and consider our roots. The works of Memphis authors and poets like Courtney Miller Santo, Margaret Skinner, David Williams, Ashley Roach-Freiman, and Aaron Brame help us discover how deeply our shared experiences and histories connect us. And the work of those who balance writing with community building, writers like Richard Alley and Nat Akin, help us to see a way forward.

During times like these, when every day feels like an assault on our rational sensibilities, art helps us make sense of the swamp. It is only right that we, as Memphians, do our part to support these folks whose works help us right ourselves, mentally and emotionally. Artists, and the organizations that support them, need your help. Pay artists what they are worth. There is no reason why our city’s most talented and dedicated creatives and the organizations that support them should face so many financial roadblocks, given how much they contribute to our city’s well-being. If your resistance does not account for our artists and their art, then you should reconsider your resistance.

Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphian and writer whose work has appeared in Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis magazine and The Memphis Flyer.

Tags art and resistance, Baobab Theatre, Collage Dance Collective, Crosstown Arts, Hattiloo Theater, Memphis artists, Memphis College of Art, Memphis musicians, Memphis Slim House, Memphis writers, Orange Mound Gallery, Writers Resist

Style Sessions We Recommend

Memphis Fashion Week EMDP Show Highlights

Post author By Sophorn Kuoy
Post date April 15, 2016

Memphis College of Art was a fitting atmosphere for Saturday night’s Memphis Fashion Week runway show featuring designs filled with artful crafting and detailing from the city’s emerging designers. Collections from sixteen Emerging Memphis Designer Project (EMDP) participants, with many debuting their work on the runway for the first time, were met with warm applause and supportive cheer from the audience. Two winners were chosen that night by judges Augusta Campbell and Andra Eggleston along with votes from the audience. Congratulations to Zoe Vu and Mary Ambrose, this year’s winners in the singles and mini collection categories respectively.

Concluding the night was the newest spring/summer collection by former EMDP designer and winner Tara Skelley of Dilettante Collection. Continuing her love for travel, the “Del Sol” collection draws inspiration from Central America elevating familiar native patterns and symbols tassel and sugar skull, all designed with absolute vibrancy.

See some highlights from this past Saturday after the jump.

[jump]