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Wow… just wow.

Can I please take a moment to geek out for a second?

Just feast your eyes upon my ponytails, the beautiful grace of dancer, Aanyse Pettiford-Chandle and Megan Maloy’s stunning Photography.

Wow, just wow…

People Place Disruption premieres on April 28th as a virtual event with dance film and discussion as part of Nimbus Dance’s Spring 2021 season: A collaborative work which draws together dancers and choreographers of Nimbus Dance with Jersey City visual artists to reflect back and process the exceptional confluence of social, environmental, health, and economic upheaval that our community, and the world face at present. The project aims to affirm and empower artists and collaborative action, exploring underlying webs between people, place and the disruptive times we live in. .

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Death by 10,000 Paper Cuts

Death by 10,000 Paper Cuts uses recovered commercial fishing net, 10,000 zip ties and silk sari yarn to illuminate the impact of microaggressions.

The term, Death by a thousand cuts is derived from a form of Chinese torture known as lingchi, where a person is subjected to hundreds of small cuts until death occurs.

If you get one papercut, it is uncomfortable, but the wound eventually heals. Imagine getting multiple paper cuts on a daily basis.

Small cuts upon cuts upon cuts. This is what microaggressions feels like. You will not die from one paper cut, but the experience of multiple insults, both verbal, nonverbal, and/ visual underpins very real consequences for me… stress, anger, frustration, self-doubt and ultimately feelings of invisibility and powerlessness. 

Viewpoints 2021

Exhibit Dates: April 23 – May 28, 2021

Opening Reception: Sunday, April 25, 2-4:30pm

Location: Studio Montclair Gallery; 127 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07042

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People, Place, Disruption

A Collective Dance/Art Project by Nimbus Dance and Jersey City Artists

A flood of voices: untapped, unheard, enraged. New voices. Young voices. Stifled voices. Voices that stretch the confines of our worldview. Voices that uncover identity. Voices that are exquisite. In People Place Disruption, the artistic voices of a community unite to reflect on the past year. This collective, brought together by Nimbus Dance of Jersey City, includes choreographers, visual artists, video designers, photographers, lighting designers, and filmmakers – a vehicle that summons strength through individual voice and in unified action. People Place Disruption is a multimedia project that illustrates a path forward – unveiled through collective creation.

The artwork of Jennifer Brown, Isabelle Duverger, Myssi Robinson, Melida Rodas, Theda Sandiford, William Stamos, Rachel Terres, Joe Velez will be exhibited in the Gallery at Nimbus Arts Center on Sundays from April 11-May 9

will premiere on April 28th as a virtual event with dance film and discussion as part of Nimbus Dance’s Spring 2021 season: A collaborative work which draws together dancers and choreographers of Nimbus Dance with Jersey City visual artists to reflect back and process the exceptional confluence of social, environmental, health, and economic upheaval that our community, and the world face at present. The project aims to affirm and empower artists and collaborative action, exploring underlying webs between people, place and the disruptive times we live in. 

Tickets available for the performance: HERE

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Virtual Solo Show at MoCADA

This exhibition explores implicit biases facing BIPOC communities and my aesthetic armor for protection.

The show will be on view in MoCADA’s virtual exhibition from May 3, 2021 to July 5, 2021.

Some key dates…

Virtual “Opening/Preview / Tour”: Thursday, April 29, 2021 from 7-9PM

Virtual Artist Talk: Thursday, May 27, 2021 from 7-9PM

Workshop: Saturday, June 12, 2021 at 3-5PM

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2021 New Jersey Arts Annual: ReVision and Respond

2021 New Jersey Arts Annual: ReVision and Respond

When the Newark Museum of Art announced the artists whose works will be featured in the upcoming exhibition: 2021 New Jersey Arts Annual: ReVision and Respond, I missed my acceptance email and had no idea I was in the show until I had missed a communication deadline and the museum reached out and checked up on me. Doh…

The exhibition will open on Thursday, June 17 and will be on view through Sunday, August 22. This year’s exhibition jurors are Kristen J. Owens, Associate Curator (Programs) for Rutgers University-Newark’s Paul Robeson Galleries at Express Newark, and Amy Simon Hopwood, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts at The Newark Museum of Art. Together, they reviewed more than 1,800 entries from 484 artists across New Jersey. The jurors selected 50 works by 45 artists interpret this year’s ReVision and Respond theme. My weaving, You’re So Articulate will appear in the show.

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Baggage Cart Statement

We all carry emotional baggage Naturally; these manifests differently for each of us. Some of us carry suitcases of pain and bitterness while some of us just have a backpack. As an empath, I carry a lifetime of disappointments and racial traumas.

Being alive means having the capacity to carry past experiences and learn from them. But there’s a point when this baggage becomes too much.  Carrying too much emotional baggage can literally stop us from being open to new experiences, intimacy and growth.

How we choose to handle our baggage makes a difference. We have the choice to let it define us or to let it go and move forward.

My baggage carts are designed as a vessel for racial and class traumas. My baggage carts serve…

  • to separate myself from these experiences.
  • to grant access to grace.
  • to create a new possibility for myself, free from the constraints of the past.
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New Artist Statement

Utilizing 100-foot extensions of rope, twine, and yarn impeccably wrapped, woven, tied and embellished with recycled beads, ribbon, lace, tape and bottle cap bobbles, I lure you into her hue-imbued, enmeshed installations symbolizing natural hair. My bold, albeit whimsically twisted and locked forms gingerly invite the audience into off the-wall conversations about micro aggressions against black women and their hair.

Using personal conflict as a starting point, I juxtapose various fibers with a variety of found materials using free form weaving, coiling, knotting, wrapping and jewelry making techniques.  Meticulously collected materials, transformed by their collective memory become “social fabric” weaving together contemporary issues and personal narratives.

Community art making is also key to my process. Multi-disciplinary experiences pairing people, food, wine, music and art, create a safe space to explore themes such as equity & inclusion, sustainability and personal wellbeing.