Im feeling inspired to make dresses for these vintage GI Joes and pose them for photographs with mini shopping carts as a collaborative project with Donna Bassin.
What do you think?
2021 Year In Review
I began the year pouring over Anti-Racism learning resources and developed two microaggressions curatorial concepts.
Curated Privilege, Power and Everyday Life and gave a virtual talk about Microaggressions for Studio Montclair.
I extended this work into a self-directed social justice art project, Free Your Mind. Participants are invited to write a statement about implicit bias or a microaggression they have experienced onto a ribbon and then tie the ribbon onto a net to remove this story from their personal narrative. Free Your Mind displayed at Bridge Art Gallery in Bayonne in September, ArtHouse Productions JCFriday at Art 150 in Jersey City and at a Miami Art Week pop up in December.
Imagine the healing possible if people released their trauma. I’m currently looking for other locations to share and collect story ribbons. You are also welcome to drop off any luggage on the virtual page, HERE.
I welcome your suggestions and contribution to this work.
I also delved deeply into my own emotional baggage triggered by racial trauma and created of a new body of work, weaving onto recovered shopping carts.
My Emotional Baggage Carts serve… to separate myself from the daily experience of microaggressions and create a new possibility for myself, free from these constraints.
So far, I have made 19 full size emotional baggage carts, exploring a range of emotions, triggers and impacts from invisibility to the expression of joy as an act of resistance. Given the challenges of moving around my fleet of shopping carts. I miniaturized the concept and have been making mini desktop emotional baggage carts. Get yours here.
As you can imagine, a fleet of emotional baggage carts can take up considerable space. They have taken over Sky Garden Gallery both inside and on the roof and my studio. And they have found temporary homes as public art installations in Summit NJ and NY Governors Island.
The public art installation of “The Baggage We Carry” features three emotional baggage carts on display in Summit NJ from April 2021-April 2022.
MoCADA house public art installation of the “Wide Load” emotional baggage cart was a favorite at Governors Island, NY this Summer. I also enjoyed a yearlong virtual solo show, Hidden in Plain Sight, at MoCADA in Brooklyn NY and look forward to the opening of the new museum space next year.
This Spring, I secured gallery representation with Ivy Brown Gallery and couldn’t be happier with the partnership and guidance she is giving me to curate my art career on my own terms. Thank you Ivy Brown.
I displayed my large scale weaving “You Are So Articulate” and lead a virtual artist talk at NJAA Revision & Respond at the Newark Museum of Art. Take a peek at the show catalog
I was deeply honored to have had my work included in a show amongst so many artists whose works I admire greatly, “Wonder Women Tapestry” in “The Social Fabric: Black Artistry in Fiber Arts, An Exhibition in Homage to Viki Craig at the Morris Museum got a fantastic write up.
I even hosted my city councilman, James Solomon at I am My Hair– yarn wrapping session during the first in person JC Friday open studio since the beginning of the pandemic.
Sunset Colors 
James Solomon 
I Am My Hair Cypher
And my “Ponytails and Door Knockers” rope sculptures were used in a collaborative dance work, People, Place, Disruption with NIMBUS, Jersey City performed at NJPAC and at Nimbus, Jersey City. I was completely blown away by the thoughtful use of my fiber work in this dance. Gorgeous.
I opened my Art 150 studio during JCAST for the community art project Bottle Cap Pearls and displayed “Middle Passage” emotional baggage cart installation during Newark Arts Festival and was juried into Art Fair 14C Juried show for a second time.
This month during Miami Art Week, Free Your Mind collected microaggression story ribbons at Ed Varie’s Sunsets Party at The Standard. And my fiber rope work and Mind Over Matter emotional baggage cart were showcased with Ndr Nw Mgmt (Under New Management) at Untitled Art Fair.
Who knows what 2022 will bring, I look forward to finding out….
New Work: Bottle Cap Pearls
This work is inspired by my self directed homeschool virtual artist residency with NOW Friends in Nairobi Kenya. Last summer when Covid preventing me from traveling to Nairobi, I drilled holes in thousands of bottle caps instead.
Bottle Cap Pearls 
And researched Kenyan artists online and watched tons of YT videos about Masai Mura to make this Pinterest board which has lead to this new body of work using recycled bottle caps.
What do you think?
Theda in Studio
Theda posing with art 
Tying zip ties takes time 
and precision.
You Are So Articulate
In this weaving, each piece of yarn is representative of a conversation where I was acknowledged for being able to express my thoughts and ideas. Being told I’m well-spoken often comes off as a backhanded compliment. It carries problematic connotations that, it is unusual for someone of my race to be intelligent or eloquent.
The completed weaving is displayed on a DYI loom, as if the work is still in progress because some version of this conversation, continues still…
Use what you have
” . . . . Do what you can. Use what you have.” –Arthur Ashe
Ribbon and caution tape 
Adding the pearls
How Has The Pandemic Affected My Work?
Ive been asked if the pandemic has affected me several times over the past year and a half…
The pandemic has forced me to rethink my social practice; how I create my work and source my materials are now done with social distancing in mind. Art supply swap meet ups became Glad bag recycled goodie drop offs with the doorman. In person work shops replaced by Zoom studio visits.
The pandemic alone time has given me space to be present to old emotional baggage and say good bye to many lingering conversations that have been inhabiting my head. Creating space for new and old ideas to co-mingle and inspire
Pandemic Vibes…
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.
Upcoming Artist Talks
Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 7-8pm The Center for Contemporary Art virtual studio visit. Register here.
Friday, March 5, 2021 6-9pm Weave Weird Baggagecarts JC Friday. Register here.
Please save these dates. Registration links forthcoming.
Thursday, May 27, 2021 7-9pm Microaggressions MoCADA Artist Talk
Saturday, June 12, 2021 3-5pm Microaggressions MoCADA Workshop
