Art

“Stay Fly” Comes to CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery

THE AFRO — “Stay Fly” is a combination of large and small scale collages, and personal designer items.

Published

6 years ago

February 14, 2019

By George Kevin Jordan

Local Artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards will premiere her latest work this Friday at CityCenterDC, as part of CulturalDC’s 10^th installation in their Mobile Art Gallery space.

“Stay Fly” is a combination of large and small scale collages, and personal designer items, and does a deep dive into the relationship between Black people, luxury goods and fashion. For Edwards, the installation was a natural extension of her earlier work.

“It’s really a continuum of an exhibition that I had last year with my gallery in New York – ‘Fly Girl Fly,’” Richmond-Edwards said. “I’ve always dealt with the narrative that revolved around the subjects in my paintings, but I never addressed the obvious things in my work which was the fashion.”

A piece featured in “Stay Fly” from local artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards at CityCenterDC at CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery as part of their 10th installation.

The Detroit born and raised artist recalled the influence of midwest fashion and how it impacted her sensibilities.

“We’re were really known for our flamboyant style,” Richmond-Edwards said.” So you will have custom red suits with the red gators to match the red Cadillac. Real flamboyant and gaudy. That’s how I was dressing in high school.

Another big influence was her sister’s subscription to Ebony magazine and the Ebony Fashion Fair section in the back of the book.

“It was my first introduction to couture fashion,” Richmond-Edwards said. “You had these beautiful models and these frilly over the top Couture gowns and that was very impressionable to me.”

Because she liked to draw, Richmond-Edwards was able to draw and design her own dress for prom. She designed dresses for few other girls as well. Those moments shaped her love for fashion, design and art.

She would later graduate with a Bachelor of Art degree from Jackson State University in 2004, where she studied painting and drawing, and earn an MFA from Howard University in 2012.

Richmond-Edwards’ current work pushes beyond the stereotypes of luxury and asks us to hold several different complicated ideas at once.

“What does luxury mean to us as people of color in our community,” she said. “On one hands it means purchasing a Gucci purse. but it can also mean purchasing a knock off because it’s the logo that symbolizes fashion.”

“Luxury is also like customization – getting your dress made or even. If you look in terms of how we broadcast or show we have this upward mobility, we may not be able to invest in education or a house, I’m speaking of people who aren’t necessarily middle class, but we can rock some new shoes and that was very important for us. I have access to that.”

CulturalDC is celebrating 20 years of “creating affordable, sustainable artist spaces in Washington D.C. Richmond-Edwards’ work is the latest in an ongoing mobile art gallery space.

“Jamea’s installation in particular highlights the potential of CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery. We are providing a unique opportunity for an artist to display their work directly next to the subjects they are in conversation with. We’re also thinking critically about other artistic disciplines, like fashion and their representation in our curatorial repertoire,” says Kristi Maiselman, Executive Director of CulturalDC on the website.

For Richmond-Edwards, the installation offers an opportunity for audiences to look at our cultural contribution and legacy in a different way.

“This is all American history,” Richmond-Edwards said. “Why do we want to match our outfits to our gators, to our cars? We’re looking at history in a way that hasn’t been addressed. Let’s talk about the way we subvert the systems and how we uplift ourselves.”

“Stay Fly” will run through April 13. This event is free and open to the public. For more information about the show or CulturalDC please visit the website at www.culturaldc.org

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

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Griot Theater Company Presents August Wilson’s Work at Annual Oratorical Featuring Black Authors

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Published

1 month ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Late playwright August Wilson. Wikipedia photo.

By Godfrey Lee

Griot Theater Company will present their Fifth Annual Oratorical with August Wilson’s “Half a Century,” at the Belrose on 1415 Fifth Ave., in San Rafael near the San Rafael Public Library.

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20^th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Previous performance highlighting essential Black American authors included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with Langston Hughes.

The play will be performed at 3:00. p.m. on Feb. 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28 at 7:00 p.m., and on Feb. 23 at 3:00 p.m.

For more information, go to griottheatercompany.squarespace.com/productions-v2

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Activism

MLK Day of Service Volunteers Make Blankets and Art for Locals in Need

“Everyone has an opportunity to participate,” said Glenda Roberts, kinship support care program manager at CCYSB. “Our nonprofit organization and participants recognize how important it is to give back to the community and this is serving. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, ‘Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.’”

Published

2 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of the nonprofit.

By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Standard

The Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) and Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church (BMBC) are collaborating with a team of volunteers for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 20 that will wrap the community’s most vulnerable people in warm blankets and provide them with an uplifting gift of art.

Volunteers will kick off their activities at BMBC at 11 a.m., making blankets for the unhoused people served by the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP) and art for those in convalescence in Richmond.

Others will get to work preparing a lunch of chili, salad, a veggie tray, and water for participants, offered courtesy of CCYSB, while supplies last.

“People of all ages are welcome to participate in the MLK Day of Service,” said Roberts. Volunteers can RSVP via phone to Glenda Roberts at 510-215-4670, ext. 125.

CCYSB Boardmember Jackie Marston and her friends donated the materials and supplies to make the blankets and art projects. The nonprofit is also providing the day’s complimentary lunch, as well as employees to volunteer, under the direction of CCYSB Executive Director Marena Brown.

BMBC, led by Rev. Dr. Carole McKindley-Alvarez, is providing the facility for the event and volunteers from the church, which is located at 684 Juliga Woods St. in Richmond.

Located in Richmond, CCYSB is a nonprofit youth advocacy organization that serves eligible children, youth, and low-income families with a variety of wraparound services so they can thrive. Programs include academic achievement, youth mentorship, truancy prevention and direct response.

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Art

Vandalism at Richmond Ferry Terminal Saddens Residents

Residents have been lamenting the destruction online. Ellen Seskin posted photos of the vandalism to the Facebook group, Everybody’s Richmond, on Jan. 12, saying she encountered it while out on a walk. “It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

Published

2 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Graffiti mars the walkway at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Photo by Kathy Chouteau, The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” stated the post on NextDoor.

The post referenced images of graffiti at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Not just on the terminal, but also on public artwork, on trail signs, on public benches and the boardwalk.

On Wednesday, the Standard stopped by to see it for ourselves. The good news was that it appears the graffiti on the terminal and on the artwork, called Changing Tide, have been cleaned for the most part. But graffiti remained abundant in the area around the relatively new ferry terminal, which opened to the public just six years ago.

Graffiti artists tagged benches and the boardwalk. Cars that had done doughnuts in the street marked the cul-de-sac just outside the historic Craneway Pavilion.

A ferry worker told us the graffiti had been there since before he started working for the ferry service about a week ago.

A member of the Army Corps of Engineers who did not want to be named in this report called the scene “sad,” as “they’d done such a nice job fixing it up.”

“It’s sad that all this money has been spent and hoodlums just don’t care and are destroying stuff,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how soon the graffiti would be removed. The Standard reported the graffiti to the city’s graffiti abatement hotline. We were prompted to leave a message reporting the address and location of the graffiti.

“It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

In the comment section responding to Seskin’s post, local attorney Daniel Butt questioned why there aren’t cameras in the area.

On Nextdoor, one resident suggested searching to see if the tags match any accounts on Instagram, hoping to identify the perpetrator.

On its website, the City of Richmond says residents should graffiti immediately call Public Works graffiti removal and/or Code Enforcement at 510-965-4905.

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report.