August 21, 2019Comments are off for this post.

RELEASE PARTY Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in an American City

Baltimore Revisited is hot off the press! Get your copy at our release party on 9/7/19, 7 PM. RSVP here.

April 26, 2019Comments are off for this post.

A quest to reconstruct Baltimore’s American Indian “reservation”

Published on The Conversation April 23, 2019. Check it out and share!

July 10, 2018Comments are off for this post.

Unique As We Are Alike at CSAS

This fall, the Exquisite Lumbees will be making an appearance at the Center for the Study of the American South, at UNC Chapel Hill.

Featuring work by Lumbee artists Ashley Minner and Alisha Locklear Monroe, "Unique As We Are Alike is a multidimensional exploration of contemporary Lumbee identity that focuses on the experiences of Lumbees defining themselves and their commonalities despite years of being defined by others. This process, through symbolism and portraiture, creates a feeling of connectedness, compassion, and empathy, which showcases the uniqueness of Lumbee identity while underscoring certain commonalities of the human condition.

Join us for the opening reception:

Spend the evening with us on Friday, September 14, at 5:30 pm for the opening of Unique As We Are Alike.The reception and exhibition are free and open to the public. Light snacks and drinks will be served. Both artists will be present. The evening will showcase another dimension of Lumbee excellence as well, as we celebrate the publication of The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle, by our director, Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, who will be reading excerpts from her new book.

This exhibit will remain on display through December 12, 2018.

Parking is free after 5:00 pm in the Park Place parking lot, approximately two blocks from the Center.

Special thanks to our co-sponsors, UNC’s American Indian CenterDepartment of American StudiesOffice for Diversity and InclusionDepartment of Art & Art History, and UNC Press.

February 8, 2018Comments are off for this post.

Retracing the Reservation: A Walking Tour of the Historic Lumbee Indian Community of East Baltimore

I was featured as a guest blogger for Maryland Humanities today. Check it out!

Photo by Colby Ware

January 16, 2018Comments are off for this post.

Out of the Blocks: 100 S. Broadway

I was honored to serve as a field producer / community liaison for the Out of the Blocks episode on 100 S. Broadway. Part I, featuring members of Baltimore's American Indian community, is now live! Check us out.

"Baltimore became a second home to members of North Carolina’s Lumbee tribe when they immigrated to the city after World War II, trading in farm work for factory and construction jobs.  Since then, the Baltimore American Indian Center on the 100 block of S Broadway has been a cultural hub for the transplanted Lumbee people and other Native Americans in the city.  In this episode: Conversations with Urban Indians about family, spirituality, and identity.

Funding for podcast production provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Out of the Blocks is produced with grant funding from the Cohen Opportunity Fund, the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund (creator of the Baker Artist Portfolios), Sig and Barbara Shapiro, Patricia and Mark Joseph, Jonathan Melnick, The Andy and Sana Brooks Family Foundation, The Hoffberger Foundation, Associated Jewish Charities, The John J. Leidy Foundation, The Kenneth S. Battye Charitable Trust, and The Muse Web Foundation.

July 28, 2016Comments are off for this post.

Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship at CCCADI

ICA Fellows Cohort 2

 

“Go forth and kick ass!”[i] was the directive given to me by Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, recently retired Curator Emerita of the Museum of Arts and Design, former executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and former curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How did I end up in conversation with such distinguished company?

The Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship (ICA), at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) “trains emerging arts-based professionals, transitioning into NYC cultural institutional public leadership and management, with a targeted focus to include and support persons from historically under-represented communities… The Fellowship also includes site visits at NYC arts and cultural institutions, along with networking opportunities with notable senior arts executives.”[ii] As a fellow of the spring 2016 cohort, I was paired with Dr. Sims, along with three of my fellow fellows, and scheduled for an interview, which proved to be nothing less than inspirational.

I am a community-based visual artist from Baltimore, Maryland and I am a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. I have followed the work of Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, founding director of CCCADI, since 2007, when she visited my school, Maryland Institute College of Art. I was completing a Master of Arts in Community Arts degree at the time, and I remember feeling very exhausted. I hadn’t even graduated when Dr. Vega encouraged me to continue my education beyond the Masters level, stating that there are not enough women of color with advanced degrees. I listened.

Ten years later, I still live in Baltimore and work primarily in the South. When I applied to become an ICA fellow, I proposed that my participation in such a fellowship in NYC could give me insight into the workings of the cultural scene in any city, and it would afford me the invaluable opportunity to consider these things amongst peers.

In order to be able to make the commute to NYC, I also applied for and received Artistic Assistance funding from Alternate ROOTS, an organization based in the Southern USA whose mission is to support the creation and presentation of original art, in all its forms; whose members strive to be allies in the elimination of all forms of oppression; who are committed to social and economic justice and the protection of the natural world.[iii]

This fellowship provides tools for us to “understand the historical context for NYC’s current cultural arts landscape as it relates to NYC’s changing racial, ethnic and cultural communities; deepen skills in public management, leadership, communication and best practices in advancing cultural equity; enhance personal awareness, courage, clarity and commitment regarding their purpose and promise as progressive leaders in this field; examine the historical constructs classifying some art as ‘high art,’ the standards that drive it, and how societal bias obstructs cultural equity; receive career advisement and create a professional development plan; broaden [our] work experience in the arts advocacy sector via cohort assignments; learn how the range of NYC’s key public arts institutions work and gain access to these institutions and their leaders via site visits; [and to] gain and apply skills to strengthen their institutions, and/or cultural work via [this,] the ICA final project.”[iv]

It was mentioned many times that a “core emphasis of the Fellowship is the advancement of cultural equity.”[v] Baltimore Racial Justice Action (BRJA) defines “equity” as “the condition that would be achieved if identities assigned to historically oppressed groups no longer acted as the most powerful predictor of how one fares, with the root causes of inequities, not just their manifestations, eliminated. This includes elimination of policies, practices, attitudes and cultural messages that reinforce or fail to eliminate differential outcomes by group identity/background (economic, educational, health, criminal justice, etc).”[vi]

Now having practiced professionally for at least ten years, and having collaborated extensively with other like-minded artists for social justice, I think it’s fair to say that we operate, collectively, from a position that conceives of equity as an achievable outcome. In fact, as artists, it is literally our job to envision the equitable society in which we would like to live. Yet, this fall I will begin my third year in an American Studies PhD program, which has offered different perspectives and ways of theorizing American society, some of which identify notions of equity, here on this land, as part and parcel of a national mythology. Following those lines of reasoning, “‘twas never thus!”[vii] and indeed, perhaps it never can be.

Cultural equity, or lack thereof, in this country, correlates to lines first and most prominently drawn along race. Those lines are older than the nation-state of “America” itself, dating back to at least 1492 when Europeans ravaging Hispaniola wondered if the natives they encountered were fully human.[viii] America was founded on genocide. To date, its existence depends on the invisibility of the indigenous populations that remain, and the legacies of violent subjugation of the descendents of enslaved people who made this nation “great.”

Inequity stemming from white supremacy is embedded in America’s DNA. In the architecture of the buildings where the American government is housed, in contemporary popular culture, and even in the hearts and minds of young children, race-based inequities are perpetuated. That’s why, when I recently participated in an Undoing Racism workshop offered by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (with a close friend of Dr. Sims, Dr. Leslie King Hammond), I said “I’m not sure racism actually can be undone here.” And I’m not sure that equity can actually be achieved. That’s an honest summation of where I am right now- holding space for the contradiction between visions, and practical knowledge of racial formation and the social construction of realities on this land.

I ask, if equity indeed cannot be achieved in America, what, then, is our work? Is it always in the undoing? Is it just the struggle?

As Dr. Vega herself writes, “The challenge for historically marginalized communities that are part of the matrix of the United States and other colonial countries is how to have their cultures and contributions valued as integral to the civil society they have been critical in forming.”[ix] And “[i]mportant to the process of sustaining people on the margins of colonial imposition has been devaluing humanity, history, and creative products of those historically oppressed which renders invisible the contributions they have made to their countries and to world cultures."[x] In other words, our histories are not History and our art is not Art.

It is difficult to offer strategies to achieve cultural equity in NYC’s communities when I don’t believe wholeheartedly that equity is even possible in America. I am, however, able to offer strategies based on personal takeaways of this fellowship that I believe can be put to work to keep all of us strong, and enable us to move forward, if nothing more.

The first strategy is a collective, conscious reconceptualization of individual identity. My current contention about individual identity is that it doesn’t exist. We are not unique snowflakes as we are taught to believe in elementary school. And all of our artistic genius, talents, and skills do not begin only with ourselves. We are raised as citizens of our communities, with roles in our communities, on the strengths of our relatives (and We Are All Related), on the prayers and the work laid down by our ancestors. According to sociologists, we aren’t even fully human until we are socialized.[xi] We are never, at any point in our lives, individuals. Yet, capitalism, the true ruler of this nation, worships the ego. The Western art world does as well. Within both paradigms, competition is fierce, resources are understood to be scarce, and fellow artists are enemies.

Let’s consciously move away from ego and toward community with each other. Let’s remind each other that we belong to each other continuously. Let’s live and work and love with that truth in mind. As a result of this fellowship, I read these words of the late artist / activist Fred Ho: “I think the real thing is that the community from which it comes can only catalyze the ingeniousness of individualism. That no one is an isolated singular genius irrespective of all the players’ community in which they journeyed through, I think that's the key thing. When people talk about, ‘oh your influences,’ that's just the beginning of a discussion about that kind of interactivity, of the community from which one comes out of as a player.”[xii]

A second major takeaway from this fellowship was an awakening, brought on by guest speaker Ms. Baraka Sele, about the language used to describe our people. Dominant society uses language to diminish our humanity, and likewise diminish our cultures and our art. Words to describe us are always diminutive or disparaging, for example: minority, underserved, outsider, primitive, etc. Words have meanings. They mean more than they say. The language used to describe us tells a story about us. If we use the same language, it means that we have internalized the story. If “the truth about stories is that’s all we are,”[xiii] then we better start telling a different story. A second strategy, then, is to collectively insist on using language that seeks, instead, to reflect our power, beauty, and strength. In doing this, I believe we can also change stories being told about us and thereby change our lived experiences.

Famed postcolonial theorist, and self-identified postcolonial subject himself, Frantz Fanon, spoke to the responsibility (in this case, his own) of oppressed persons to bear the (hi)story of their people. He wrote, "Our history takes place in obscurity and the sun I carry with me must lighten every corner."[xiv] In other words, it is through the telling of one’s own story that the histories of oppressed people come to be known by all of society. Whether or not tellers share with this intent or sense of responsibility in mind, their stories function as suns, illuminating darkened corners of human experience that have been left out of dominant narratives. But “Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous,”[xv] as Native Studies scholar, Thomas King, cautions. Stories can control lives, and can hold people captive.[xvi] “…Once [a] story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world. So you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told.”[xvii]

A third and final strategy would be to make a conscious effort to tap into our subconscious. Why? Because I know that I know things without knowing them, and so do you. Because I recognize that I am connected to my folks who came before me, who go with me to show me the way, whose experiences and wisdom is embedded in my DNA.

On the very first day that our cohort met, we were led through a guided meditation. I hate guided meditations. I generally refuse to participate. That day, because I chose to participate, I got to spend time with my beloved uncle who walked on several years ago. Because I was where I was supposed to be, and open to doing that I asked to do, I was able to access insight as to why I am even here on this earth.

The third strategy, then, is to tap into the knowledge sealed up in our bones, to believe in magic, to be open to other ways of knowing. After all, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”[xviii] If equity can be achieved, we’ll need our own tools to achieve it.

Maybe that’s how we can go forth and kick ass like Dr. Sims said to do.

 

Bibliography

“Definitions,” Baltimore Racial Justice Action

Accessed July 16, 2016 http://bmoreantiracist.org/resources-2/explanations/

Franz Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967).

Ithaka S+R. Diversity in the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Community. By Ron C. Schonfeld and Liam Sweeney. January 28, 2016

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 1984, 2007), 110-114.

Marta Moreno Vega, “A Transformative Initiative for Achieving Cultural Equity: Community Arts University Without Walls,” in The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics, ed. Randy Martin. (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 159-172.

“Open for Submissions: Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship 2016,”

Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Accessed July 16, 2016.

http://www.cccadi.org/education-news/2016/6/24/open-for-submission-innovative- cultural-advocacy-fellowship-2016

Omi & Winant, Racial Formations in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. Second Edition (New York: Routledge, 1994).

Roger N. Buckley and Tamara Roberts, eds., Yellow Power Yellow Soul: The Radical Art of Fred Ho (Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2013), 191-213.

“The Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship: Next Gen Leaders Advancing Cultural Equity,” Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Accessed July 16, 2016 http://www.cccadi.org/icafellowship

Thomas King, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

“What is ROOTS?” Alternate ROOTS, Accessed July 14, 2016.

What Is ROOTS?

Personal communication with the Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, June 10, 2016.

[ii] “The Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship: Next Gen Leaders Advancing Cultural Equity,” Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Accessed July 16, 2016 http://www.cccadi.org/icafellowship

[iii] “What is ROOTS?” Alternate ROOTS, Accessed July 14, 2016. https://alternateroots.org/about-us/

[iv] Ibid.

[v] “Open for Submissions: Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship 2016,”

Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Accessed July 16, 2016.

http://www.cccadi.org/education-news/2016/6/24/open-for-submission-innovative-cultural-advocacy-fellowship-2016

[vi] “Definitions,” Baltimore Racial Justice Action Accessed July 16, 2016

[vii] “’Twas ever thus” a phrase from Thomas Moore's poem "The Fire Worshippers" (1817), has become a popular literary idiom.

[viii] Omi & Winant, Racial Formations in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. Second Edition (New York: Routledge, 1994). pp 61-62.

[ix] Marta Moreno Vega, “A Transformative Initiative for Achieving Cultural Equity: Community Arts University Without Walls,” in The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics, ed. Randy Martin. (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 159.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Ian Robertson, Society: A Brief Introduction (City: Worth Publishers, 1988), 249.

[xii] Roger N. Buckley and Tamara Roberts, eds., Yellow Power Yellow Soul: The Radical Art of Fred Ho (Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2013), 201.

[xiii] Thomas King, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), p. 2.

[xiv] Franz Fanon. Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967).

[xv] Thomas King, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), p. 9.

[xvi] Ibid.

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Sister  Outsider: Essays and Speeches. (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 1984, 2007), 110-114.

July 28, 2016Comments are off for this post.

First Exhibition at UNCP Entrepreneurship Incubator

Artists Jessica Clark, Ashley Minner, Isaac Dial, and Dayona Johnson teamed up to produce the first ever art exhibition at the UNCP Entrepreneurship Incubator in downtown Pembroke, North Carolina during Lumbee Homecoming 2016. Works by all four artists, as well as Panamanian artists Gustavo Esquina de la Espada and Manuel Golden, were installed.

[portfolio_slideshow]

The opening reception on July 1, 2016 was well attended. An art market featuring the work of local artists will now take place in the space on a monthly basis.

July 28, 2016Comments are off for this post.

Elders of Baltimore


is a social media platform that fosters real-life intergenerational connections through storytelling. Elders of Baltimore seeks to celebrate, honor, and bring recognition to Baltimore’s elder citizens across race, class, and community divides by inspiring personal connections, and existing as a widely accessible public archive of the artifacts of those experiences.

Baltimoreans of all ages are encouraged to spend time with their elders, ask to hear their stories, and to listen closely. Photos and brief anecdotes or quotes related to these experiences can be submitted to eldersofbaltimore@gmail.com to be considered for publication on the Elders of Baltimore Instagram account, and also in print via local print media. Instagrammers should follow elders.of.baltimore to see all of the wonderful posts!

Who are elders? Elders are senior citizens. They are grandmas, grandpas, great aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors. They are treasures.    

Artists Ashley Minner and Sean Scheidt conceived of Elders of Baltimore while working on a related storytelling project, their photo essay The Neighborhood Changed: A Collaboration, featured in the current issue of the Bmore Art Journal of Art + Ideas. In an attempt to piece together a greater narrative of change in East Baltimore over the years, Ashley and Sean collected individual stories from a wide cross-section of residents. They started by interviewing their own elder family members and other elder loved ones. They made Instagram and Facebook posts about this experience which received a lot of attention. They so enjoyed interviewing these elders in particular, and the elders had such a good time sharing their stories, the team since decided to use social media to promote similar interactions across the city.

“Stories help us to realize how connected to each other we really are,” says Ashley who, like Sean, was amazed at the amount of overlap between the stories, both generationally and geographically. “And Baltimore is a special place,” adds Sean. “The lived experiences of the elders of this city inform our lived experiences here today.”

The team especially enjoys the notion of subverting social media to encourage real-life connections. Sean says, “The Instagram posts are really just artifacts of the true process we are trying to inspire.” Yet the team has also been careful to partner with local print publications so that the stories are more widely accessible than just social media. “Not everyone is glued to their phones like we are,” says Ashley. “We want everyone to be able to see what is published.”

The team pitched their idea for Elders of Baltimore to the Warnock Foundation Baltimore Social Innovation Journal. They were chosen as Spring 2016 Innovators and were funded $1000 seed money to begin the project. Ashley and Sean plan to publish one story per day for the first week after the launch of the account, and at least one story per week thereafter. They will turn administration of the Elders of Baltimore project over to another pair of artists in January 2017.

Elders of Baltimore has been featured in The Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Post-Examiner!

Special thanks to our friend Jess of JWatson Creative for our fabulous logo design!

March 29, 2016Comments are off for this post.

Contemporary Southeastern Native Artists Panel

Native Speakers Series UNCP '16
As part of UNC Pembroke’s Native American Speakers Series, a panel of American Indian artists will discuss the topic of Southeastern Native art on Thursday, March 31 at 7 pm in the University Center Annex. The panel includes:

- America Meredith (Cherokee Nation), a painter, printmaker, educator, and editor of First American Art Magazine;
- Jessica Clark (Lumbee), a Robeson County painter and educator;
- Ashley Minner (Lumbee), a community-based visual artist and scholar from Baltimore, Maryland; and
- Terry White, a Lumbee artist from Robeson County.
Admission is free, and the event is open to the public.

The event is hosted by the Department of American Indian Studies and the Southeast American Indian Studies Program, and sponsored by PNC Bank.

For more information:
Phone: 910.521.6266
Email: ais@uncp.edu
Web: www.uncp.edu/ais

November 27, 2015Comments are off for this post.

Fresh Paint on the Baltimore American Indian Center

An interview I did with Lumbee artist Dean Tonto Cox Sr. about his recent work on the historic mural at the Baltimore American Indian Center, featured on the Bmore Art Blog. Check it out!

Admiring his work 2