Ashley Minner Jones is a community-based visual artist and folklorist from Baltimore, Maryland

where she has lived on the same block her entire life. Her interdisciplinary practice is deeply rooted in place—usually within the context of the U.S. South—and is focused on honoring and celebrating everyday people by lifting up their stories. Ashley is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She earned an MFA in Community Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art and a PhD in American Studies from University of Maryland College Park. As an artist, she has exhibited widely and her work is represented in several prominent collections. Her research is being archived as "the Ashley Minner Collection" in the Albin O. Kuhn Library of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Her most recent project is a reconstruction of East Baltimore's historic American Indian “reservation.” A monograph on the same is forthcoming. 

Ashley especially enjoys spending time with her family, listening to old music, and going on adventures. 

View Ashley’s CV.

Portrait photography by Jill Fannon for BmoreArt.

In my artwork and in my life’s work, I am most inspired by the beauty of everyday people. I try to represent us in ways that are honest, in ways that we want to be seen, with honor and respect. I’m interested in stories, songs, families, histories, travels, traditions, dreams, resourcefulness during hard times and everyone’s expertise in their own life. I’m interested in making obvious both our humanity and our divinity, as well as the fact that we are all related. My artist books, prints, mixed-media drawings, and installations are often made in collaboration with the people they depict. Always made with love, my art seeks to be a vehicle and a catalyst for healing, reconciliation, and hope.