Many of us grew up on Sesame Street. It was how we learned about colors, numbers, and letters. For me, Sesame Street became a major creative influence, and I often revisit its imagery for inspiration. The Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary with an exhibition of artwork from yesteryear and now. I love this illustration (above) from the 1970s, with Bob sitting on the stoop (how Brooklyn is that?) and Big Bird looked so different! Sesame Street introduced young audience to everyone from Richard Pryor to Buffy Sainte-Marie. Its multiracial cast (and multicolored puppets) taught kids about getting along with people from all backgrounds, and respect for different cultures. Here are some wonderful examples:
Sesame Street was a mirror of the times, delving into folk music with the likes of Steve Zuckerman, and some segments were downright psychedelic, like pinball with the Pointer Sisters.
Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street is on display until Feb. 21st, 2010. Check it out and take a colorful stroll down memory lane. Log onto: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/sesamestreet/ for more info
Many of us grew up on Sesame Street. It was how we learned about colors, numbers, and letters. For me, Sesame Street became a major creative influence, and I often revisit its imagery for inspiration. The Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary with an exhibition of artwork from yesteryear and now. I love this illustration (above) from the 1970s, with Bob sitting on the stoop (how Brooklyn is that?) and Big Bird looked so different! Sesame Street introduced young audience to everyone from Richard Pryor to Buffy Sainte-Marie. Its multiracial cast (and multicolored puppets) taught kids about getting along with people from all backgrounds, and respect for different cultures. Here are some wonderful examples:
Sesame Street was a mirror of the times, delving into folk music with the likes of Steve Zuckerman, and some segments were downright psychedelic, like pinball with the Pointer Sisters.
Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street is on display until Feb. 21st, 2010. Check it out and take a colorful stroll down memory lane. Log onto: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/sesamestreet/ for more info
As the year draws quickly to a close, I have a lot to reflect on, and a lot to be thankful for. January will mark Black Butterfly's one year anniversary, and so much has changed since then! I started this blog not long after the inauguration of Barack Obama, after having moved back home from New York at the height of the economic recession. I was unemployed, broke, and feeling kind of useless, but at the same time feeling so much optimism and hope for the future. After all I had just witnessed history unfold with the election of this nation's first Black president. How could one not be inspired to follow their dreams, to do more and be more? It was in that spirit that Black Butterfly was created. When not in search of employment, I spent my time researching artists at the local library in San Jose (The Martin Luther King Jr. library has a stunning collection of artists' books), painting, and taking photographs and writing about artists I love and shows that inspired me. Black Butterfly has truly been a labor of love, and I'm thankful for every reader, every comment (they literally make my day), and that yall take the time to read this blog ;) That said, the past few weeks I've been going a little nuts because computer failure kept me from making my updates. I'm happy to say the problem has been fixed, so expect a flurry of posts this week (I usually try to space them out a bit), there's so much I want to share! The photo above is a watercolor painting I'm working on as part of an installation piece, and she's resting on my favorite heirloom quilt. More pictures of the finished project coming soon! I think 2009 was a year that tested us all. And if that's the case, I hope that you learned something about yourself and were able to tap into your own resilient spirit in the process. I hope it's caused you to think outside the box, chase your dreams, and delve deeper into your passions, goals, and reconsider what's important to you. I hope that 2010 brings the realization of your wildest dreams, and alignment with your vision and purpose. Thank you for reading.
As the year draws quickly to a close, I have a lot to reflect on, and a lot to be thankful for. January will mark Black Butterfly's one year anniversary, and so much has changed since then! I started this blog not long after the inauguration of Barack Obama, after having moved back home from New York at the height of the economic recession. I was unemployed, broke, and feeling kind of useless, but at the same time feeling so much optimism and hope for the future. After all I had just witnessed history unfold with the election of this nation's first Black president. How could one not be inspired to follow their dreams, to do more and be more? It was in that spirit that Black Butterfly was created. When not in search of employment, I spent my time researching artists at the local library in San Jose (The Martin Luther King Jr. library has a stunning collection of artists' books), painting, and taking photographs and writing about artists I love and shows that inspired me. Black Butterfly has truly been a labor of love, and I'm thankful for every reader, every comment (they literally make my day), and that yall take the time to read this blog ;) That said, the past few weeks I've been going a little nuts because computer failure kept me from making my updates. I'm happy to say the problem has been fixed, so expect a flurry of posts this week (I usually try to space them out a bit), there's so much I want to share! The photo above is a watercolor painting I'm working on as part of an installation piece, and she's resting on my favorite heirloom quilt. More pictures of the finished project coming soon! I think 2009 was a year that tested us all. And if that's the case, I hope that you learned something about yourself and were able to tap into your own resilient spirit in the process. I hope it's caused you to think outside the box, chase your dreams, and delve deeper into your passions, goals, and reconsider what's important to you. I hope that 2010 brings the realization of your wildest dreams, and alignment with your vision and purpose. Thank you for reading.
You may remember artist Karen Seneferu from her inspiring interview featured on Black Butterfly a few months ago. Well since then she has been hard at work literally taking her Techno-Kisi concept to new heights. The life-size figure, this one done in warm shades of red and yellow (and with new interviews broadcasting from its belly), is on display at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles as part of their latest exhibition An Idea Called Tomorrow. This is one piece that is definitely worth seeing and experiencing in person. An Idea Called Tomorrow runs from November 19th to March 10th. Log onto their website for more info. : http://www.skirball.org/index.php
You may remember artist Karen Seneferu from her inspiring interview featured on Black Butterfly a few months ago. Well since then she has been hard at work literally taking her Techno-Kisi concept to new heights. The life-size figure, this one done in warm shades of red and yellow (and with new interviews broadcasting from its belly), is on display at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles as part of their latest exhibition An Idea Called Tomorrow. This is one piece that is definitely worth seeing and experiencing in person. An Idea Called Tomorrow runs from November 19th to March 10th. Log onto their website for more info. : http://www.skirball.org/index.php
Performance artist Kelly Shaw Willman's grunge*quest continues, with the most recent glittery installment, Movement 7, taking place within her apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The performance space (Kelly's shared living room) was dimly lit, her audience encircled on plush couches and chairs, surrounding a sculptural installation. The installation evoked feelings of intimacy and girlhood with toys, candy sprinkles, and brightly colored panties carefully arranged. There were three sets of small shelves in the space, containing an array of small spheres covered in glitter, and panties bundled into more sculptural pieces hanging from the ceiling. The piece that most struck my fancy was a brightly colored toy bunny head sitting in a bowl of sprinkles. As the performance began, Kelly started two tape players, one playing recordings of a conversation between several people, and the other playing what seemed to be the sounds of some kind of airplane or engine. Willman moved through the space doused in flour (or baby powder?), performing a series of almost ritualistic actions. She was a woman stirring her own pot, making her own magic right before our eyes. At one point, she sliced open some apples and filled them with crimson glitter. They looked as though they were oozing a beautiful blood. At another point, Kelly poured a bowl of honey over her head, most likely as an ode to Oshun, an African deity of love, sensuality and fertility. Oshun's energy was a perfect addition to this very womanly performance piece. And one can't help but make connections between the use of apples in the space and the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden. Further into the performance, Kelly picked up the various pairs of panties that were on the floor, and placed them at the feet or on the laps of her audience members, along with a small bottle of blue water. Then she walked into the bathroom. Everyone followed her in, and there we witnessed the grand finale, which was Willman sitting in a bathtub full of blue water, covered in red glitter.
Audience members took the bottles full of blue water they'd been given earlier and added it to the bath water. It was almost like a communal baptism of some sort. There she sat peacefully in the tub, as sounds from one of the tape recorders squawked and sputtered in the background. I was reminded of a scene in Ousmane Sembene's 1966 noir film Black Girl,where a French Family's Senegalese maid commits suicide and is found in the bathtub, killing herself in anguish over being mistreated and feeling out of place in a strange new land. Kelly is indeed far from home, but her bathtub scene marked a rebirth of sorts. I cannot wait to see what this remarkable young artist offers up next.
Performance artist Kelly Shaw Willman's grunge*quest continues, with the most recent glittery installment, Movement 7, taking place within her apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The performance space (Kelly's shared living room) was dimly lit, her audience encircled on plush couches and chairs, surrounding a sculptural installation. The installation evoked feelings of intimacy and girlhood with toys, candy sprinkles, and brightly colored panties carefully arranged. There were three sets of small shelves in the space, containing an array of small spheres covered in glitter, and panties bundled into more sculptural pieces hanging from the ceiling. The piece that most struck my fancy was a brightly colored toy bunny head sitting in a bowl of sprinkles. As the performance began, Kelly started two tape players, one playing recordings of a conversation between several people, and the other playing what seemed to be the sounds of some kind of airplane or engine. Willman moved through the space doused in flour (or baby powder?), performing a series of almost ritualistic actions. She was a woman stirring her own pot, making her own magic right before our eyes. At one point, she sliced open some apples and filled them with crimson glitter. They looked as though they were oozing a beautiful blood. At another point, Kelly poured a bowl of honey over her head, most likely as an ode to Oshun, an African deity of love, sensuality and fertility. Oshun's energy was a perfect addition to this very womanly performance piece. And one can't help but make connections between the use of apples in the space and the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden. Further into the performance, Kelly picked up the various pairs of panties that were on the floor, and placed them at the feet or on the laps of her audience members, along with a small bottle of blue water. Then she walked into the bathroom. Everyone followed her in, and there we witnessed the grand finale, which was Willman sitting in a bathtub full of blue water, covered in red glitter.
Audience members took the bottles full of blue water they'd been given earlier and added it to the bath water. It was almost like a communal baptism of some sort. There she sat peacefully in the tub, as sounds from one of the tape recorders squawked and sputtered in the background. I was reminded of a scene in Ousmane Sembene's 1966 noir film Black Girl,where a French Family's Senegalese maid commits suicide and is found in the bathtub, killing herself in anguish over being mistreated and feeling out of place in a strange new land. Kelly is indeed far from home, but her bathtub scene marked a rebirth of sorts. I cannot wait to see what this remarkable young artist offers up next.
Bear with me folks. I'm going to try really hard to describe what defies description. Artist Aisha Tandiwe Bell's performance at Brooklyn's Corridor Gallery was mesmerizing and soul-stirring. I've never seen anything like it. Aisha is a multimedia artist. She works in performance, sculpture, and painting, so I arrived at Corridor not knowing what to expect. I found a space that was alive with her installations of Black girls gracing the walls. When viewing Bell's visual works, I was struck by the skilled rendering of her figures. The Black girls were drawn with sullen expressions on their faces, and had hollow white ceramic faces attached to their heads. I loved the fact that the ceramic faces cast shadows onto the girls' heads. Other figures incorporated fabric and more of her beautiful sculptural pieces. The repetition of faces and forms, with some emerging out of bodies suggest connections to ancestry. And for people of African descent, ancestry can be fraught with pain and mysteries to unravel. Bell's characters appear to carry around ghostly weights. Aisha says her work "is about our individual burdens, insecurities, and self-prescribed traps, walls, armor, masks, stereotypes, that we wear/carry out of habit, comfort, fear, sloth, and shame. However, my work also explores our ability to transform, resist and escape these traps." In the center of the room was a tin tub filled with blue water and surrounded by rows of ceramic faces. When the performance began, she handed each member of the audience 2 faces and instructed us to bang them together in a particular rhythm. As we beat the faces together, Aisha donned a white skirt and top, and a belt with the ceramic faces hanging from it. She began to wind her waist in time to the beat, and the faces began to clatter and crash together. The sound it created was otherworldly. Bell danced until the faces broke in pieces and fell to the floor. When all the faces had broken and fallen off, Aisha got into the tin tub and began bathing herself in the blue water. By this time the energy in the room was so heightened that the rhythm the audience had started beating with the faces sped up to a feverish pace. The performance and installation were so powerful. It was the finale of Bell's month-long residency at Corridor Gallery, and what a finish it was! Aisha Tandiwe Bell is definitely an artist to watch. Expect to see much more of her here on Black Butterfly. For more on Bell and her work, check out her website: http://www.superhueman.com
And for more info. on the Corridor Gallery: http://www.corridorgallerybrooklyn.org
And check out this amazing video of one of Aisha's past performances:
Bear with me folks. I'm going to try really hard to describe what defies description. Artist Aisha Tandiwe Bell's performance at Brooklyn's Corridor Gallery was mesmerizing and soul-stirring. I've never seen anything like it. Aisha is a multimedia artist. She works in performance, sculpture, and painting, so I arrived at Corridor not knowing what to expect. I found a space that was alive with her installations of Black girls gracing the walls. When viewing Bell's visual works, I was struck by the skilled rendering of her figures. The Black girls were drawn with sullen expressions on their faces, and had hollow white ceramic faces attached to their heads. I loved the fact that the ceramic faces cast shadows onto the girls' heads. Other figures incorporated fabric and more of her beautiful sculptural pieces. The repetition of faces and forms, with some emerging out of bodies suggest connections to ancestry. And for people of African descent, ancestry can be fraught with pain and mysteries to unravel. Bell's characters appear to carry around ghostly weights. Aisha says her work "is about our individual burdens, insecurities, and self-prescribed traps, walls, armor, masks, stereotypes, that we wear/carry out of habit, comfort, fear, sloth, and shame. However, my work also explores our ability to transform, resist and escape these traps." In the center of the room was a tin tub filled with blue water and surrounded by rows of ceramic faces. When the performance began, she handed each member of the audience 2 faces and instructed us to bang them together in a particular rhythm. As we beat the faces together, Aisha donned a white skirt and top, and a belt with the ceramic faces hanging from it. She began to wind her waist in time to the beat, and the faces began to clatter and crash together. The sound it created was otherworldly. Bell danced until the faces broke in pieces and fell to the floor. When all the faces had broken and fallen off, Aisha got into the tin tub and began bathing herself in the blue water. By this time the energy in the room was so heightened that the rhythm the audience had started beating with the faces sped up to a feverish pace. The performance and installation were so powerful. It was the finale of Bell's month-long residency at Corridor Gallery, and what a finish it was! Aisha Tandiwe Bell is definitely an artist to watch. Expect to see much more of her here on Black Butterfly. For more on Bell and her work, check out her website: http://www.superhueman.com
And for more info. on the Corridor Gallery: http://www.corridorgallerybrooklyn.org
And check out this amazing video of one of Aisha's past performances:
Sesame Street introduced young audience to everyone from Richard Pryor to Buffy Sainte-Marie. Its multiracial cast (and multicolored puppets) taught kids about getting along with people from all backgrounds, and respect for different cultures. Here are some wonderful examples:
