Art for Sale Page 2

Bellamy revealed the details of her relationship to a West Philadelphia pastor in her first book. This pastor was married at the time Bellamy became involved with him. “Breaking the Silence” now continues the saga.“The books deal with how a woman can find herself in an inappropriate relationship,” said Bellamy. “I personally found myself in a relationship with my pastor, who was married, because he was my counselor.”

Since the West Philadelphia pastor served as her spiritual adviser, she was easy prey for this form of emotional and spiritual abuse, according to Bellamy. “This man learned my vulnerabilities. He (had access) to learning about them because I was in a therapeutic environment and he was counseling me on life issues. Somewhere down the line there must have been a shift on his part emotionally,” she said.

As a result of public attention, the pastor was forced to resign from his position in one of the area’s well-known mega-churches. A lawsuit is now pending against both the pastor and his former church. Bellamy said that since the lawsuit is still pending she was unable to comment about the details.

“Breaking the Silence” will fill in many details not included in her previous book and will cover personal accounts of her life not then explored. Among the issues she feels led to her becoming vulnerable to her pastor was the experience of being molested by her mother’s boyfriend between ages 11 to 14.

Bellamy feels her books can provide life lessons to younger girls and inexperienced women. The book, she said, is designed as much to empower other women and encourage them to speak out against immorality in the church. These girls and women should not suffer in silence, according to the author.

“Other women have come forward and said, ‘We want to tell our story,’ so I’m taking those stories and bringing them into one place,” said Bellamy. “I’m taking those stories national.”

Yet penning her own story and those of women like her has not been without repercussions. She said some of the women from the church have berated her. She has also received threats. Currently she has had to hire security to ensure the protection of herself and her children. Nevertheless, she said she will continue her mission to raise awareness and change church practices that support this type of abuse.“

Bringing awareness to this on a national level and demanding some changes, that is my journey,” said Bellamy. “ From the time ‘Pimps in the Pulpit’ came out until now, my journey — all of the radio interviews, the backlash, the nasty e-mails, having to walk around with security, having churches respond by this, local radio stations attempting to prostitute the book, this was all in my effort to raise awareness and implement changes.”

Those interested in learning more about Shannon Bellamy or her new book “Breaking the Silence,” can visit her Web site at: www.shannonbellamy.com .

by: Michael H. Hodges

The new show at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, “Art of the Masters: A Survey of African American Images, 1980-2000,” opens with a knockout piece by Yvonne E. Tucker. “Desert Goddess” is a squat, two-handled vessel that calls to mind Greek amphoras. Topping it is the stern face of a woman, in something like pharaonic head gear. She gazes out at the world with eyes both wise and skeptical — not a bad combination for these times.

“Art of the Masters” will hang through Feb. 28.

The Michigan Chapter of the National Conference of Artists, whose mission is to introduce African-American “master artists” to the wider world, organized the exhibit.

The rest of the show measures up to Tucker’s example, and includes works by some of the 20th century’s greatest black artists, including giants Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden.

The one Bearden work on display is a gorgeous abstract essay in blues and whites called “Caribbean Harbor.” Playing next to it is a video profile of the artist that manages to be interesting and informative — and a little annoying when you’re trying to take in the rest of the show.

Still, the comparisons the narrator, renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, draws between Bearden’s improvisation and jazz are well worth a listen.

“Bearden’s art is warm and inviting,” says Marsalis in an affectionate aside, “like you always feel at home.”

In addition, don’t miss the decorated funeral fan entitled “Our Dr. Betty Shabazz.” The mixed-media piece honors the educator and activist — and widow of Malcolm X — who died in 1997 of injuries suffered in a fire set by her grandson in her New York City apartment.

The image on the heart-shaped fan looks to be Shabazz’s high-school graduation picture. Around her smiling face, New Jersey artist Ben Jones has created an aura of gold, red and white squiggles and dots.

Sea shells create an outer circle beyond that. And rising from the fan’s top, as if they’re Shabazz’s very spirit, are gold-tipped, three-dimensional spirals reaching heavenward.

Detroit artists are well represented. Distinctly worth a look is the black-and-white photograph of a disintegrating Packard Motor Car plant by Detroiter Hugh Grannum, “Art of Destruction.”

A whimsical, cartoonish tone is struck by the late Robert Colescott with “Interiors #2: Homage to Roy Lichtenstein.” In it, a woman in a pink bikini smokes a cigarette in an apartment that resembles

Lichtenstein’s cartoon canvases — compelling and quite a hoot, and typical of Colescott’s satirical take on racial and sexual imagery.

Also…

At Ann Arbor’s Gallery Project, a 30-person group show called “Warp” will be up through Jan. 9, and features some well-known names — including 2009 Kresge Artists in Detroit fellows Cedric Tai and Susan Goethel Campbell.

“The show uses the weaving metaphor of warp — threads that go in opposite directions,” says gallery co-director Rocco DePietro. “So things come together in unusual ways, almost at cross purposes.”

‘Art of the Masters: A Survey of African American Images, 1980-2000’

Artist: Jimmie Lee Sudduth

Folk Art is usually described in one of two ways: as an artistic tradition passed down through generations, or as works of art created by individuals with no formal art training. Both descriptions are accurate. Folk artists have the uncanny ability to transform found objects and materials normally considered useless into unique and powerful works of art. In the hands of these talented individuals, scraps of worn clothing may be sewn into quilts of intricate design, tree branches and roots can become evocative sculptures and plywood, house paint and mud combined to create remarkable paintings.

Often inspired by deep intuitive callings or unique spiritual visions, the style of folk art commonly referred to as “Visionary Art” seeks to connect the inner world of the artists with the larger, physical world we all share. This intensely personal and highly expressive quality is a major reason why the art has become popular. But the acceptance of folk art into the mainstream art world has taken time. One reason for this may be that folk art celebrates inherent artistic talents not influenced by academic training. It is the intuitive nature of these works that allow them to dispel notions that only works created by trained artists can and should be appreciated. The Folk Art Collection contains impressive examples of the unusual media and various styles of notable African American vernacular artists. Their works represent a human desire for self expression that is not bound by the realms of academic training. The majority of the artists included in this collection have a connection to Georgia. The museum hopes to present the full range of folk and craft art by increasing the number of items that demonstrate artistic traditions passed down through generations such as quilt making, pottery and basket making.

Take a virtual tour of the Tubman Museum!

read more>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

By Kinshasha Holman Conwill

The US art world is abuzz over the White House campaign to bring a greater diversity to its art collection—including more works by African American artists [the Obamas have been quietly notifying an array of public institutions, dealers and collectors that they are looking to borrow first-rate art of a more recent vintage to display in the White House with an emphasis on works by black, Hispanic, Asian and female artists]. Such a gesture from so influential a place has understandably had a catalytic effect—stirring conversation, raising expectations. And that’s a good thing. The move is also throwing a strong light on African American art and the artists who create it.

This comes at a time of increased interest in African American art among mainstream museums and collectors. The 2007 retrospective by the renowned sculptor Martin Puryear, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and shown at major museums across the country is one of the most vivid examples of that interest. It follows by two years the Sam Gilliam retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery. Gilliam’s participation in the 1972 Venice Biennale foreshadowed the watershed decades of the 1980s and 1990s which saw African American artists from Puryear to Robert Colescott, Emilio Cruz, Leonardo Drew, Melvin Edwards, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, John Outterbridge, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Kara Walker, Nari Ward and Fred Wilson, among others, represent the US in international venues from São Paulo to Venice, from Johannesburg to Cairo, Dakar, Kassel, Sydney, Istanbul and Cuenca.

Yet this was not always the case. There was a time not long ago when one could visit major museums or attend international fairs and rarely find works by African American artists. Their work was rarer still at auctions and those few there were, were not commanding prices commensurate with their cultural significance nor competitive with their non-African American counterparts.

Those of us building the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture have a keen interest in past history and current practice as we determine the role of African American art in a museum with a mandate to tell the broad story of the African American experience. We needn’t look far for inspiration in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum—one of the strongest and most longstanding collections of African American art in this country—and the growing holdings of the National Portrait Gallery, two sister institutions with whom we are collaborating. Beyond the National Mall, the collections begun in the 100 years after the Civil War, including those documented in the major traveling exhibition, “To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities” (organized by the Addison Gallery and the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1999), were for decades the nearly singular models of continuous commitment to African American art. The stewards of those collections—joined over the decades by scores of private nonprofit museums of African American history and culture—have often been the most stalwart advocates of art by African Americans.

The arts need such advocacy to survive. African American art, given its historically lower level of sustained attention, requires advocacy at a higher volume. The President and First Lady already have provided a resonant and nuanced voice for a more diverse notion of American art.

What is the significance of the attention being paid to the art of African Americans by this country’s most visible museum? Puryear is arguably one of America’s greatest sculptors and certainly doesn’t require the imprimatur of the White House. Many of his peers seem to be skillfully navigating the fraught waters of contemporary art as well.

Yet when one steps outside the vaunted and insular precincts of art, validation takes on a different tone. Beyond museum exhibitions, auction prices, critical reviews and international fairs, lies the vast territory of a larger society less swayed by esoteric notions of the vaporization of art and artists. Rather, there one finds a public whose tastes and desires are being stirred by the heady—and welcomed—promise of change. It is that indefinable sense of possibility that opens minds and fuels concrete action to challenge the status quot.

It would be presumptuous and premature to predict that the actions of one president, even one as influential as Barack Obama, would single handedly alter the course of American art history or the destinies of African American artists. Yet his and the First Lady’s early actions in expanding the agenda for White House art have evinced an ability to transform the bully pulpit into a poetic perch from which to suggest new strategies for broadening the conversation about art and culture in this country. The echoes of those actions are reverberating not only in the hallowed halls of the First Family’s residence, but down the decades of American creative expression.

Does this moment signal a new era in American and African American art? It’s too soon to tell. But it is extraordinarily intriguing in its potential.

The writer is deputy director, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African American History & Culture

read more>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

by: Wilfred Stroud

A musician, storyteller/oral historian, the traditional Griot was the product, or rather the embodiment of West African oral traditions. A native of Macon, Georgia, Wilfred R. Stroud embodies many of the qualities of the traditional West African Griot. But where the Griots of old preserved history through recitation and song, Stroud uses oil and acrylic paint on canvas to illustrate the history and contributions of African Americans in Macon and beyond.

Wilfred Stroud’s best-known work is the mural From Africa to America. Measuring 68 inches tall by 55 feet long, the work is installed on the first floor of the Tubman Museum. A signature piece in the Museum’s collection, the work was commissioned in 1988 with funds provided by the Macon Arts Alliance and the City of Macon. At the time of its creation, Stroud stated that, “The purpose of this mural is to present a visual history of the black man and woman from the earliest times in Africa to the present times in America. The panels focus attention upon the impact of outstanding persons, and events that made a change in the lives and conditions of black people in particular, and the world in general.”

Take a virtual tour of the Tubman Museum!

read more>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>