Spelman College Museum of Fine Art

On April 11, 2020, we celebrated Spelman College’s Founders Day virtually and resolved that until we could meet again in person, we would make the 11th day of every month a time to celebrate an alumna who embodies service and sisterhood...artfully. This month’s SpelMuse Spotlight is Mrs. Jeanne Bryant Blackmon, C’1953, one of our longest serving alumnae volunteers who turned 90 yesterday. Weekly Mrs. Blackmon would be one of the first faces you would see upon entering the Mus...eum. Her faithful service throughout the years extends beyond her duties as a front desk associate to that of a mentor to our student ambassadors and memory worker in relationship to all things Spelman College and the Atlanta Public Schools. In honor of her expert record keeping abilities, we went into the Spelman Archives to include her senior picture along with an image from our 2014 Museum Ambassador Appreciation Luncheon. The first image is courtesy of Spelman Archives in collaboration with the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library as part of the Our Story: Digitizing Publications and Photographs of the Historically Black Atlanta University Center Institutions project. In the second image, Mrs. Blackmon is seated and the 5th person from the left.

#Repost @auc_artcollective Work Wednesday On Wednesdays we focus on work, all of the professional opportunities available to students studying Art History and/or Curatorial Studies. .... Last month The Center for Curatorial Leadership @ccl_curators announced the fourteenth cohort of curators participating in its annual Fellowship! From twelve museums across the United States and Mexicofrom large-scale encyclopedic museums, non-collecting contemporary art centers, museums on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, culturally specific institutions, and regional museums with focused areas of expertise. The Fellows bring a range of art historical expertise, including historic American art, contemporary African American art, performance and new media, Native American art, and historic African art. . We’re are especially thrilled that TWO! Spelman College @spelman_college alumna are in this cohort! Adrienne Edwards @adynyc , Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance, Whitney Museum of American Art @whitneymuseum and Anne Collins Smith @annelart , Curator of Collections, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art @spelmanmuseum ! The full CLASS OF 2021 includes: Margaret Adler, Amon Carter Museum of American Art @theamoncarter Tahnee Ahtoneharjo- Growingthunder, Oklahoma History Center @okhistorycenter & Kiowa Tribal Museum #kiowatribalmuseum Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis @camstl Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston @mfaboston Shawnya Harris, Georgia Museum of Art @georgiamuseum Humberto Moro, Museo Tamayo Veronica Roberts, Blanton Museum of Art @blantonmuseum Jamaal B. Sheats, Fisk University Galleries @fiskuniversitygalleries Catherine Taft, LAXART @laxart Lanka Tattersall, The Museum of Modern Art @themuseumofmodernart All text and images via https://www.curatorialleadership.org #arthistory #curatorialstudies

Next year, the Georgia Museum of Art will present Emma Amos: Color Odyssey, a solo exhibition examining Ms. Amos’ work from the 1960s to the early 21st century. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Emma Amos (1937 2020) was a distinguished painter and printmaker whose art examines the intersection of race, class, gender and privilege in both the art world and society at large. Emma Amos was also a part of an entrenched HBCU tradition--she exhibited artwork at Atlanta University (currently known as Clark Atlanta University), her father attended Wilberforce University in Ohio, and her mother was a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Below you can learn more information about this landmark (and traveling) exhibition https://bit.ly/scmfashareseagma

In the 1960s, much like today, journalism was a male dominated field. Women like Carole Parks, who worked in the Johnson Publishing Company newsroom, contributed to and shaped our cultural landscape through the articles she wrote, edited, and commissioned. Parks was a managing editor for Black World, previously named Negro Digest, and editor of the anthology, Nommo: A Literary Legacy of Black Chicago (1967-1987). Image 1... Photo of Carole Parks, circa 1970 Hoyt Fuller Collection, Atlanta University Center Robert W Woodruff Library https://bit.ly/3gxQbq9 Image 2 Inter-office Memo between Hoyt Fuller and John H Johnson advocating a salary increase for Carole Parks, March 1974 Hoyt Fuller Collection, Atlanta University Center Robert W Woodruff Library https://bit.ly/33Qeg6h #insideblackimagecorporation #AUC #AUCarchives #blackpress #womenjournalists #blackworld #negrodigest #HoytFuller #JohnsonPublishingCompany #curatingthecabinets #spelmuse #spelman

Recommendations about COVID-19 are unfolding in real-time during this unprecedented season. The Museum will remain closed until further notice and all programs and events have been canceled. For the latest information on updates from Spelman, please visit the Coronavirus Update page on https://qoo.ly/34xssi. Please stay connected with the Museum at museum.spelman.edu.

Homecoming season, like many other events this year, was very different from those in the past. However, Ebony continued its longstanding tradition of featuring HBCU Campus Queens in the digital magazine. Photographs like the one I am holding (and photographed by a Johnson Publishing Company photographer), capture the joy and pride of college-aged women receiving an esteemed honor. After viewing this photograph in the Theaster Gates: Black Image Corporation exhibition, I w...anted to find photographs from the @auc_woodruff Archives Research Center of other Homecoming queens and their court. These women exude confidence and grace, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from an AUC Queen! Click the link below to view more photographs of AUC Homecoming Queens throughout the decades! https://bit.ly/39tPZq7 Image 1 Photo taken in the Spelman College Museum of Art at the opening of Theaster Gates: Black Image Corporation. I am holding a black and white photograph of a woman in a formal gown and tiara, cradling a bouquet of flowers. Image 2 Morris Brown College Homecoming Court, 1986 https://bit.ly/2VjlQlg Image 3 Homecoming Court, 1982 Written on verso: "Miss Morris Brown Court 1981; L to R Cheryl Hester, Gail Malone, Belinda Crawford". https://bit.ly/36qgACE Image 4 Homecoming Queens, 1952 Written on verso: "Morris Brown Homecoming Queens- 1952; Left to Right- Annie Ragin- Miss Sigma; Margaret Hawkins- Miss Omega; Viola Kitter - Miss Freshman; Eloise Manse- Miss Morris Brown. Wilhemina Goodely- Miss Sophomore; Anna Jackson- Miss Alpha; Jacqueline Lightey- Miss Kappa". https://bit.ly/3lsYVOO

Today’s Yoga in the Museum class with sokari brown is a 45-minute restorative practice centered on stabilizing the body, focusing your energy inward, and allowing yourself to rest.

Muse Dodd a Multidisciplinary Artist, Curator and DJ from Severn, MD currently based in Atlanta. Their work centers on the questions, How do you remember and what do you choose to forget? Through the act of remembering, Muse uses their body to map the lived experience of Africans in America. Muse channels trauma to connect with, process and alchemize pain; both personal and collective through movement, ritual and collective dreaming.

When we speak of the shoulders of giants that we stand on and foremothers and forefathers that paved the way for our successes, we lift up those doing the work now to make our world a better place for all. Today we join a global community in singing the praises of our Spelman Sister, Stacey Abrams. Photo by Ethan James Green

"...they speak like melted butter and their children speak like footsteps on pavement..." - Isabel Wilkerson, from "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" Art by Bisa Butler, "The Warmth Of Other Sons" (detail), Cotton, silk, wool and velvet quilted and appliqué, 144 x 108 x 2 in | 365.8 x 274.3 x 5.1 cm, 2020.

Get to know how Renée Stout, this season’s Inspired by artist, uses an alter ego as inspiration in her work, and then join us on November 5th at 7p EST for Excavating Spirit: A Conversation with Daricia Mia DeMarr & Kelly Taylor Mitchell. Registration for Excavating Spirit is still open. Reserve your spot now at https://bit.ly/ExcavatingSpirit2

Today’s Yoga in the Museum class with Joshua Sherod Young is a meditative practice that challenges you to focus on building attentiveness and gratitude.

Howardena Pindell on understanding 'the trauma of racism' through the lens of her seminal artwork, Free, White, and 21 (1980) and current exhibition at The Shed in New York City http://bit.ly/scmfashareshp

Our Yoga in the Museum library is live: http://bit.ly/spelmuseyimlibrary A new class will be added every Monday through November 30, 2020

Excavating Spirit also features Kelly Taylor Mitchell. Kelly is an artist that utilizes printmaking, papermaking, sculpture, and textiles to connect to, convey, and reimagine rituals and rites of autonomous kin, collectives, and individuals of the Africana Diaspora. Since arriving to Spelman College as an Assistant Professor and Art Program Director in the Department of Art & Visual Culture, she contributes to a community of world-class artist educators committed to prepari...ng visual thinkers and storytellers for careers in the creative industries. Kelly Taylor Mitchell is also an Artist-in-Residence with the Studio Artist Program at The Atlanta Contemporary and a Working Artist Project Fellow with The Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia. Image Credits: 1. Photo courtesy of the artist 2. Kelly Taylor Mitchell, Mask #6 (2020)

In preparation for Thursday’s Excavating Spirit conversation, we want to introduce you to Daricia Mia DeMarr. Since relocating back to Atlanta, she’s made significant headway as a public art administrator and arts entrepreneur. While in New York, DeMarr served as Assistant Director at the NYU Kimmel Center Galleries, organizing and curating over 100 exhibitions in 6 years" and curated Respectfully Yours at the Queens Museum’s Bulova Corporate Center. As an independent cur...ator and art consultant, she founded Pi Arts Projects and current serves as Co-Founder of Black Women in Visual Art (along with our colleague Lauren Jackson Harris). DeMarr is Gallery Manager at Peg Alston Fine Arts and is co-curating Capturing the Fire on Black Women in Visual Art’s Instagram page. Image Credit: 1. Photo by B. Still Images 2. DeMarr viewing Untitled (2018) by Alfred Conteh at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum 3. DeMarr with curator and Black Women in Visual Art co-founder Lauren Jackson Harris. Wilay Mendez Paez’s artwork is featured here.

60 million people have taken advantage of early voting this year and others are doing the same in person. Our creative community has banned together to raise awareness about our most pressing needs and to support our wildest dreams for freedom and leadership. This image by Cedric Smith harkens us back to our history as an institution built shortly after the Reconstruction Era, and the following quote by Octavia Raheem encourages us to sift through any distractions [to] hear and see the truth beneath it all. Join us by making your voices heard through your words, actions, examples, and acts of civic engagement. Vote.