Join an intimate conversation with the brilliant visual artists featured in the National Conference of Artists’ 25th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Exhibition. Tune in to hear how they each drew inspiration from “A Gift of Love: Sermons From ‘Strength To Love’ and Other Preachings” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to create the work featured in this year’s exhibit.
The Art of Conversation: A Gift of Love, Episode 2 features Damien Robert, Theresa Crushshon, Cecelia "Cely" Tapplett Pedescleaux, Pat Jolly, and Dwight A. Harris in a conversation moderated by Sheleen Jones.
About The Art of Conversation:
The Art of Conversation series provides engaging conversations and in-depth interviews spanning disciplines and generations in hopes of creating space for thought-provoking, investigative and compassionate dialogue, exploring issues of equity, legacy and social awareness in the arts.
This event will be streamed on Ashé Cultural Arts Center’s Facebook and Youtube pages.
About the Artists
Damien Robert is a New Orleans resident and is a self taught digital artist. He is a graduate of Sarah T. Reed high school in New Orleans, Louisiana where he was also a part of the talented Visual Art program for 4 years. Damien had a former positive career as arapper in New Orleans and hopes to use his words in his art. Currently he is a member of the New Orleans National Conference of Artists. He recently exhibited at the pop-up exhibition for Juneteenth at the Community Book Center in New Orleans.
Theresa Crushshon is an independent journalist, published author, visual artist, photographer, documentary producer and Black Masking Indian Queen who masks with Fi Yi Yi Spirit of the Mandingo Warriors. Crushshon has earned her BA from the University of Minnesota in Studio Arts and a MA in Media Studies from The New School. Crushshon has worked in Bethel, Alaska; Minneapolis, Minnesota, and New Orleans, Louisiana as an Art Educator and Art Education Specialist training teachers on how to bring culture and community into classroom curriculum.
Crushshon is currently working on producing and publishing art curriculum and lesson plans that highlights African American art, history, and culture. SWhen she is not in the classroom, she is out working on producing a documentary on the work of New Orleans percussionist Zohar Israel.
The author of Malcolm X (Child's Press, 2002), articles have been published in Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans Tribune, The Final Call, Minnesota Spokesman Recorder, UpScale Magazine, Essence Magazine and J’adore Magazine, spends her free time studying hate crimes committed via quantum leaping and documenting the stories of violated civilians.
I am interested in an approach to art making that explores the often-conflicted relationship between social and political structures in society. Employing traditional African symbols, decorative traditions in geometric patterns woven in image and language that is supposed to play into identifying people, I ask using abstraction what is it you see because there is always another narrative to be discovered.
Recent Black Masking Indian suits, paintings, prints and collage-drawings avoid culturally specific subject matter in favor of a more elusive pictorial terrain of contemporary abstraction. While honoring traditions, I encourage the viewers to connect to the spirit world as they know it and to discover new customs, rituals, and traditions they may not be familiar with. Art allows us to investigate and to transition into other places and spaces. The artistic narratives present are paramount in discovering who we are in this present form as Americans, both men and women, unable to access our supernatural powers, as we watch the political unrest in contemporary society unwind.
The Black Masking Indian culture of New Orleans is astonishing, especially as it relates to mediated identities and how Europeans and Caucisians have spent considerable time and monies emasculating the African and African American male.
Cecelia "Cely" Tapplett Pedescleaux I love colors and embellishment. All my quilts have stories and were inspired by current and past events. The universe and solar system are also subjects that I like to quilt about. African symbols and designs are a recurrent theme in my work. Also, I love New Orleans. Purple, green, and gold, along with black and red are some of my favorite colors.
Pat Jolly has curated half a dozen showcases and her photographs have been shown in more than 70 exhibitions. Albums, CDs, websites, press packets, books and magazines
have featured her work. Pat took her first photography classes at LSU in the mid-1970s and later, in Colorado, studied under her mentor, Ernst Haas, world renowned for his dissolve work and experimental color techniques. She received grants from
Tulane University and studied under, among others, head of photography Arthur Okasaki, noted lensman Johnny Donnels and Mike Britt at Tulane Photography & Imaging. She received awards four consecutive years at the Newcomb College Spring
Arts Festival and her submissions have won awards voted by her peers. A tireless supporter of, and prolific participant in, the music, arts and underground social
scenes of New Orleans, she is the recipient of the Danny Barker Keeping History Alive Award (2003), the Contemporary Art Center’s SweetART Award (2005), the James Michalopoulos Pirouette Award (2012), Offbeat Magazine’s Heartbeat Lifetime Achievement Award (2014) and the Cutting Edge Music Conference’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2016).
Dwight A. Harris, a New Orleans-based photographer, is well known for documenting Mardi Gras Indian Culture in New Orleans. He became interested in photography as a child and has always been known to have a camera with him. He acknowledges Norman J. Berteaux as his mentor who helped him gain a greater appreciation for photography. Harris also focuses his camera on documenting urban street environments, social conditions, and various aspects of New Orleans culture. His photography has been exhibited at various galleries including the Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, Stella Jones Gallery, and New Orleans African American Museum. He has received numerous awards, honors, and recognitions. Some awards include the New Orleans City Council, The Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame, Photographer's Award, United States Congressional Recognition, and United States Senate Recognition. Additionally, he served as a judge for the NAACP's Afro-Academic Cultural Technological and Scientific Olympics.
Harris is a retired Social Worker who has been actively involved in the community while advocating for the elderly, individuals suffering from mental illness, and wrongfully incarcerated individuals. He currently serves on the Kenner Rivertown Arts Council, and the Rivertwon Mainstreet Board. Harris is an At-Large Member of the New Orleans Chapter of the National Conference of Artists.
Sheleen P. Jones is a sculptor and portrait painter born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Currently, she is an art professor at Xavier University of New Orleans and President of the New Orleans Chapter of the National Conference of Artists. Sheleen developed her skills at Xavier and Florida State Universities. She creates sculpture with bronze, aluminum, glass, resin, and concrete materials. Started in 1987, many of her public sculptures depicted Americans of African descent, civil rights pioneers, and cultural ambassadors like the Honorable A.P. Tureaud Sr., and Avery Alexander. Her latest public sculpture, The Healing Tree, at the New Orleans East Hospital recognizes Hurricane Katrina survivors. Sheleen has balanced a full teaching career and family life while keeping a creative flame burning in her studio.