All posts tagged: Black History Month

Black History Feature: Gordon Parks

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2.25.19 I wanted to turn Creative Close-Up into something different for February. It’s the last week of February and yes it’s still Black History Month. The late Gordon Parks is our focus for Black History Feature. Photographer, musician, writer, and film director, he was well known for documentary photojournalism.  A few facts on Parks: Was the first African American to produce and direct major motion pictures—developing films relating the experience of slaves and struggling black Americans, and creating the “blaxploitation” genre. Worked on a federal government project which focused on poor Americans during the 1940s, for his photographic essays for Life magazine. Directed the films The Learning Tree (1969) and Shaft (1971), along with The Super Cops (1974), Leadbelly (1976), and several others. When he was a teen, his first job was playing piano at a brothel. His song “No Love“, composed in another brothel, was performed during a national radio broadcast by Larry Funk and his orchestra in the early 1930s. In 1953, Parks composed Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Parks was not only …

Art Feature: Rashid Johnson

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2.13.19 We are continuing Black History Month with Art Feature and Rashid Johnson will be our first art feature for the month of February. Here are a few facts about Johnson. Johnson produces conceptional post-blacks art Studied at  Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, DC; the Institute of Contemporary Photography, New York; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Johnson is also a photographer and sculpture, who presents audio, through music, also known for artistic productions and process, combining various science through black history   To know more about this artist, go to www.artnet.com/artists/rashid-johnson.    Featured and other images: Kvadrat Interwoven, Wikipedia, & ArtNet News

Editor’s Note / February 2019

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1.31.19 Vol. 7 / #2 February is here and do we have a lot of things get out and about!  As you already know this month is Black History Month and I have much creative stuff that I can’t wait to share… Music releases from Belrut, Ariana Grande, Bob Mould, Xiu Xiu, and Avril Lavigne. Nine festivals, just nine getting ready like Gem & Jam 2019, The Rock Boat 2019, 70,000 Tons of Metal 2019, and others.  I will post the last reminder for those attending the AWP (Association of Writing & Writing Programs) Conference Bookfair 2019, which will be in Portland Oregon March 27-30, 2019.          Valentine’s Day falls on a Thursday and yes I will be coming up with something, I mean why not…   Straz Center for Performing Arts, Gasparilla Music Festival, or Tampa Museum of Art? Just the places to visit in Tampa, Florida, our Where To for February.  There was Music Focus, now we have Art Focus and Rashid Johnson is our focus for February, along with …

Creative Close-Up: Poets.org Presents 12 Poems for Black History Month

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February 26 /18 Good Morning all! The last weekend of this month has passed. Before this month is out, I still have some creative works for Black History Month. Found twelve poems by African-American poets from the website poets.org. They asked twelve contemporary black poets from Tyehlmba Jess, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, to Toi Derricotte to choose one poem to read in the month of February and why. Here are those twelve poems from Gwendolyn Brooks to Langston Hughes. Credit source: poets.org     We Real Cool Gwendolyn Brooks,  1917 – 2000 THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. From The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks, published by Harpers. © 1960 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Used with permission. All rights reserved.     won’t you celebrate with me Lucille Clifton, 1936 – 2010 won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what …

Shadow Spotlight: Three Black Contemporary Artists Already Rising

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February 12 / 18 Hey! Hope everyone had a great weekend. A new week is beginning so let’s start off with Shadow Spotlight. Black History Month is here and this month we are going to be putting the spotlight on Black Contemporary Artists that have been on the rise. Again, I rather let the work do the talking…   Nathaniel Mary Quinn Here is a guy that went through a lot, but that didn’t stop him to achieve the goals he wanted to reach in life. In this interview below, Quinn talks about how his family abandoned him and how he was able to accomplish success in his art career. The works you see reflect that. There is another part of this interview. To see more of his work, go to http://www.artsy.net/artist/nathaniel-mary-quinn.         Shantell Martin Known for her whimsical stream of consciousness drawing and light perfections, this British artist has already made a mark in the art world.  She’s been plenty busy with projects all around the world. I’ve featured her on this …

Black History Focus: Octavia Butler

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February 6 / 18 Morning everybody! As I’ve stated, Shadowboxerinc is celebrating Black History Month by putting together a collective group of people who have put a creative mark. Today we have the late Octavia Butler. I discovered her works sometime last year. Now I’m beginning to know a bit more about this legendary gem of a storyteller. Here is a small snippet from Goodreads about this writer… Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. To Kindred, Fledgling, the Xenogenesis trilogy, Parable of the Sower, and the short story collection Bloodchild and Other Stories, Ms. Butler has left an incredible mark in science fiction. Found a video of Ms. Butler on Charlie Rose published on YouTube nine years ago. It was a great and interesting interview. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Want to know more about …