My artistic vision is influenced by much and many people, places and events which serve as catalyst to my spirit of creativity. I relate the artistic pleasure cruise
I live within as directly influenced by every aspect of my past, my present and my future...
As a child growing up in a pivotal time of Amer*African struggles for basic civil rights, it was instilled in me by my Elders to observe and listen well. I recognize the basic skill of respectfully paying attention has made manifest in me an inherent love for the dramatically aesthetic. I learned that to SILENT*LISTEN relates qualitatively to learning, chronocalling and sharing stories.
At a very young age I was encouraged to read...newspapers, the bible...even comics. I was encouraged to write. At first, my writing was vested in keeping steady communication with friends and relatives. By age 8 or 9, I found satisfaction in writing poems and doodling in diaries and the numerous, greatly anticipated sketch pads which I frequently recieved as gifts from relatives and family friends...Those supportive and encouraging complimentary gifts laid the exacting foundation for much of what I incorporate and implement in my many years as an interdisciplinary cultural artivist and educator.
My current arts objectives are rooted in a simplistic goal to pass on to others that which has been passed on to me. I make efforts to do this by being actively involved within cross cultural, intergenerational, interdisciplinary systems which foster opportunities for academic, artistic evolution and social change.
I realize that my initiating commitment to these goals result in organizations as the ULTRA YOUth! Intergenerational Agri CULTURAL Arts COOPERATIVE, chartered in 1985 and currently manifesting in my affiliation with R.E.A.L. (Responsibility, Earth, Art, Learning) an interdisciplinary edu-arts initiative in collaboration Boy's and Girls Clubs of America, TAM (Tn.~Ark.~Miss.) Farms and the Great Basin Food Cooperative.
My long range community empowerment via the ARTS goals are being made manifest in many ways...these two decades as a grassroots artivist has afforded me the realization of dreams actually coming true. Creating models for social change via artistic, educational and entreprenural models has allowed me active involvement with my beloved people as a caregiver, mentor and as one committed to the preservation and perpetuation of the cultural and ancestral arts. I know that the arts are the most certain inroad to global peace...I embrace STORYTELLING, in it's many genres as a a powerful medium for teaching, healing and learning. I have been called "...AN EMPOWERING * GRIOT * ECO~ENVIRO COMMUNITY ORGANIZER...". By respectfully involving others in that which I have been fortunate to have passed on to me, I make sincere heARTistic efforts to deserve the compliment.
