Oral History Feature in Bomb Magazine

I am honored to be in such great company in Bomb magazine’s winter 2023 issue with an excerpt from a longer oral history that is now online as a part of their Oral History Project series. Stewarded with care by editor Janée Moses, I am Interviewed by Chicago artist and academic Ayanah Moor. The interview covers several recent projects, inspiration from my family, early design influences, revelations from my graduate education, and other artists I have engaged with as part of my artistic family. Less like an interview, and more like a conversation, Moor asked meaningful questions and we get into social abstraction, Black female humanity, fugitive skills as a mechanism of survival, and how important generosity is among Black artists to our collective self-determination. The complete oral history can be found here. The magazine’s cover features a painting by former colleague McArthur Binion with his own oral history, who happens to be killin’ it these days among other things!

Commission for New Chicago CTA Greenline Station

scheduled to be installed in 2024

Delayed in 2019 due to the limitations of the pandemic, the construction of a new Greenline station designed to serve Chicago’s Near West Side, is about to get underway. Commissioned by Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), in collaboration with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), and the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), the work I developed, inspired by the area’s social history, images and demographic data, will assume a large presence in the entrance to this new elevated transportation facility designed by Perkins & Will.

The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression and Reflection, Allworth Publishing (2022), edited by Anne H. Berry, Kareem Collie, Penina Acayo Laker, Lesley-Ann Noel, Jennifer Rittner, Kelly Walters. Featuring over 50 contributors, this book an anthology centering a range of perspectives, and spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens. Rich resources live on their book’s website. You can listen to a brief presentation by co-editor Kelly Walters at the 2022 College Art Association (CAA) Conference about the process for producing the publication, or read Forest Young’s adapted essay from Fast Company, (February 7, 2022).