The concept of the "talented tenth," put forth by W.E.B. Dubois, was made manifest in the culture, political, artistic and intellectual explosion that was the Harlem Renaissance, a movement defined by Howard University professor Alain Locke.
Alain Locke wrote, "There is a fresh spiritual and cultural focusing. We have, as the heralding sign, an unusual outburst of creative expression." Washingtion, D.C. 1925
Because of John Harrod and Market 5 Gallery, during the late 1990's, for about five years, there was an Eastern Market Renanssaince. It began with the arrival of painters Stevens Jay Carter and Michael Berman. They had collaborated to found Project Brasas. Stevens had come from the artistic academy. He had been first invited to Carneige Mellon by eminent abstract painter Sam Gilliam, was later offered a position as adjunct professor of painting at Carneige Mellon, and later still was head-hunted by the Pennsylvania College of Technology where he was an associate professor. Stevens came to Washington, D.C. as a one year fellow at the Experimental Gallery which was the precursor to the African American Museum on the Mall. Michael Berman had just finished college at the University of Maryland, where he studied under art historian and artist luminary David Driskell. They masterminded the idea in 1991 at their studios at 931-1/2 F street, northwest in Washington, DC.
(Artist studio: Sheila Crider, 2009)
They brought energy, passion, focus and business savvy to Eastern Market. They brought "the cool", and"the jazz". They brought to Eastern Market Project Brasas. Stevens Carter wrote , "Michael Berman is credited for wordsmithing the name Brasas, which best describes the work artists were creating at the time, understanding it would certainly be a difficult thing to find a gallery to best represent our work." "The word Brasas comes from the Portuguese, meaning red-hot, passionate and ardent." Carter and Berman both "talked the talk" when it came to making art accessible to all, but with their exhibitions of other artists' work in the Downtown Gas Company Windows and other public venues, they also "walked the walk." If John Harrod with his love of jazz and art was the spark, then Stevens and Michael with their youth, energy and philosopy "taking art to the streets" were the flame. The renaissance was afoot.
In those days of the "Eastern Market Renaissance," one could walk into the North Hall (then Market 5 Gallery) and smell the paint. I was (and am) a student. I learned that oil paint glows and glistens in the least light, and that acrylic dries faster and, if layered thickly, has an elemental look of plastic, while mixing and working with watercolors takes great speed and accuracy. I asked questions, and they were answered with thoughtful consideration: both Simi and Stevens were teachers, and remain so in their different fashions. Other art folks came out to visit; for a time one could see David Driskell, Michael Platt, Roland Freeman, Billy Colbert, Marth Jackson Jarvis, Joyce Wellman, Lilian Thomas-Burwell, Roy Lewis, Francine Haskins, and Gail Shaw-Clemons. I even heard that Sam Gilliam passed through the Market.
For years Alex Madison (that is, Mr. Tall-and-Lean-with-hair-Only-Don-King-Could-Envy) had been the gold standard for painting at the Market. What I remember are his large scale pen-and-inks of Miles Davis, recalling Davis's image on the Tutu album. Somewhere in there I also met Malik Lloyd, who particapated in group shows at Market 5 Gallery and who later founded FindArt. I joined the artists at the market in 1991, when I was still apprenticing with Jamal Mims, master goldsmith and owner of SUN Gallery Goldsmiths. Then came Surinam wood carver Adiante Franszoon, then nationally reknowned portrait painter Simi Knox showed up, then painters Fatai Dosunmu and Chris Damola of Nigeria, followed by Dollner with her southern accents and black and white naive paintings of southern life. Somewhere in there too were Donna Boozer, a collagist, Bill Johnson, blacksmith and furniture designer, painter and architect Carl Nieta from Jamaica. Traditional Malian woodcarver Namory Keita carved himself a place, photographer Joe Beasly made an appearance now and again, and well known D.C. photoghaphers Camille Mosley-Pasley and Kim Johnson were often in the house or on the market square, textile artists James Brown and Denise Bentley sewed themselves into Market 5 Gallery. If you saw a petit guy on a bike with an easel on his back making his way to the Market, it was painter Roderick Turner, painter Andrew Shelton, coming to the market like the Flash. Professor George Smith has been known to set up a stand, another southerner, Deborah Shedrick, was often in residence...and one day I saw Sheila Crider.
(Shelia Crider: studio)
She was not sitting, but perched on a chair, smoking a cigarette. She had on black sunglasses, an outfit that said I don't come from around here, and ankle socks. Europe had arrived at the Market. Sheila had grown up (and now again lives) in Anacostia, where she learned French. She is a contemplation of complexity. Sheila can and will cuss you out (like me, she doesn't suffer fools), she can cook both fried chicken y un morceau du poulet avec romarin, vin blanc y une cuillere de creme fraiche. She liked living in Italy better than her five years in Bordeaux; while washing her clothes in a stream in Japan, she was frightened by a large snake. She sent me a picture she had taken outside her studio window while at the Vermont studio, a deer eating leaves off a tree in winter splendor. Nina Simone explained her to us in her song "Four Women".
(Sheila Crider in studio)
Sheila Crider influences, inspires and challenges me. I remember thinking (and I still do at times, when looking at her work, or listening to her complicated or haiku explanations of things, people, concepts) that abstractions are abstract. She explains her work: "academically, my work involves combining the varied languages of modern art movements, in particular abstract painting and mininalism...I isolate, then combine, two or more of these ideas: texture, pattern, line, color form and sequence. As often as not methodology is the subject." For myself, I like metal, not paint, wood, more than paper. We go different ways. We went to the National Gallery of Art together; I went to see a retrospective on Alexander Calder, but Sheila turned, saw the entrance to the Rothko exhibition, and we met up two hours later for lunch. She speaks often of the Washington Color school, goes to exhibitions at the Hirshorn; me, I love l'Art Nouveau and Modernism and used to know the people in the bookstore at the Renwick by name. In her studio one hears Jazz on the radio--Aaron Martin, Nina Simone and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In my workshop one hears gospel or spirituals, with Mahalia Jackson, Jessie Norman, Paul Robeson, and Sweet Honey in the Rock blasting out the back door. We both have a history with words, she with poets Richard Brautigan and Gwendolyn Brooks. I am all about Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson. But after knowing Sh
eila and buying her work, I love living with abstractions. Abstract art is never the same; it changes as you change. If you have a piece on your wall, and one day you notice something that you have never seen before, is it the art or is it you?
eila and buying her work, I love living with abstractions. Abstract art is never the same; it changes as you change. If you have a piece on your wall, and one day you notice something that you have never seen before, is it the art or is it you?
For maybe five years, it was painter Fatai Dosunmu, Sheila and me on Sundays, set up on the picnic tables across from Jesse Dunham's produce stand. We called ourselves the high end at Eastern Market, Sheila and I doing so because it was Sunday: we would see the after-church crowd in full regalia, so we got into the habit of giving out fashion tickets to some of the more outrageously dressed individuals passing by. It was great fun and I cherish and miss those days.
My mother went to Tuskaguee Institue in Alabama, so I was brought up with Booker T. Washington's philosophy of "Cast down your bucket where you are." Where all of us were was at Eastern Market. During her tenure at Eastern Market in 1997, 1998 and 2003, Sheila was awarded grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In 1999 she apprenticed with Sumi-e ink master Kohei Takagaki in Aioi, Japan. In 2001 she was artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center. Some where in this mix Sheila showed her work with Project Brasas in the windows of the Washington Gas company at 1100 H street, N.W. I remember standing in front of the windows waiting for the bus. She had talked to me about making rods for hanging her pieces but the pieces were so large and heavy that she ended up commissioning blacksmith Bill Johnson. The collaboration was fabulous. After she left Eastern Market in 2004, she continued working on private commissions and in 2006 was artist-in-residence at the Leighton Studios of the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada. Also, in 2006 Sheila was in an exhibition with Sam Gilliam at The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland College Park, called: Holding Our Own: Selections from the Collectors Club of Washington, DC, Inc. At present she is completing a mural at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, for which she won an open competition from the D. C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Sheila Crider's work is in various public and private collections, most notably the Mino Washi Paper Museum (Mino, Japan), the James E. Lewis Museum *Baltimore, MD), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Ranger Italy *Serengo, Italy) the Yale University Book Collection (New Haven, CT), the Library of Congress Print Collection, and the State Department Print Collection, Washington, DC.
Sheila Crider has introduced a new word into the English language to describe a new comtempory arts movement: Blackstraction.
Blackstraction
[language & theory + object/frame/viewer]
blackstraction (blak-strak’ sh-n) n.
an emotive non-representational work of art stressing formal internal relationships using African/American/Asian art practices at times employing craft techniques and three dimensional presentation. blackstractionist n. an artist engaging therein…
blackstraction (blak-strak’ sh-n) v.t.
to make markings with color on diverse surfaces that relate to each other and their environment in two and three dimensions blackstractioned, blackstractioning
Blackstractionism (blak-strak’sh-niz-m) n. Fine Arts
a) a style of emotive non-representational painting which appeared in the United States in the late 20th century employing craft techniques and sometimes three dimensional presentation b) theory and practice of blackstraction
In this definition lies the heralding of a new age in art with its roots in part at Eastern Market. The old spiritual poses an eternal question "will the circle be unbroken?" In the case of the artists that define the Renaissance at Eastern Market the answer is yes; the circle will not be broken. Artist Michael Berman as always in collaboration and now with functional sculptor (furniture maker) Matthew Falls (both still showing work at Eastern Market) have formed a arts space called Caos on F.
Sheila Crider
re: construction
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/in-the-galleries-jason-gubbiottis-war-paint-at-civilian-art-projects/2014/12/03/040e8468-796f-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html
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Update: 2015
"Talk" by Sheila Crider
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