Montgomery County, MD : The 3rd Annual Women in the Arts Panel: Local Women Explore Creativity, Identity & Resilience

The 3rd Annual Women in the Arts Panel: Local Women Explore Creativity, Identity & Resilience

Hosted by Artist Jackie Hoysted

Friday, March 12th 7pm-8.30pm

Virtually on Zoom - Click Here to Register in Advance

Radiant Heart Paintings by Artist Rachel Ann Cross

Join us for our third annual Women in the Arts Panel Local Women Explore Creativity, Identity and Resilience Friday, March 12th 7pm-9pm virtually on Zoom.

This panel discussion hosted by artist Jackie Hoysted features local women from across the creative spectrum, including blues artist Stacy Brooks, artist Rachel Ann Cross, Poet Catrice Greer, Comic Gigi Modrich, Jewelry Artist Elaine Robnett Moore and Poet Kaja Weeks.

Throughout her career Stacy Brooks has graced both local and international stages as a vocalist of Blues, Jazz and more. She has performed in the Silver Spring Blues Festival three times, as well as in an array of other regional events. Her band, the Stacy Brooks Band is in residency at Madam's Organ every 1st Sunday of the month. Stacy has produced & self released two WAMMIE Award-nominated (WAMA Washington Area Music Association) albums Live @ The Surf Club and Love, Peace & The Blues. She has also received four WAMMIE nominations for Female Blues Vocalist. She has more recently toured Europe on the European Blues Cruise and held a two month residency in Colombo, Sri Lanka at a club owned by cricket star Sanath Jayasuriya. Stacy is currently working on her new CD titled German Chocolate to be released in 2020 featuring full songs in German to pay tribute to her German background.

https://www.facebook.com/stacybrooksmusic/

https://www.reverbnation.com/stacybrooks

Rachel Ann Cross is an artist, musician, and educator who has been working in the DC area for over 25 years. Her vibrant artistic vision and sense of social justice are heavily informed by her experiences growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Rachel has had the distinct pleasure of working with people of all ages and abilities including at-risk elementary school students, children and adults with cognitive and intellectual differences, deaf actors and choreographers, political activists, incarcerated teenagers, teenagers in mental health facilities, college students, musicians, dancers, and visual artists from all around the world, older artists, folk singers, and kindergarteners. Rachel holds a BFA in fine arts from the Corcoran School of Art. She also studied in N.Y. and Paris through Parsons School of Design. Rachel is currently an artist-in-residence for the City of Greenbelt, MD.

Images below :

Clever Girl (l)

Goddess of Radiant Health (r)

Red-Bellied Woodpecker (lower)

Catrice Greer is a poet and writer who resides in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee. In November 2020, Catrice served as a Cheltenham Poetry Festival Poet-In-Residence. Catrice’s poetic work explores a range of topics about the human condition. She has participated as an artist with mental health organizations such as Pro Bono counseling and Behavioral Health System Baltimore in her local area to promote mental health awareness. She currently performs as a featured poetic artist or via poetry artist collectives in international virtual open mics. Her recent poems were published in Icefloe Press, Fevers of the Mind Presents the Poets of 2020 Anthology, the historic Afro-American newspaper, Phenomenal Womxn Anthology, Behavioral Health System Baltimore art gallery, and local newsletters. She is currently working on acquiring funding and resources to publish her first chapbook. @cgreer_greer

Firebird

She stood on the bridge

above

dove high

back arched chin up

breasts etching the air

nipples prickled and pursed

soaring

double back curve into

a tight tuck

a ball of light

a fireball

luminous

harnessing

the speed of light

flying home

she dares to become

a new thing

called

Free

~Catrice Greer

Gigi Modrich is a Washington, DC based comic originally from New Mexico. Since entering the comedy scene, she has quickly taken off and has performed at The Funny Bone in Richmond, VA, Flappers in Burbank, CA, and Broadway in NYC. She was a part of the First Nations Comedy Experience now available on Amazon Prime, and has performed at the 2019 DC Comedy Festival, 2019 Charm City Comedy Festival, and the 2019 DAF Comedy Festival in NYC. She’s sarcastically optimistic and tells jokes that are thoughtful enough to provoke thought, but won't prompt a hate crime. IG @gigimodrich

Elaine Robnett Moore is a fourth-generation artist internationally renown. As a designer she finds inspiration in using beads as a means of empowering women globally, teaching the art of bead stringing and the business of art. Elaine’s creativity and artistry is not a surprise to those who witnessed the evolution of her passion for beads into her mastery of jewelry design. She is the author of, ‘The Art of Bead Stringing – Artist to Entrepreneur ‘ a guide to beaded jewelry design now in its second edition. Her latest book, published in August 2020, ’Dancing Out Loud: Thoughts on Navigating the Rhythms of Life’ is a memoir on experiencing and navigating life. ARTIST STATEMENT Combining the magic of beads, the energy of nature, the influence of my travels and personal cultural heritage, I create jewelry that captures the elegance of the beauty surrounding us - wind in the trees, cascading vines, the colors of sunset, glitter of starlight, a baby’s laughter -- the style, grace and resilience of today’s contemporary woman. Each design, made from beads that come from around the world, evolves from a personal response to those beads as they arrive with a life and story of their own. My necklaces bracelets and earrings appeal to the discerning woman who responds to jewelry based on color, form, texture and history. They are each pieces of 'wearable art.'

ARTIST CREDO “Do what you love and there will be those who love what you do."

For more information visit: www.elainerobnettmoore.com

Instagram - Elaine Robnett Moore Design

Twitter - Jewelry_Art

Linkedin - Elaine Robnett Moore

Kaja Weeks is a poet, essayist and classically trained singer whose writing contemplates music and healing as well as identity through multiple generations. She is an American born daughter of World War Two refugees from Estonia, a northern land on the Baltic Sea. Moved by the pain and beauty of its history, she also loves the alliterative sounds, mythic lore and world views found in thousands of runic verses and long preserved by oral transmission. She weaves these with timeless, universal themes of ancestors, displacement, migration, longing, and one’s sense of self and other in her collection of twenty-one poems. Titled Mouth Quill—Poems with Ancestral Roots, it was published by The Poetry Box, Portland Oregon in 2020 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Kaja is a former teacher and Associate Director of Early Childhood Music at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC., a large community music school. For the last eighteen years, she has been a clinic-based music educator who engages young children with autism to their earliest communications. Her ideas about early communicative musicality has been presented in trainings, lectures, keynote addresses and in scholarly journals in the United States and Canada.

Kaja Weeks’ literary writing has appeared in The Sugar House Review; Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts and Humanities; Under the Gum Tree; The Sandy River Review and elsewhere. Her author website is https://lyricovertones.com

Ancestral Journey—The Milky-Way

Over bog spirits and sacred groves,
our songs will enshrine air.
But first, in the vaults of time and space,
I will begin as the spirit of an egg
carried by the sea to Iberia.
Here, I will land on a branch
of the daughters of Eve,
and their hunter gatherer men.

As the glacier melts,
plants sprout northward,
and we will move toward the Urals,
threading mountain edges,
tundra and colossal rivers.
Through a thousand summers and winters,
some will be left in river-bends,
some follow the reindeer north.

Some will look heavenward at traces of bird-flight,
some walk a milky star-path westward.
Dreams float through moonlit nights,
enter open windows,
land upon our sleepy brows:
Uni tule, uni tule lapse silma pääle.

Metrical pulses move our language,
first syllables drum the words,
forward, until we reach the sea—Eesti.

First published as a poem in Mouth Quill—Poems with Ancestral Roots by Kaja Weeks (The Poetry Box®, 2020)

Jackie Hoysted (Host) (b. Dublin, Ireland) based in Montgomery County, Maryland, is an award winning interdisciplinary artist, curator and activist. She has had solo exhibitions across the US and has been featured in the: Washington Post, Washington City Paper, HuffPost, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Reno Gazette-Journal. She is the recipient of grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Vermont Studio Center and multiple grants from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County.

She is co-founder of ArtWatch, a DC artist collective focused on positive political activism that realized the One House project (2017 & 2018) – a collaboration of 300 DMV artists standing up for equality and inclusion. Additionally she is curator for the DC organization Solas Nua that focuses on presenting contemporary Irish art.

Jackie has a degree in computer science from Trinity College Dublin and a fine arts degree from the George Washington Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.

SPARKLE: Senior Programs Aimed at Re-Kindling Lifetime Engagement

Senior Women in the Arts

hosted by artist/poet Neha Misra

Wednesday, March 10th, 2pm-4pm

Virtually on Zoom--RSVP: programs@silverspringvillage.org for link

Endurance by Cynthia Farreell Johnson is a mixed media piece

(gouache & acrylic), inspired by a visit to the African Burial Ground in NYC.

Join us for our next SPARKLE: Senior Women in the Arts featuring dollmaker Camila Bryce-LaPorte, mixed media artist Jamie Downs, poet JoAnne Growney, artist Leslie Anne Hansley, artist Marjorie Hirano and artist Cynthia Farrell Johnson. Hosted by artist & poet Neha Misra, this panel of creative women will explore what inspires them, what defines them and how their creative expression and perspective have changed over time.

Camila Bryce-LaPorte

Dollmaker

I am a folklife specialist and community scholar who works with groups of people to help them rediscover the value of their history, their cultural traditions, and their community through the art of cultural documentation. I approach each project as a collaborative effort. Together we learn to identify, collect, interpret, archive, present and preserve vital cultural resources and traditions and to also to document those historical events that precipitated change. My objective is to drive localized discussions about the concept of community and cultural heritage so that we can appreciate our commonalities and our differences.

Among the most personally significant projects is my on-going work with the African American doll and puppet artist. Doll and puppetry artistry among African descendants in the Americas has an ancient vintage. The craft has evolved It embodies African traditions and American ingenuity. Following in the long tradition of their predecessors, contemporary artisans are creating works that preserve the past, document the present, and envision the future.

This event will be a workshop and discussion with contemporary dolls and puppet artists who aim create living art that is spiritual, educational, provocative, inventive, and empowering. These artists are less concerned about applying artistic conventions than they are with creatively “telling our tale”. This is about moving forward a people’s spirit and history.

Jamie Downs

Mixed Media Artist

Jamie Downs received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting degree from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania with further study at La Salle College in Philadelphia and University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has taught at Prince Georges Community College, Drexel University, Montgomery College and currently at University of the District of Columbia.

Jamie has worked in mixed media non-objective painting for over 50 years exploring themes of oneness and transcendence, searching for her own personal archetypes. This often makes it possible to place work done in different media and sometimes even scale, years apart, together to form a seamless diptych or triptych. Her largest series of work is the Oneness series which is non-objective; but her most recent series are floral architypes, birds and animals.

She has had numerous one person and group shows and is in many collections. Her studio is in North Kensington, Maryland and open by appointment. Her work can be seen at

http://abstractart.hypermart.net, https://jamiedowns.wordpress.com/, https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jamiedowns1,

Untitled by Jamie Downs

JoAnne Growney

Poet

Poet JoAnne Growney is mostly a Pennsylvanian – though she has spent sections of time in Alaska, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma – and she has lived in Silver Spring since 2005, a post-retirement move to bring her closer to her grandchildren. JoAnne grew up on a farm and, though she has always loved poetry, a science scholarship helped to pay for college – and she majored in mathematics. She began a teaching career in a junior high school, but she was encouraged to do graduate work and eventually became a mathematics professor at Pennsylvania’s Bloomsburg University. As a teacher she wrote poems and collected poems by others to enrich her math classes. Some of her poems were mathy and some were personal – one of her frequent topics was women in mathematics. Now, retired, she has added blogging to her list of writings – she has more than a thousand postings in “Intersections – Poetry with Mathematics” at https://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com.

As part of the SPARKLE panel, JoAnne will talk a bit about how she discovers things by writing about them and will share several poems – about her struggles to find herself and about her concerns for gender equality and for the environment.

JoAnne Growney with all her grandchildren

A Woman Is a Gallery She Can’t Stop to View

by JoAnne Growney

One summer evening in the eighties—

an interview with Jackie O.

What’s your greatest achievement?

I’m proud that I stayed sane.

What lies in your future?

To learn how others see me.

So, it's come to this. Sitting under a tree

in a state park in Oklahoma,

I find a seashell, pick it up

and hear a voice, You are just like me.

III

Everyone's met someone from out of town

who says, My friend X in Baltimore

is just like you. Same hair, voice, and posture.

Even your gestures are the same.

I want to meet my double, to ask her,

Does your body hum beneath your thoughts?

Am I an easy imitation?

What's the cost of being me?

At family reunions, my uncle shows old films.

Restless me before the camera, darting, stopping.

Young, natural — more lovely than she knew —

but what’s the use to know her since she's gone.

My mother made much of helpful little girls.

Praise still persuades me; I work hard

for words withheld. On the road from my house

to hers, a truck covers me with shadow.

The rim of darkness against sunlight

reminds me how things disclose at borders

with their opposites. I weave a blanket of words.

Prepared for everything. Unknown.

Leslie Anne Hansley

Artist

Hailing from Kingston, Jamaica, Leslie Anne Hansley is an artist residing in Silver Spring, Maryland. Self-taught, Leslie Anne's work is inspired by vibrant colors, African masks, and her Jamaican culture and heritage.

After high school, Leslie Anne worked as a computer programmer, then started a garment manufacturing company which she owned for the next 11 years. She credits this unusual start with living in a small, but progressive island that encourages one to be "fearless" and to seize opportunities. She migrated to the USA in 1981, obtained an accounting degree from the University of Maryland and then a CPA certification. She worked for the next 25 years in corporate America before retiring in 2013.

During retirement Leslie Anne decided to fulfill a long-time dream of becoming an artist. From an early age she was interested in ethnic art and later became fascinated with African Masks. Her husband had traveled to Africa many times and always returned home with artwork from Africa. She does not have any formal artistic training and only painted at Sip and Paint Wine events where she admits that she did more sipping than painting. She says that she has not met a bright color that she does not like, and you can see that in her vibrant paintings.

Having inspiration, but lacking in "know how," she turned to Google and YouTube, and so began her career as an artist combining inspiration from African masks and Jamaican culture into paintings on canvas. After only painting for six months, a friend invited her to exhibit at the Anthony Bowen Gallery at the YMCA, Washington, DC, with a Jamaican photographer to showcase art that told the story about the island's rich heritage from the slavery era to 2018. Due to the success of the exhibition and encouragement from friends, she continued painting and exhibiting. In addition to selling her art at exhibits and art fairs, she opened her Etsy Shop to reach more people.

In early 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Leslie Anne incorporated a more contemporary theme into her paintings. She called this new art form "BoHo Ethnic Art," which wraps together her love of African masks and Jamaican culture. With the encouragement of friends and her "fearless" attitude, she decided to have her artwork printed on items such as home décor and clothing. "Some might say I am cheapening my art, but I get a kick out of seeing a neighbor wearing a face-mask and matching tote with my artwork." She acknowledged this was even harder than getting into painting as she lacked necessary skills in graphic design, photography, marketing, and social media. Again, she turned to her and teachers, Google and YouTube and started an online store with images of her artwork.

Leslie Anne has exhibited at Kefa Café in downtown Silver Spring, Back Wall in Takoma Park, Jirani Coffeehouse in Manassas, and Ethnicities in Bowie. She is a member of the Montgomery Arts Association and Wheaton Arts Parade Gallery where she currently exhibits. She is thankful to all the friends and artists who have encouraged her as she travels fearlessly along her journey.

You can see her artwork at www.lesancreates.com and www.lesancreates.redbubble.com.

Marjorie Hirano

Artist

Artist Marjorie Hirano holds an MS degree from Illinois Institute of Technology and a BEd, from the University of Hawaii. She has received honors from the Artists Guild of Chicago, the Society of Typographic Arts, the Graphic Arts Council of Chicago and others. Her work has been exhibited at Princeton, Pro Graphica and Herman Hall Galleries in Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Gallery Amerasia, Plum Gallery, Pyramid Press and the Washington Printmakers Gallery in Washington, and others.

Untitled Marjorie Hirano, Pen and Ink on Paper.

Cynthia Farrell Johnson

Artist

Cynthia Farrell Johnson is a fan of vibrant colors. Her works in gouache, acrylic, and mixed media have been inspired by the people she met and places where she lived during 25 years of globetrotting as a U.S. diplomat. Service in West Africa, Central and South America exposed her to a wide variety of artistic traditions and forms of expression. Her role models are Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold and Vincent Van Gogh. Johnson currently makes her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, and draws much of her inspiration for themes and color schemes from the Washington, D.C. region’s rich, cultural diversity. She is a member of Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, where she also has her studio. She is also a member of the Women’s Caucus for Art Greater Washington Chapter.

In July 2013, Johnson was awarded an Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County Individual Artist/Scholar Grant. Johnson was Artist-in-Residence at Wesley Theological Seminary’s Luce Center for the Arts & Religion in 2011. Two years prior to that, she was Artist-in-Residence at Iona Senior Services.

Johnson’s paintings have been exhibited overseas in cultural centers and galleries in Africa and in Latin America. As a participant in the Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program, Ms. Johnson has placed her work in U.S. ambassadorial residence in Niger, Nicaragua, Serbia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Panama.

To learn more, visit www.cfjfinearts.com.

Photo: Nick Williams

Vote for Her Future by Cynthia Farrell Johnson. This is a note card design to

celebrate Women’s Suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Neha Misra

Host

Artist & Poet Neha Misra is a contemporary visual folk artist, poet, and social entrepreneur with a deep belief in the power of human imagination to create new realities. Neha was born and raised in New Delhi, India. As an immigrant to the United States, the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area has been her adopted home since 2006. For the last five years, Neha has been a proud Silver Spring resident, and absolutely loves her vibrant local community. Embodying the creative life is a profound source of individual and collective healing for Neha. Inspiration for her art has roots in the rich folk traditions, mythology, ancient history, and colorful vibrancy of her Indian heritage. Her immigrant experience has been a catalyst for rediscovering and reconnecting with this powerful tapestry. Neha's paintings bring out an enchantment with the timeless wisdom, magic, and resilience of nature. Neha's lifelong, award winning, global work for climate justice and sustainability also impacts her art. She combines this with an interest in neuroscience to balance our left brain dominated modern world with the right brain - our spiritual and creative connection with the world within and without. Neha has designed and taught classes on mindfulness, everyday art appreciation and creative writing called "Poetry of Public Art" with community organizations in the DC metro area. She is a winner of Bethesda Magazine Green Award, and has been featured in Forbes, National Geographic, Ms.Magazine, and Huffington Post. Learn more here: https://www.nehamisrastudio.com

Presented by SSTCi in collaboration with the Silver Spring Village, the SPARKLE Program is a monthly community outreach series in the Silver Spring Civic Building that enriches the lives of seniors in our area. SPARKLE stands for Senior Programs Aimed at Re-Kindling Lifetime Engagement. *Events are now held virtually at this time.

RSVP: programs@silverspringvillage.org.

Note, Zoom Login-info will be sent prior to the event.