art + inspiration
Music, paint, sculpture, words, photography, dance
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Linnette Lawson, native of Cleveland, OH, has been an artist her whole life. From storytelling and poetry, to singing and dancing, Linnette covers the spectrum. And now, she has graced us all with her brilliant visual art. The exhibit is on display through mid-September, but we wanted to share her images with you - the digital community, far and wide. The exhibit began with a fantastic opening and reception, but the art is what we came to see.. Scenes from the Exhibit OpeningGALLERY(Most of the pieces are for sale - but they don't come cheap.. ENJOY!!)
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The Words of Queen Nina Simone:
This powerful song has been remade and sampled by many, the most recent being Jay-Z. The song addresses the color-ism that still remains prevalent in the African Diaspora. It is a tragic tale of ignorance and neglect, but intensely relevant. The color-ism must subside - the healing process must commence. Nina Simone gained high recognition and honor for bringing such awareness to the stage in 1966. And even today we have not gotten beyond such foolishness. We have a long road ahead but we will end this battle - slowly but surely.
Jazz contextualizes our, being that of black people, struggles and aspirations for selfactualization while concurrently itself undergoing similar transformative developments. It is not unlike German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s concept of das Ding an sich or in laymen’s terms a thing-in-itself in which objects exist, as it were, as they are; independently from observation and the experiential. Better yet stated, Jazz becoming almost an entity unto itself; a living being whose experiences mirror that of its creator. The inhumanity of slavery sung through “slave songs”; “Negro spirituals” that spoke on the horrors of the “peculiar institution”. These gave way to the blues; in much the same way bondage was supplanted by servitude, involuntary in all but the name. If “Negro spirituals” gave testimony of what happened to blacks in the past, then the blues gave account of what it felt like. This sentiment passed through the “watershed” period of the establishment of de jure segregation well into the twentieth century as two different Americas emerged; divided by the color line. It is in blues that gives what could be called and considered American music its “distinctive character.” - James Weldon Johnson. Because only in America could the subjugation of one people, the almost annihilation of another by Europeans and their descendants be considered an acceptable course of action by so many even as it were juxtapositional to the so-called “founding principles of this great nation.” The rest of the onlookers staring obliviously at the atrocities.
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