Join us for the next Book Art Series Presentation!
Title: Book Art as Artivism
Thursday, December 19
6 p.m. CT/ 7 p.m. EST
Nine Black women artists, compelled to create collaborative artists’ books to transcend and transform the traumatic events of the year 2020 - one of the most tumultuous in the last 100 years. Art making then became a transgressive act - our artivism, our documented perspective, and our vision.
Gail Shaw-Clemons and Kamala Subramanian will engage in a conversation related to their involvement with the process of artivism during the 2020, 9 artists, 9 months, 9 perspectives Artist’ Book Project. They will discuss how creating in collaboration with their sisterhood allowed them to synthesize their trauma into their artist’s books. The project became a cathartic process where they could vent and work through their frustrations, ultimately, giving them back their power to survive emotionally and thrive. For nine consecutive months the pandemic presented many obstacles to overcome, first, being the ability to communicate, as zoom became the basic tool of communicating. Transporting the books was another major obstacle, once one book was lost in the mail.
A blog was created to document the progression of the books in real-time. It allowed them to maintain a photographic and written record of the work and process: [https://bookproject2020.blogspot.com] The blog was critical because it took nine months to complete the project, and it gave a sneak peak of the entries before all of the books were completed.
Gail Shaw-Clemons
Gail Shaw-Clemons is a printmaker, mixed media artist, and art activist. She was born in Washington, DC and received her BFA and MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park where she studied with Dr. David Driskell, Martin Puryear, and Thaddeus Lipinski. She spent most of her career in New York City, as an Instructor at the United Nations International School. She recently retired and moved back to Washington DC, where she now resides and continues her practice. She has a studio at Stable Arts, and works in two different print studios, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, MD and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in NYC. Shaw-Clemons has exhibited extensively, with many works included in public and private collections such as, The Library of Congress, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Banneker-Douglass Museum, and the David Driskell Center in MD. Her work is represented in Brazil, Norway, Sweden, China, and Ireland, and she was awarded many residencies nationally and internationally. She is currently an adjunct professor at Bowie State University teaching drawing and two-dimensional design. Shaw-Clemons is also on the board of directors of the Ora Lerman Trust for the Soaring Gardens residency program.
Kamala Subramanian
Kamala Subramanian is a Washington, D.C. area artist of South Asian and African American heritage. Born and raised in the District of Columbia, Subramanian was educated through the DC public school system and fell in love with printmaking in high school while attending the Smithsonian’s Discover Graphics program, Literary Arts Program, and Workshops for Careers in the Arts (now Duke Ellington High School for the Arts). Subramanian holds a BFA from Temple University, Tyler School of Fine Arts, Rome, Italy and Philadelphia, PA with post graduate work in Child and Abnormal Psychology at Maryland University, College Park, teaching accreditation credits from Bowie State University, and credits in the Psychology Department’s Art Therapy program. Subramanian interned at the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia where she assisted in the printmaking process on several great artists’ work including Romare Bearden and David Driskell. In Washington, DC. she taught at the Smithsonian’s Discover Graphics Program and apprenticed with local printmaker Percy Martin. She was a Kennedy Center Fellow and has taught at numerous schools throughout the DC area. Subramanian won a commission to create a public art mural of Frederick Douglass entitled ‘Freedom of Mind’ at the Anacostia Library in Southeast DC and was nominated DC Teacher of the Year in 2021.
Registration Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsdOmgqD4iHNWIZ6ilpB3TzyU8RzIii1O8
