January 2022 NEWSLETTER
AND JUST LIKE THAT
Did We All Just Have A Zeitgeist Moment
And just like that, we’ve slipped into a new year.  2022 certainly won’t be without angst or uncertainty, but as with all new beginnings, it will also carry possibility and opportunity.  We’ve made it into the new year when so many others have not, so give it your best.  

The line ‘and just like that’ has seeped into the lexicon since the release of the Sex & the City reboot.  And while all of us love the show’s fashion and the vibrancy of New York City, we’ve all lamented the show’s lack of diversity.  Not so in this new iteration where every one of the girls is cultivating a diverse friendship.  Charlotte, played by Kristin Davis, is actively working to woo a new friend Lisa Todd Wexley, LTW, a filmmaker played by Nicole Ari Parker.  So desperate is Charlotte to make this friend connection that she gives her husband Harry a cheat sheet on Black culture.  But, the former gallery owner solidifies her friendship with LTW when she defends Wexley’s impeccable taste in art after her mother-in-law takes a few jabs at her about the cost of said works.

Charlotte rattles off the artists in the couple’s collection. Gordon Parks, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Roberts, Barkley Hendricks, Derrick Adams, and Mickalene Thomas.

I know I got a text about the work by Deborah Roberts.  And what I know for sure is I want to repaint my entire townhouse a gallery white and re-hang all my art?  You bet I do.  

I know Charlotte didn’t get it all right.  See the link from ARTnews below.  But it was another of those zeitgeist moments when perceptions shift for everyone.  For Oprah, it was watching Dorothy Dandridge getting the Academy Award, and then it was watching Oprah dominate in the media industry, and then it was watching Michelle as First Lady (did you see her IG post for New Year’s, she is the one)!  It was important because it put a spotlight on the excellence we all knew existed.  So, kudos to the AJLT writers for recognizing what you’ve missed in the past and working to correct it.  And what better way to do that than with Black art.

Portrait of Derrick Adams in his Brooklyn studio by Daniel Dorsa for Artsy.
bell hooks
In celebration of the life of bell hooks I’ve been watching her on-line in conversations with thought leaders like Melissa Harris, Laverne Cox, Gloria Steinem and Cornell West.  Boy she is just what we all need in our lives right now.  I am in awe of her academic plainspokenness, her unvarnished disdain for the patriarchy, sexism, racism white-supremacy and capitalism.  Her ability to lean into her womanhood, and most of all her insistence that love can save us all.  She said that Black woman don’t write enough and if we don’t we will be erased from history. She said, ‘learning was revolution.” I can lean into that.

RT - bell hooks in conversation with Theaster Gates discussing love, mutuality and collective work. 

TO SEE . TO READ . TO DO
Norma Morgan and Atelier 17 
Artist was influenced by the Scottish Highlands
Norma Morgan was born in 1928 in New Haven, Connecticut. She studied at the Hans Hofmann School and the Art Students League in New York City. Morgan is best known for her engravings and paintings of landscapes, especially those of Scotland and England, where she spent much time. Thanks to Dr. Michael Butler of Griot Gallery in Miami for calling this amazing artist to our attention. Dr. Butler collects Morgan's works.
CORRECTION

Photo credit for image of Myrtis Bedolla, Galerie Myrtis * Fine Art & Advisory in the last 12.19.21 newsletter goes to photographer Grace Roselli, “Pandora’s BoxX Project.”
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