Artists' Group 2:
Simone Johnson
Gloria Matlock
Beatrice Mitchell
Emily Roman
Please click on smaller images to enlarge.
Simone Johnson
Simone started making work about water in 2017. She further experimented with what she later on started calling a water art practice in 2018. As a Works on Water resident, she created the first draft of “Opal”, a water art project that explores the relationship between water, receptivity and processes of creating. In 2019, life took a turn and Simone stopped making art during what she would call a “surreal year”. This only led to another surreal year.
During this time she started Oceaning Wandering/Ways of Knowing, a practice within her practice that primarily focuses on the ocean and the ocean's messages about the imagination. In late 2019, under this practice, Simone started an iterative project titled "The Oceans are Changing" which explores the impact of climate change on the ocean with particular focus on the Abyss and surrealism as a mode of research and expression. Other key elements of this project include learning about renewable energy and ocean policy proposals like the Blue New Deal, communication with marine life, multispecies collaboration with Algae, who Simone sees as a Wayshower, and meditating on the ocean as a healer. So far she has completed two iterations; "Ocean Radio" and most recently "Deep Sea Time Warp 2020".
Another part of Simone's watery, prismatic journey is "Painting Wetland Medicine" which combines researching the history, stories, beauty and medicine of wetlands with narrative medicine and a new wild pigment practice.
Finally, Simone has been thinking a lot about rivers, swimming, how water can guide her throughout what artist Neema Githere calls the #digitaldiaspora, Mami Wata and music, and how in the end she can work with and honor all the Elements.
During this time she started Oceaning Wandering/Ways of Knowing, a practice within her practice that primarily focuses on the ocean and the ocean's messages about the imagination. In late 2019, under this practice, Simone started an iterative project titled "The Oceans are Changing" which explores the impact of climate change on the ocean with particular focus on the Abyss and surrealism as a mode of research and expression. Other key elements of this project include learning about renewable energy and ocean policy proposals like the Blue New Deal, communication with marine life, multispecies collaboration with Algae, who Simone sees as a Wayshower, and meditating on the ocean as a healer. So far she has completed two iterations; "Ocean Radio" and most recently "Deep Sea Time Warp 2020".
Another part of Simone's watery, prismatic journey is "Painting Wetland Medicine" which combines researching the history, stories, beauty and medicine of wetlands with narrative medicine and a new wild pigment practice.
Finally, Simone has been thinking a lot about rivers, swimming, how water can guide her throughout what artist Neema Githere calls the #digitaldiaspora, Mami Wata and music, and how in the end she can work with and honor all the Elements.
Visit Simone Johnson's blog to read her beautiful account of creating "Deep Sea Time Warp 2020," her contribution to "Nothing Stable Under Heaven; a Showcase of Black Art."
Check out the project research Simone has gathered over the last year or so!
All photos of Simone Johnson are by photographer Alyssa Rapp.
Learn more about Alyssa and her work by clicking the button below.
Learn more about Alyssa and her work by clicking the button below.
Biography
Simone Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher currently based in New York City. She mostly makes work about/with water. Much of her work incorporates topics around identity, energy, learning, communication, spirituality and self-expression. Although Simone mostly creates through movement and visual art, her artistic practice is grounded in following her intuition, curiosity and sparks of excitement, wherever they may take her. Throughout her life Simone has always had a strong interest in global travel, agriculture, art, learning and creativity studies. She is currently completing a certification in herbal medicine with a deep affinity for the Rose plant.
Simone Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher currently based in New York City. She mostly makes work about/with water. Much of her work incorporates topics around identity, energy, learning, communication, spirituality and self-expression. Although Simone mostly creates through movement and visual art, her artistic practice is grounded in following her intuition, curiosity and sparks of excitement, wherever they may take her. Throughout her life Simone has always had a strong interest in global travel, agriculture, art, learning and creativity studies. She is currently completing a certification in herbal medicine with a deep affinity for the Rose plant.
Click the button below to be directed to Simone's website.
If you would like to support Simone's work you can donate to her Venus Love Jar:
Venmo: @sjaquayj
paypal.me/dancingnomad
Venmo: @sjaquayj
paypal.me/dancingnomad
Gloria Matlock
Gloria Matlock is a teacher, artist, musician, and community advocate residing in Greenfield, Massachusetts. She has been drawing since she was a child, and she loves colors that make her happy. As a musician, she sings spirituals, work songs, songs of slavery and emancipation, and present-day freedom songs. She also does traditional drumming.
Beatrice Mitchell
Movie still from “Just Another Mile,”
a film by Gloria Matlock
a film by Gloria Matlock
Biography
Beatrice Mitchell is in her 91st year. She lives in Ravenna, Ohio, where she has resided since 1961.
An African-American woman, Beatrice came to Ohio with her parents during the Great Migration. Beatrice’s sharecropper family had worked on cotton farms in Georgia. It was a cold winter that first year in Ohio. Since the children didn’t have their shots, they caught many childhood diseases.
Beatrice began to love poetry when she had to memorize poems at the segregated school she attended in the South. It was an honor to her to memorize poetry and recite it in front of the class. When the family moved North, she discovered that there were libraries. Her mother would read to the children until they could begin to read for themselves.
Beatrice fell in love with books, so much so that even in the cold Ohio winters, she would risk getting frostbitten hands and feet by walking three miles to the library to get a stack of books, making sure always to bring them back before they were due to avoid the penny fine. Then she would bring home a new stack of books. This, she recalls, was in 1929, during the Great Depression.
The stark differences between the North and the South have stayed with her. It is these that inspired her to write her poem, “Rote Learning.” One of the reasons that the process of rote learning was so important for black children in the South was that there weren’t enough books for all of the children. Sometimes there was only one book for an entire classroom and it was necessary for the children to memorize stories along with their lessons.
Besides writing poetry, Beatrice’s other activities include quilting. One of her quilts is hanging at Michigan State University and another is in the Portage County Historical Society. She is also a painter. When she was 13 years old, the woman she worked for paid for Beatrice to attend an art academy. Beatrice painted in oil and also made charcoal drawings.
Beatrice is a retired licensed nurse. She used to write occasionally for the Ravenna, Ohio Record-Courier newspaper. She and her late husband have four children, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Beatrice Mitchell is in her 91st year. She lives in Ravenna, Ohio, where she has resided since 1961.
An African-American woman, Beatrice came to Ohio with her parents during the Great Migration. Beatrice’s sharecropper family had worked on cotton farms in Georgia. It was a cold winter that first year in Ohio. Since the children didn’t have their shots, they caught many childhood diseases.
Beatrice began to love poetry when she had to memorize poems at the segregated school she attended in the South. It was an honor to her to memorize poetry and recite it in front of the class. When the family moved North, she discovered that there were libraries. Her mother would read to the children until they could begin to read for themselves.
Beatrice fell in love with books, so much so that even in the cold Ohio winters, she would risk getting frostbitten hands and feet by walking three miles to the library to get a stack of books, making sure always to bring them back before they were due to avoid the penny fine. Then she would bring home a new stack of books. This, she recalls, was in 1929, during the Great Depression.
The stark differences between the North and the South have stayed with her. It is these that inspired her to write her poem, “Rote Learning.” One of the reasons that the process of rote learning was so important for black children in the South was that there weren’t enough books for all of the children. Sometimes there was only one book for an entire classroom and it was necessary for the children to memorize stories along with their lessons.
Besides writing poetry, Beatrice’s other activities include quilting. One of her quilts is hanging at Michigan State University and another is in the Portage County Historical Society. She is also a painter. When she was 13 years old, the woman she worked for paid for Beatrice to attend an art academy. Beatrice painted in oil and also made charcoal drawings.
Beatrice is a retired licensed nurse. She used to write occasionally for the Ravenna, Ohio Record-Courier newspaper. She and her late husband have four children, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Emily Roman
Born and raised in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, Emily was always immersed in the vibrant sights and sounds of life on an island. Her native language, nature, music, food and the culture are all elements that consistently inspire her work and are reflected in her paintings.
Her interest in art began in middle school and was further cultivated when she attended Escuela Especializada de Bellas Artes de Humacao (Performing Arts High School) and later graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City with a degree in Fine Arts in 2017.
Emily’s paintings are a combination of acrylic and oil on canvas and wood and reflect an intersection of her childhood memories growing up on the island and her dreams for its future, one in which people, animals and the land can coexist harmoniously and thrive.
Women are also an important element of her work. Emily believes women are the true pillars of every society and as a proud Afro-Latina she chooses to represent women in her art as powerful leaders in all respects who deserve to be properly recognized for their contributions.
Emily Roman relocated to Massachusetts in 2016 and is currently based in Western Massachusetts where she continues to paint in her spare time.
This is her first exhibit.
Her interest in art began in middle school and was further cultivated when she attended Escuela Especializada de Bellas Artes de Humacao (Performing Arts High School) and later graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City with a degree in Fine Arts in 2017.
Emily’s paintings are a combination of acrylic and oil on canvas and wood and reflect an intersection of her childhood memories growing up on the island and her dreams for its future, one in which people, animals and the land can coexist harmoniously and thrive.
Women are also an important element of her work. Emily believes women are the true pillars of every society and as a proud Afro-Latina she chooses to represent women in her art as powerful leaders in all respects who deserve to be properly recognized for their contributions.
Emily Roman relocated to Massachusetts in 2016 and is currently based in Western Massachusetts where she continues to paint in her spare time.
This is her first exhibit.