Opening Channels of Cultural Communication:
Stories from the DC Art Bank
Saturday | March 25, 2023 | 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, New Book Room
Presented as part of the 49th Annual DC History Conference
PROGRAM:
Welcome from the DC Public Library
Welcome from the Commission on the Arts and Humanities
Lou Stovall Remembrance
Panel
- Dr. Melanee Harvey (Moderator), PhD, Associate Professor of Art History, Howard University
- Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock, Vradenburg Director and CEO, The Phillips Collection [speaking on Sam Gilliam’s work]
- Julia Bloom, Artist
- Jean Lawlor Cohen, Curator, Arts writer, and friend of Gene Davis [speaking on Gene Davis’s work]
- Irene Kellogg, Artist
- Marcel Taylor, Artist
Audience Q&A
Closing Remarks
BIOS:
Moderator:
Dr. Melanee C. Harvey, Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University.
Dr. Melanee Harvey earned a BA from Spelman College and pursued graduate study at Boston University where she received her MA and PhD in American Art and Architectural History. In addition to serving as coordinator for the art history area of study, she has served as programming chair for the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at Howard University since 2016. She has published on architectural iconography in African American art, Black Arts Movement artists, religious art of Black liberation theology and ecowomanist art practices. During the 2020-2021 academic year, Melanee was in residence as the Paul Mellon Guest Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. She is currently writing her first book entitled, Patterns of Permanence: African Methodist Episcopal Architecture and Visual Culture.
PANELISTS
Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock, Vradenburg Director and CEO, The Phillips Collection
Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock is currently the Vradenburg Director and CEO of The Phillips Collection following eight years as the Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) of the University of Rochester in New York. During his tenure in Rochester, Binstock led an expansion and diversification of the museum’s permanent collection, special exhibition program, public engagement and outreach efforts, and audience, as well as a significant increase in the museum’s annual budget. Prior to Memorial Art Gallery, Binstock served as the Senior Vice President for Modern and Contemporary Art in the Art Advisory & Finance group of Citi Private Bank. He was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 2000-07, and Assistant Curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia from 1998-2000.
Julia Bloom, Artist
Julia Bloom is an artist who makes paintings, drawings, and sculpture. She studied at Berklee College of Music, the Boston Museum School, and Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been exhibited at Addison/Ripley Fine Art in Washington, DC; Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, VA; Lucky Street Gallery in Key West, FL; Salzland Museum in Schoenebeck, Germany; the Katzen Arts Center at American University in Washington, DC; along with other regional and national galleries. Bloom was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, a fellowship from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, and seven fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Publications and articles about Bloom’s work appear in The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Northern Virginia Magazine, Poet Lore, Southern Accents, and New American Paintings. Bloom’s work is in several public and private collections, including the University of Virginia School of Law, Wheat First Securities, and the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru. Bloom lives and works in Washington, DC and is represented by Addison Ripley Fine Art. She is also the creator of Freight Gallery, a small pop-up exhibition space in a freight elevator.
Jean Lawlor Cohen, Curator, arts writer
Jean Lawlor Cohen co-authored Washington Art Matters: Art Life in the Capital 1940- 1990 that inspired two exhibitions at the American University Museum. She co-curated Gene Davis: Interval in 2007 at the Kreeger Museum and served in 2016 as consulting curator for Gene Davis: Hot Beat at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, his 1960s stripe paintings from the collection. She has provided catalogue essays for the Renwick Gallery, the A. U. Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. For Washington Arts Museum, she moderated panels and curated the Manon Cleary retrospective (2006). Her reviews and features have appeared in Art News, Art International and Washington Post, and she served as contributing editor at France, Museum & Arts and Sculpture magazines. As editor of Where (DC and Baltimore), she covered theater, art galleries, architecture, dining, historic sites and museums. Recent print and online features have run in National Geographic Traveler and Sculpture magazines.
Irene Kellogg, Artist
Native Washingtonian Irene Kellogg attended Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia. In 1978, a photography instructor introduced her to the FotoCraft Camera Club, founded in 1937 and dedicated to capturing and preserving images of life in Washington, DC. There, Kellogg met and was inspired by founder Ed Fletcher and other venerable DC photographers. Kellogg has also served as a volunteer for the DC Public Library Special Collections, examining and writing about photographic archives. Her works have been published in various periodicals, and have been exhibited at: Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, the LOC Employees Art Show, George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates Breast Care Center, Blackburn Center Gallery of Howard University, A.Salon, Ltd., the Capital Children‘s Museum in DC, the African American Museum in Alexandria, VA, and several of her photographs were accepted by the DC Arts and Humanities Commission’s Art Bank Collection.
Marcel Taylor, Artist
Born in Houston, TX, Marcel Taylor was exposed to art at a young age. In 1988, he was accepted as a scholarship recipient in the fine arts program at Howard University. Under the guidance of Alfred Smith, Winston Kennedy, and others, Taylor developed his painting style. He also studied African art, Western art, and global architecture.
Since receiving his BA in 1992, Taylor has volunteered as an art instructor with several youth organizations and, in 1996, he cofounded the SAGE Collective, a diverse group of visual and performing artists. In this role, Taylor helped organize and sponsor art exhibitions and expose youth to art. In 1997, Taylor was awarded a residency at the Art-Omi international artists’ colony in upstate New York, where he was inspired by mentor Sam Gilliam. Taylor travels to urban centers in the US and abroad to study the local art and architecture. In 2017, he received an MA from Lesley University.
MLK’s Beloved Community
& the DC Art Bank Panel
Saturday | February 11 | 1 – 4 pm
MLK Library Auditorium
RUN OF SHOW
DCPL Welcome
Video Keynote
• Jordan Potash, PHD, Associate Professor, George Washington University
• Lindsay Vance, ATR-BC, LPC, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University
CAH Welcome
PANEL
• Moderator: Melanee Harvey, PhD, Associate Professor & Coordinator of Art History, Howard
• Artists: Carol A. Beane; Imar Lyman Hutchins; Eleisha Faith McCorkle; Tonisha Hope McCorkle; Curtis Woody; and Helen Zughaib
Audience Q&A
Closing Remarks
MLK Art Bank Tour
PANELISTS BIOS
Jordan Potash; Keynote Speaker
Jordan S. Potash, PhD, ATR-BC, REAT, LPCAT (MD), LCAT (NY) is a registered, board certified and licensed art therapist, as well as, a registered expressive arts therapist. He has worked with clients of all ages in schools, clinics, and community art studios in the U.S. and Hong Kong. Jordan is primarily interested in the applications of art and art therapy in community development and social change, with an emphasis on reducing stigma, confronting discrimination and promoting cross-cultural relationships. He also advocates for a broad approach to art therapy that increases client access to services by focusing on therapy, prevention, and wellness applications. Jordan is an active member of the American Art Therapy Association; he is the current Editor in Chief of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association and past chairpersons of both the Multicultural and Ethics Committee. While living in Hong Kong for 8 years, Jordan co-founded the Masters of Expressive Arts Therapy at The University of Hong Kong, the first degree of its kind in Asia. In addition, he taught and led workshops in China, Thailand, Korea, and Israel. Potash currently works at the George Washington University as an Associate Professor in the Art Therapy Program.
Lindsay Vance; Keynote Speaker
Lindsey D. Vance, ATR-BC, LPC, is an interdisciplinary artist, art therapist, licensed professional counselor, arts advocate, arts administrator, and an educator. These many identities provide her with a broad perspective of the arts ecosystem. She has been healing and educating through the arts for over 10 years, working to promote the social and emotional well-being of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as children, youth, and families experiencing a range social, emotional, developmental, and psychological challenges. Vance works as an adjunct professor at The George Washington University and Bowie State University, as well as a Grief Psychotherapist for the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing.
Melanee Harvey, PhD; Moderator
Melanee C. Harvey is associate professor of art history in the Department of Art in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She earned a BA from Spelman College and pursued graduate study at Boston University where she received her MA and PhD in American Art and Architectural History. In addition to serving as coordinator for the art history area of study, she has served as programming chair for the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at Howard University since 2016. She has published on architectural iconography in African American art, Black Arts Movement artists, religious art of Black liberation theology and ecowomanist art practices. During the 2020-2021 academic year, Melanee was in residence as the Paul Mellon Guest Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. She is currently writing her first book entitled, Patterns of Permanence: African Methodist Episcopal Architecture and Visual Culture.
Carol A. Beane
Carol A. Beane is a wordsmith at heart; poetry is her constant. She taught Spanish language, Latin American/Caribbean literature, and Simultaneous Interpretation at Howard University. She has collaborated with Michael Platt and Renée Stout, among others, creating artists books and broadsides. Beane is represented in various collections, including: The Library of Congress, Rare Books and Special Collections; New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture; Yale University Art Museum; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Imar Lyman Hutchins
Imar Hutchins is a self-taught artist based in Washington, DC. He works primarily in collage, mixed media, and printmaking. Hutchins’ portraits combine vintage black magazines, hate mail and other historical documents as well as found objects, tissue paper and new materials. He imagines that people themselves are collages—amalgams of countless disparate fragments and inputs. He "remixes" his subjects in new and often Afro-futuristic ways, but always drawing from (or challenging) a historical notion.
Eleisha Faith and Tonisha Hope McCorkle
DC-born and Hyattsville-raised, twin sisters Tonisha and Eleisha McCorkle are known as Hope and Faith. Between the two of them, they are skilled in drawing, printmaking, digital art, painting, and ceramics. The pair have been curating, studying, and creating art since they were 13. At the age of 17, the twins lost their mother to the rare lung condition of Sarcoidosis. From then on, the two have used their art as a space of healing, creating immersive experiences that engage with loss, grief, and identity. In their work, they depict Black culture and rituals, telling stories through imagery, symbols, and relics that detail their notions of the Black experience and truth. Tackling large scales and travelling various dimensions, the pair chronicles events and traditions, reinforcing the relationship between blackness and rituals of hair, spirituality, food, and healing.
Curtis Woody
Curtis Woody is a mixed media collage painter, drawing inspiration from historical connection points that join individuals, families, generations, and communities. He has exhibited throughout the mid-Atlantic region and his works reside in DC Public Schools, the Maryland Transit system, Bowie State University, East River Jazz Fest Collection, Sandy Spring Museum, and other public and private collections. He has received grants and fellowships from Prince George’s Arts & Humanities Council, the Maryland State Arts Council, and Artomatic; and he has undertaken residencies at the Sandy Spring Museum and Forestville High School in Maryland. Woody has a degree in Commercial Arts from Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, VA.
Helen Zughaib
Helen Zughaib was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to study art at Syracuse University, earning her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She currently lives and works in Washington, DC, painting primarily in gouache and ink on board and canvas. More recently, she has worked with wood, shoes, and cloth in mixed media installations. Zughaib’s work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, and Lebanon. Her paintings are included in many private and public collections, including the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, US Consulate General in Vancouver, Canada, American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, and the Arab American National Museum in Detroit, Michigan.