Hadiya Williams Has Made Her Space in D.C.’s Art Scene
I first encountered the ceramic and fabric work of Hadiya Williams in 2018. For a show at Woodlawn, the Virginia plantation previously owned by George Washington and his family, seven Black artists were invited to make on-site installations. Furniture, tapestry, and sculpture by local artists directed the focus to the enslaved people who built the…
National Museum of Women in the Arts Goes Beyond the Glass Ceiling
The 1908 masonic lodge on New York Avenue NW has always been a complicated home for the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which opened in 1987. The grand limestone building lends gravity and seriousness, and the location, three blocks from the White House, demands attention. Responding to the fact that women were not…
SAAM’s Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea Tells the Untold Stories that Built the U.S.
Depending on how you enter the exhibition, the first—or last—thing you see is a portrait of a woman. Sandra Cisneros, a Chicana author famous for The House on Mango Street, stands with her arms folded in defiance, garbed in a traditional Mexican skirt etched with gold-leaf palm trees. Around her waist, emerald vegetation creeps up…
Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre: An Artist on the Move
Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre is constantly traveling to teach and learn. Locally, his art is on display at Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art in Reston.
Leave It On the Board: A Skate-Themed Art Competition Comes to Anacostia
Viewing should be mandatory for curator Luis Del Valle’s Leave It On The Board, but skateboard proficiency is optional.