From Where I Stand, Jerushia Graham
If you blog long enough sometimes the people and things you write about reappear. Such has been the case recently where I have reacquainted myself with the works of writers and artists with whom I have crossed paths before.
Cut & Paste: Works of Paper
Since paper has a deep connection to books, it partially explains my sense of comfort whenever I have visited the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking on the campus of Georgia Tech. The last time I was there I walked through their current exhibit, Cut & Paste: Works of Paper (ending November 14th). It is a traveling exhibit* and part of the Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia Series featuring the work of eleven Georgia artists who work with paper cutting, folding, and coloring to create unique works. I recognized one of the artists-- Jerushia Graham who exhibited a series of delicately cut paper pieces called "From Where I Stand." Shown at the left is one of those pieces, but the digital version on this blog does not reflect the rich details of the work properly.
I first met Ms. Graham back in 2012. She was one of the curators of an exhibit called WallBound, hosted by the Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur, which has since morphed into an annual event at the Decatur Book Festival called Book As Art.
Book as Art - Flight Edition
While heading out on a flight at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport a couple of months ago, my eye caught the work of Brian Dettmer whose work has appeared earlier in the blog as well. Shown here is his work, "Webster Withdrawn", which was part of the Book As Art - Flight Edition and a subset of the previously mentioned Book Art which was on display at the Decatur Public Library during the Decatur Book Festival.
I recognized Dettmer’s work from when he was at the Saltworks Gallery here in Atlanta in 2011 and later at Atlanta Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia at the end 2012. As I recall, Dettmer went on to be featured on network television for his unusual work and I occasionally get an email announcing his exhibits in Chicago and more recently in San Francisco.
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Williams’s new book Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race (2019) recently made the front page of the New York Times Book Review, but he is also the subject of one most popular Book Shopper blog postings dating back to June 6, 2010, “Thomas Chatterton Williams Meets Killer Mike.” If you ask Williams, I bet he remembers his stop at the Decatur Public Library while on tour of his first book Losing My Cool (2011): How A Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip Hop Culture. The rapper Killer Mike (on the right), emerged from the audience, got into a discussion with Williams (at the left) as they defined Hip-Hop culture. I was impressed that it was lively but, remained amicable. The man in the middle of the photo (referee?) is Joe Davich, who now is the Executive Director of the Georgia Center for the Book and was one of the brick and mortar administrators of the recent Book as Art 7.0. Small world. One other note of interest: Williams' 2011 book has since be retitled Losing My Cool: Love, Literature and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd.
* Future venues in 2019 and 2020: Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Albany Museum of Art, Albany and Telfair Museum of Art's Jepson Center, Savannah, Georgia.