Do you remember
The 21st night of September?
Love was changin' the minds of pretenders
While chasin' the clouds away
Released in November of 1978, September by Earth, Wind, and Fire will always be the anthem for the month that marks the beginning of a new season. Welcome fall!
September is when we start to think about wardrobe changes, shifting us from barely covered to cozy layers. It’s a perfect time to get some style and fashion tips, and we’re so happy to introduce you to stylist Justin Loring Leggett who will grace our pages with a quarterly style and fashion column beginning next year. Justin graciously donated a style consultation and closet audit to ARTE NOIR’s second-anniversary fundraising celebration earlier this month, and we are a bit jelly of the lucky somebody who is going to be supa fly out in these streets this season!
Yes, it’s our anniversary and there’s a song for that too. Thank you Tony! Toni! Toné! It doesn’t seem as though it was just yesterday, but the time has certainly flown by quickly. After two years of operation, we’re poised now to bring the recording studio and maker space online for use in the next month. We are honored to have been given the green light to name our new maker space after one of the most incredibly talented and accomplished artists in our midst, Barbara Earl Thomas. Honoring our space with her name amplifies and acknowledges the many ways in which Barbara’s diverse body of work continues to elevate creativity and culture. Guest writer Leilani Lewis shines a beautiful light on Earl Thomas that you can read here.
The ARTE NOIR Black Artist Roster continues to grow. And we’re happy our invitation to Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center, was accepted to spend some (virtual) time with those on the artist roster. As we advocate for more ways for artists to enter into the realm of civic debate and advocacy, we invited Marc to do a special session on Using Your Voice – How to Talk about Your Art. The session takes place on October 10th and is open to everyone on the Black Artist Roster. There’s still time to add your profile to the Black Artist Roster, which will close on September 30th and reopen in early 2025. In the meantime, we will continue to communicate about opportunities with artists on the roster.
It’s an exciting time to celebrate and dream new ways for ARTE NOIR to be a community asset in the best way we can. It’s also an exciting time for celebrating Black arts and culture, especially Walk the Block. Our friends/family at Wa Na Wari, just down the block from us, put on an annual community-wide festival that is like none other. The takeover of the Central District is real. Neighbors open their properties for art installations, DJs rock the ones and twos at various locations, performances dot the entire route, and there’s food and drink to keep everyone energized. Again this year, ARTE NOIR will host entertainment in the Midtown Square Plaza as part of this not-to-be-missed festival, especially if you want to experience what it feels like when Black arts and cultural community reclamation is in action. And a HUGE congratulations to the entire Wa Na Wari team on the purchase of your home! We know how good that feels and we are feeling it with you.
Fall is also the time when the arts scene is on full blast. New theater seasons, exhibits, and all manner of inside happenings abound. There is no shortage of creativity available to help you chase those clouds away. We hope to see you somewhere along the way. Welcome fall! Ba-dee-ya (dee-ya, dee-ya)...
Vivian Phillips, Founder + Board President
From our crew to yours! Vivian Phillips, Jazmyn Scott, Hilary Northcraft, Taelore Rhoden, Nahshon Joshua, Loren Perkins-Johnson, Marcus Mitchell.
Commentaires