.NET Black Professional Women Network I The Arts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover Story / Thelma Golden : Thelma Golden on Merging Past, Present, and Future at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Plus a video interview with Carol Jenkins - Read more ...

Music / Teyana Taylor : Actor, dancer, and choreographer along with other creative pursuits, Teyana Taylor has had a labyrinthine career as an R&B recording artist. Read more ...

Health / Sandra Lindsay : she's pursued her dream of becoming a nurse to allow her to do what she wanted to do most, give back to her new country," Mr. Biden said on Friday. Read more ...

Events: Like your Networking pages we post our events but you can also add your events to our page as well by posting in our twitter account or joining the Black Professional Women Events page on Facebook. Visit the Events page here ...

The Arts / Bisa Butler : She strategically uses textiles a traditionally marginalized medium to interrogate the historical marginalization of her subjects Read more ...

Special Edition / Lisa Respers France, CNN : All the Black women in us are tired ... Read more ...

Fashion / Fe Noel: I go by the name of Fe Noel which is derived from my birth name Felisha Noel. As a fashion designer, I aspire to make life beautiful, which I’ve set out to do from a very young age. Living as a first generation, American in Brooklyn Newyork I discovered fashion at a very young age. Read more ...

Life Style / Fasting by Simply Kishi : Fasting is a discipline and it is hard work. No one wants to afflict their body or bring it under subjection. Read more ...

Travel: Learn about travel protocols local and internationally. Read more ...

Restaurant / Jilian Hall-Johnson : “We want people to experience our life through our food…” Read more ...

Affiliates: Business and Private needs

Games: Free online games available ...

Melinda Dupre / Administrator / Publisher
Mitchell Dupre Sr. / Webmaster

Contributors: Websites and Artists*: 123rf.com, Pixabay.com, Pixels.com, Unsplash.com, Freeimages.com, nappy*, Christina Morillo*, Cflgroup Media*, Asa Dugger*, Starkvisuals*, Explorer Bob*, Bobbonga*, Godisable Jacob* Alpha Illustrations and many others.

MAGIX Software & VEGAS Creative Software

Bisa Butler’s portrait quilts vividly capture personal and historical narratives of Black life.

he strategically uses textiles—a traditionally marginalized medium—to interrogate the historical marginalization of her subjects while using scale and subtle detail to convey her subjects’ complex individuality. Together, Butler’s quilts present an expansive view of history through their engagement with themes such as family, community, migration, the promise of youth, and artistic and intellectual legacies. Bisa Butler: Portraits is the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work and will include over 20 portraits.

The Art Institute of Chicago
Produced by Sok Vision, this video takes us inside Bisa Butler's studio as she talks about her family and upbringing, her education at Howard University, her textile practice, and her aspirations of making art that reflects our times.

Although Butler’s finished works are exclusively fabric, her methods remain interdisciplinary: photographs inform her compositions and figural choices, she layers fabrics as a painter might layer glazes, and she uses thread to draw, adding detail and texture. The artist’s extensive range of influences includes family photo albums, the philosophies of AfriCOBRA (the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), Romare Bearden’s collages, Faith Ringgold’s quilts, and Gordon Parks’s photographs.

Butler made her first portrait quilt, Francis and Violette (Grandparents), while earning a master’s degree in arts education at Montclair State University, New Jersey. Trained as a painter at Howard University in Washington, DC, Butler shifted to a textile-based practice to add vibrancy and dimension she found lacking in her paintings. Fabrics also offered her a practical way to pursue artmaking while pregnant and after her daughter was born, when oil paints and thinners proved too toxic. In turning to textiles, Butler also connected with her family history; she had learned to sew at a young age from her mother and grandmother. In revisiting these early lessons and joining them with her formal studies, she found her artistic path.