Augusta Savage - Sculptor

Photo Courtesy of MyFlorida.com

Augusta Christine Fells Savage was born in 1892 in Green Cove Springs, Florida. A prominent Florida artist, teacher, and social activist, Ms. Savage was also an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the period of African-American cultural outpouring in New York City during the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
From humble beginnings Ms. Savage went on to study and work in New York and Paris—an impressive accomplishment for someone of her modest background. Through her work as a gifted sculptor she depicted the common man in society, although educating children and inspiring young artists was always foremost in her efforts.
Ms. Savage’s talent, combined with her leadership for civil rights and racial equality in the arts, brought her well-deserved recognition from her peers, though little material success during her lifetime. The City of Green Cove Springs has continued to honor the memory of this important artist with the opening of the Augusta Savage Cultural Arts Center."n.p.. MyFlorida.com. My Florida.com, n.p.Web . 28th Feb 2011."




"If I can inspire one of these youngsters to develop the talent I know they possess, then my monument will be in their work."


Augusta Savage was one of the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. She was the first black to gain acceptance in the National Association of Painters and Sculptors. She espoused social and political causes and brought about the realization of many opportunities for black artists and the Harlem community at large. She was adored in the Harlem community both as a talented artist and dedicated teacher.


Contrary to her father's wishes, Augusta Savage started modelling clay figures at an early age. As a preacher, he interpreted the concept of graven images literally. When the family moved to West Palm Beach, Savage's love for sculpting intensified, as she was inspired by winning a prize for one of her pieces at a county fair. She decided to become a professional sculptor and moved to Jacksonville. With no opportunities for training and employment in the South she, like many other blacks at the time, migrated north.


In New York, she enrolled in a free art program at Cooper Union while taking in washing to make ends meet. Subsequently, she was selected to participate in a summer program in France but was denied by the French government because of her race. Savage publicized the incident and while the decision was not reversed, she did receive an offer to study with a leading sculptor, Herman Atkins MacNeil.


Savage became recognized as a portrait sculptor and sculpted busts of leading black figures including W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey. But it was the sculpture of her nephew entitled Gamin that highlighted her unique perception of the black physiognomy. As a prime example of the black aesthetic, Gamin provided Savage with the chance to study in Paris for a year through a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship.


Upon her return to Harlem, she founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts with the objective of providing art education within the community. She selflessly ignored her own work to mentor gifted children. Subsequently, she was appointed director of the Harlem Community Arts Center, an institution founded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). From this position, she highlighted racial bias in the hiring practices of the WPA. She successfully gained the inclusion of black artists in WPA projects, with the outcome being the establishment of the Harlem Artists Guild. She influenced a number of future famous artists, including Jacob Lawrence.


She was commissioned by the Fair Corporation to produce a statue for the 1939 New York World's Fair and created one of her major works, The Harp, based on J. Weldon Johnson's Lift Every Voice and Sing. Unfortunately, it was destroyed after the World's Fair. Most of Ms. Savage's works are not available as they were never cast in durable materials and were either lost or destroyed.


In the 1940's, Ms. Savage left Harlem and opened a studio in Saugerties, N.Y. where she continued to teach sculpting to adults and children.


Augusta Savage died on March 26, 1962. "n.d. Black History Pages. BlackHistroypages.net, n.p. Web. 28 Feb 2011"


Links:


Black History Pages

Sheila Bridges - Interior Designer

Photo Courtesy of Sheila Bridges.com

Sheila Bridges is one of the most talented and successful interior designers in America. Her trademark, urban chic style has brought her wide acclaim and a clientele that would be the envy of any professional designer. Bridges is also a savvy entrepreneur. Since she founded the business in 1994, Sheila Bridges Designs, Inc. has grown into an over $1.5 million company. Bridges’s experience in business is one of the cornerstones of her accomplishments, and she continues to do her own marketing and managing. Her work has been showcased in publications across the country, and she was named America’s best designer by Time magazine and CNN in 2001. She currently hosts her own television show, Sheila Bridges Designer Living, on the cable TV network Fine Living. The paperback version of her book Furnishing Forward, originally published in 2002, was rereleased in the spring of 2005.

Bridges was born on July 7, 1964, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The daughter of a dentist and a schoolteacher, Bridges went on to Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, to study sociology. She graduated in 1986, completing her senior thesis on race and gender in advertising. With a career in advertising in mind, she set her sights on New York City. Upon her arrival in New York, initially Bridges found it difficult getting the type of work she sought. Originally she had hoped to become the accounts executive for the advertising firm Ogilvie & Martha. However, that was not to be, and Bridges turned to the fashion industry, taking a job at Bloomingdale’s and training to become a retail buyer. She later landed a job with Georgia Armani, but the world of fashion retail failed to hold Bridges’s attention. She enrolled at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, continuing to work in the day and taking classes at night. During this transitional phase, Bridges secured a job at the prestigious architecture firm Shelton, Mindel and Associates. The firm undertook both commercial and residential projects, exposing Bridges to a whole host of creative and vocational possibilities. And thus it was there that she discovered her passion interior design.

After graduating from college in 1993 with a degree in interior design, she did a stint in Florence, Italy, where she studied decorative art at Polimoda design school, further refining her sense of style and composition. Subsequently, Bridges decided to establish her own interior design business. The decision to launch her own company, Sheila Bridges Designs, Inc. the self-assured designer attributes to the lack of African Americans in the industry. Bridges’s objective was to fill the apparent void and provide African Americans with the resources and services to create living environments that were stylish, yet also a reflection of their own cultural experience and tastes. Consequently, out of her own basement, in 1994, Bridges began to ply her trade as an interior designer. She continued to work for the architecture company but used her breaks, lunch times, and weekends to solicit clients and market her talents.

Ironically, it was Bridges’s own home that became the showcase for her dazzling designs. Bridges moved into her landmark historic apartment in Harlem, New York, in 1993. With a spacious canvas before her, she fashioned a masterpiece that became a testament to her creativity and style. Prior to her arrival, Bridges’s apartment served as the set for Spike Lee’s movie Jungle Fever, but it was as a classic display of interior decorating that the apartment would find its fame. Again Bridges’s astute understanding of business came into play. She submitted pictures of her apartment to design magazines to promote her up and coming company, and people began to pay attention to the young and talented Bridges.

Nevertheless, success did not come easily for Bridges; the New York world of interior design is not for the faint of heart, and Bridges’s one-woman show had to battle against staunch competition from well-connected, established companies. Her big break came when she heard that former Uptown Records president Andre Harrell was looking for a new apartment. The determined Bridges called Harrell for four months before he agreed to let her assist him. Bridges ended up selecting and providing the interior design for the apartment. Fashioned in the style of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, Bridges’s talents were so artistically and authentically applied that the finished product was featured in House & Garden. Yet that was just the beginning of an ever-increasing list of celebrity clients.

Publicity for Bridges’s growing talents continued to grow, as she was interviewed or featured in all the leading design publications and appeared on newsstands across the country. Recognized in House Beautiful magazine’s list of “America’s Most Brilliant Decorators,” and proclaimed best interior designer in America by Time magazine and CNN in 2001, Bridges went from strength to strength, building her professional portfolio and receiving critical acclaim from a myriad of critics and clients.

Indeed, it is her ability to capture the imagination of such a diverse audience that sets Bridges apart form other interior designers. Despite the original impetus for founding Sheila Bridges Designs, Inc., she is reluctant to be pigeonholed as an exclusively African American designer. Bridges has the rare and uncanny ability to envision and bring to life the decorative desires of any client. She is able to inspire trust in her clients, allowing them to share in the creative process, while ensuring they feel comfortable with the decisions that are made. Her celebrity clientele include former President Bill Clinton, hip-hop entrepreneur and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, computer software elites Eileen and Peter Norton, former MTV host Bill Bellamy, and acclaimed author Tom Clancy. Bridges embraces the cultural significance of design, but her calling card is the timeless style she encapsulates in the homes and workspaces she decorates.

Although Bridges describes herself as a high-end designer, her work is not colored by the pretentious and gregarious taste that limitless finances can often bring. Bridges is equally at home in designer furniture stores or flea markets. Her creative modus operandi is to craft comfortable homes that are a timeless fusion of antique pieces with modern style that fit the client’s requirements and budget. Moreover, it is Bridges’s goal to branch out and bring her designs to a wider audience, particularly the twenty-five-to forty-five-year-old homemaker a feat she is accomplishing with her characteristic aplomb and hence the release of her book in 2002, Furnishing Forwards: A Practical Guide to Furnishing for a Lifetime. The book provides useful tips to those who enjoy interior design and want to create wonderful homes but who cannot necessarily afford to hire a professional. Bridges gained further exposure with the launch of her network TV show Sheila Bridges Designer Living, which is now in its fourth season. Bridges also appears frequently on NBC’s Today Show. In 1999 Bridges opened her own antique furniture store in Hudson, New York; however, the store subsequently closed.

Ultimately, Bridges aspires to brand her style and products and make them available nationwide. She is particularly interested in producing and marketing furniture, bedding, rugs, and her own line of paint. Her zeal for quality design has already put her among the elite interior decorators in the country, yet according to Bridges, the greatest design ventures evolve over time, so maybe the best is yet to come."np. maxizip.com. nd. 28 November 2010 Web. 25 Feb. 2011."

Work Cited:
http://maxizip.com/2010/11/biography-sheila-bridges-interior-designer-entrepreneur/




Ms. Bridges Website:


http://www.sheilabridges.com/

Richard Parsons - Business Professional

Parsons, Richard.

Kevin Mazur/Wire Image.com. 

Business executive Richard Parsons has been called a teddy bear, a master diplomat, and a charmer, but perhaps the best description that has been applied to him is "friendly giant." Standing at 6 feet 4 inches, with broad shoulders, he is a physically impressive man who could fill any boardroom. But, in this case, Parsons sits at the helm of one of the largest media companies in the world, Time Warner. When Parsons was named chief executive officer (CEO) in 2002 and chairman in 2003, he became one of the most powerful executives in the United States, but he also inherited a mountain of problems. A 2001 merger between Internet icon America Online (AOL) and Time Warner, a leader in the entertainment industry, had proven to be a failed experiment. As a result, the company struggled to maintain its credibility, its stock prices tumbled, and it faced $27 billion in debt. By the mid-2000s, however, analysts reported that Time Warner was on a definite upswing: employee morale was high, investors were newly confident, and the monstrous debt had been significantly slashed. And most agreed that friendly giant Richard Parsons had been just what the fractured titan needed.

The Rockefeller Republican

Although Richard Dean Parsons regularly makes Fortune magazine's annual list of the most powerful people in business, and he is considered to be one of the most respected African American executives in the country, he came from an average working-class background. He was born on April 4, 1948, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in the New York borough of Queens. Parsons, however, was an extremely bright young man, who went on to graduate from high school when he was just sixteen years old. After graduation, he attended college at the University of Hawaii, where he excelled both academically and socially; Parsons was a varsity basketball player and the social chairman of his fraternity. While in Hawaii, he also met his future wife, Laura Bush.
Parsons had no clear idea what direction to take after college, but at the prompting of Laura, he decided to go to law school. According to Bush, it was the most logical decision since Parsons enjoyed arguing so much. Apparently it was the right decision. Parsons worked part-time as a janitor to pay his way through the University of Albany Law School in New York, and when he graduated in 1971, it was at the top of his class. That same year, he scored the highest marks out of the nearly four thousand lawyers who took the New York State bar examination.

"I always knew I'd rise to the top; it never occurred to me that I couldn't."

Just twenty-three years old, and fresh out of law school, Parsons landed a job as an aide on the legal staff of Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979), the governor of New York. He became such a trusted adviser that in 1974, when Rockefeller headed to Washington to serve as vice president, Parsons was invited along. In Washington, the young lawyer also worked directly with President Gerald Ford (1913–), first as general counsel and then as an associate director of the domestic council. Thanks in part to such associations Parsons became what he frequently describes as a Rockefeller Republican, a person who is conservative when it comes to economic matters, and more liberal concerning social issues. For example, during his Washington years, the social-minded Parsons was chairman of the Wildcat Service Corporation, an organization that provides job training for people who have difficulty finding work because of past criminal records, addictions, or poverty.

Lawyer turned banker

Parsons's tenure with Rockefeller and Ford opened up many doors for him and brought him to nationwide attention as an up-and-coming young executive. So, in 1976, when President Ford lost his re-election bid to Jimmy Carter (1924–), Parsons did not lack for opportunities. In 1977, he returned to New York, and at the request of former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Harold R. Tyler Jr., he joined the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. He quickly became a star in the firm and in just two years was named partner. In his eleven years with Patterson, Parsons cemented his reputation as a skilled negotiator. He also expanded his web of connections, taking on such high-profile clients as Happy Rockefeller (1926–), the widow of Nelson Rockefeller, and cosmetics giant Estée Lauder. In addition, Parsons provided legal counsel to several major U.S. corporations, including the Dimes Savings Bank of New York, the largest savings and loan institution in the state.
In 1988, just when it seemed that Parsons was poised to become head of his law firm, the news was announced that he had accepted the position of chief operating officer (COO) of the Dime. In doing so, he became the first African American to head a lending institution of such proportion. Many, however, questioned the appointment since Parsons had no real experience in the banking industry. Skeptics also wondered how Parsons would fare in his new job considering the bank was facing financial ruin. As a result of the savings and loan crisis of the mid-1980s, the Dime had lost some $92.3 million; it was also under scrutiny from federal regulators.
Parsons lost no time in putting his years of Washington deal-making into action. He also set out to streamline the bank's operations. As part of his management restructure, Parsons opted to lay off almost one-third of the Dime's staff. It was a drastic move, but he also kept communications open with his employees every step of the way. As a result, Parsons became known as the consummate gentleman executive. "He is a persuader, not a dictator," a former colleague told CNET News.com. "He intellectualizes outcomes and gets people to agree with his outcomes." His tactics paid off, and in just a few years, Parsons had reduced the amount of the Dime's bad debts from $1 billion to $335 million.
After taking on the job of chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Dime in 1990, Parsons continued to set the bank on its comeback course. In fact, in 1995 he was key in orchestrating the successful merger between the Dime and Anchor Savings Bank. As a result, Dime Bancorp became the largest thrift institution on the East Coast and the fourth largest in the United States. With the bank on solid ground, Parsons set his sights on a new enterprise.

Banker becomes media mogul

In 1994, Gerald Levin (1939–), chairman of Time Warner (TW), openly recruited Parsons to take over as president of the company. Again, the business community was rocked by the news. True, Parsons had proven to be flexible enough to succeed in the banking world, but he had absolutely no background in media and entertainment. Many doubted that he could succeed at Time Warner, which was considered to be a media giant, controlling virtually all aspects of the industry, including television (CNN, HBO, Turner Classic Movies, WB Network); film (Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema); publishing (magazines such as Time, People, and Sports Illustrated ); and music (Warner Music Group). Levin, however, felt that Parsons was the right man for the job, and some business insiders were not that surprised. After all, Parsons had sat on the company's board of directors for several years, and had developed close ties with top TW executives.


Parsons assumed his post as president of Time Warner in January of 1995, a job that came with a reported multi-million dollar salary. For the next six years, he served as the number-two executive at the company, and as Gerald Levin's right-hand man. Although Levin was effectively in charge, it was Parsons who consistently took on the tough assignments and it was Parsons who employees turned to for guidance. "Whenever we had a problem with one of the units, Parsons was always the guy who would solve it," former co-chairman of Warner Brothers Robert Daly explained to Business Week. "And he would do it in a way that everyone would feel good about the outcome." In addition, any time that trouble reared its head over regulatory issues in Washington, Parsons came to the rescue by turning to one of his many political contacts.

Richard Parsons poses with Bugs Bunny in 2004.

AP/Wide World Photo. Reproduced by permission.

Time Warner faced its biggest challenge in 2000 when it announced plans to merge with America Online (AOL), which by the late 1990s had evolved into the nation's leading Internet provider. Levin had been in negotiations with Steve Case (1958–), AOL's CEO, for several years. The hope was that by combining forces they would make the most successful merger in history: AOL would have access to Time Warner's massive media content and it would be able to reach even more users thanks to TW's cable television operations. In turn, Time Warner would have unlimited access to the ever-expanding Internet pipeline. The merger was made official in 2001, when AOL purchased Time Warner for a reported $168 billion. It did make history as the largest corporate purchase ever, but it also became known as perhaps the most failed megamerger on record.


After the deal was made, AOL Time Warner's board responsibilities were split directly in half, with one exception: Levin became the sole CEO in charge of operations; Case retained a backseat role as chairman. Parsons took on the role of co-COO, sharing the job with Robert Pittman (1953–), former president of AOL. To many, it seemed that Pittman took on most of the plum assignments in the company, considering he was in charge of the high-profile AOL operations. But it was Parsons who oversaw the units that brought in the most revenue, including Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, and Time Warner Trade Publishing. He was also in charge of the legal department and human resources. Still, when Levin announced, in late 2001, that he would be leaving AOL Time Warner, the assumption was that Pittman would be his likely successor.

AOL Time Warner struggles

In a December 2001 press conference, Levin stunned the industry when he named Parsons as AOL Time Warner's next CEO. As reported in Jet magazine, Levin commented, "I have the greatest confidence in Dick Parsons' ability to lead the company forward, coalesce its diverse interests, and work with our strategic partners to achieve our ambitious goals." Once again, Parsons made history, becoming what Adam Cohen of Time called the "first African American to lead the world's most influential media company." The world's most influential media company, however, was struggling. AOL Time Warner's various operating units were still far from achieving a full integration. In addition, thanks to an industry-wide technology slump, AOL, which had promised big revenues, had failed to deliver. Just before Parsons officially took over from Levin in May of 2002, the company posted a quarterly loss of $54 billion, the largest in U.S. history.
Parsons remained optimistic, but he proceeded cautiously. As he told Cohen, "Ideally, you want to underpromise and overdeliver. To the extent that we've lost credibility, repairing it is important." Parsons's critics were not impressed by this middle-of-the-road philosophy, but his supporters pointed out that underlying the nice-guy image was a savvy businessman. As one AOL shareholder told Business Week, "Dick is the right guy to be running the company right now." In this case, Parsons was forced to tap into both sides of his personality. With a calm, cool-headed resolve, he doggedly tackled the problems that lay ahead.


When Robert Pittman stepped down as COO in June of 2002, Parsons quickly reorganized the company's top ranks by promoting some of Time Warner's former division chiefs. And, after taking over as chairman from Steve Case, who stepped down in January of 2003, Parsons went to work to repair the damage from the AOL merger. In mid-2003, he sold off parts of the company that were considered to be noncore assets, including the sports teams, the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers. In his biggest move to trim the $27 billion debt, Parsons sold Warner Music Group in November of 2003 for a reported $2.6 billion.
In spite of its debt, the company reported an overall increase in revenue (6 percent) in early 2004, thanks to three of the Time Warner divisions: film, cable, and network advertising. The biggest boost came from the film division, which had experienced an enormous success because of the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings series. The drag on the company continued to be AOL, which consistently floundered. In September of 2003, Parsons made a surprising announcement: AOL Time Warner was undergoing a name change, and would in the future be known as simply Time Warner. "Renaming our company will strengthen the identity of the AOL brand name among consumers," the CEO said in a written statement reported on CNNMoney.com. "America Online is an important part of our company and we expect it to continue to make major contributions to our success in the future."

A giant of a role model

Analysts wondered about the future of AOL even as Parsons continued to play peacemaker, overseeing Monday morning meetings with his various managers and promising harmony between teams. "It's a collaboration," he told Anthony Bianco and Tom Lowry of Business Week. "Getting your team together is the more important thing." At the same time people speculated about what role Parsons would play in Time Warner's future. In the same Business Week interview, the CEO revealed, "I take this job seriously. It's important I do it well.... But it's not my life. I exist apart from this job."
Some predicted a future in politics for Parsons. In addition to his work for Rockefeller and the Ford administration, the lawyer-turned-banker-turned media executive served in various political roles throughout his career. When Rudolph Giuliani (1944–) was elected mayor of New York in 1993, Parsons headed his transitional council; he served on the transition team when Michael Bloomberg (1942–) became the mayor of New York in 2001; and that same year, he was named co-chair of President George W. Bush's Social Security Commission. Parsons also remained a committed leader in other areas of public and community service. He serves on the board of several cultural institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center. He also serves as chairman of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, which was established to spur the development of business and the growth of job opportunities in Harlem.


Whether he remains with Time Warner or runs for public office, or goes in a totally different direction, Parsons will continue to be a role model in the African American community. He frequently downplays race as a factor or handicap in his success. As he once told the New York Times, as reported by CNNMoney.com, "For a lot of people race is a defining issue. It just isn't for me. It is ... like air. It's like height. I have other things I'm focused on." Regardless, Parsons is consistently applauded by various groups for the inspiration he provides to young people everywhere. In 2004, he was awarded the Better Chance Corporate Award, an annual honor bestowed by the organization A Better Chance, which, according to Hispanic PRWire, "identifies, recruits, and develops leaders among academically gifted students of color." According to Better Chance president Sandra Timmons, as quoted by Hispanic PRWire, "Richard Parsons serves as a role model for aspiring executives of all races, but his success has earned him a special leadership role among African Americans."

Encyclopedia of World Biography. (2011) Parsons, Richard.Retrieved from http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ow-Sh/Parsons-Richard.html.

Read more: Richard Parsons Biography - life, name, history, wife, school, young, old, information, born, college, movie http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ow-Sh/Parsons-Richard.html#ixzz1Essjbwom

Annie Frances Lee - Artist

Annie Francess Lee

Artist Annie Frances Lee was a Chief Clerk in the Engineering Department of a railroad. Today, Annie Lee is an internationally acclaimed artist and gallery owner known to art collectors the world over as "Annie Lee."

As an adult, one Monday morning at five o'clock as Annie Lee tried to get it together, she came up with "Blue Monday." She wondered if anybody else felt as bad as she did having to go out on that cold winter morning to catch the bus to work. Annie Lee is a humorist and a realist and her style has been referred to as "Black Americana."

Annie Lee will tell you her secret to success is her faith in God and a willingness to help others. God did this through me. You have to have faith. I never thought I would leave the railroad, but it was the best thing I ever did. It was hard to leave the security, but you have to take a leap of faith."

Her works have been featured in "ER", Bill Cosby's spin-off show "A Different World" and Eddie Murphy's movies "Coming to America" and "Boomerang".

 

WHY NO FACES????

All characters in Annie's paintings have one common trait; faces which has no features. Why does Annie paint in this manner? Here are Annie's reasons:

• Annie Lee prefers to bring her paintings to life through the movement and body language of the characters. Annie does not want faces to interfere with the story she is painting through the body language of her characters.
• By painting without faces, Annie allows her customers to project themselves or people that they know into the painting. Although Blue Monday is Annie's only self portrait, Annie didn't paint her face on the painting because she knows everybody can relate to having a Blue Monday, and wants her customers to be able to picture themselves in the painting.
• When Annie started painting commercially she wanted to be unique and different from other artists. Painting without faces has certainly become one of Annie's distinct trademarks.

n.p. Annie Lee Gifts. n.d.http://www.annieleegifts.com/Annie-Lee.htm. 24 Feb 2011.


More Bio about Annie Lee


Artist Annie Frances Lee was born on March 3, 1935 in Gadsden, Alabama. Raised by a single parent, she grew up in Chicago, Illinois and attended Wendell Phillips High School. Lee began painting at an early age, winning her first art competition at the age of ten. She was offered a four year scholarship to Northwestern University after high school, but married instead and raised a family.


It was not until age forty that Lee decided to pursue a career as an artist. She enrolled in Loop Junior College and completed her undergraduate work at Mundelein College in Chicago. After eight years of night classes while working at Northwestern Railroad as a clerk in the engineering department, Lee earned her M.A. degree in interdisciplinary arts education from Loyola University.


Lee's railroad job inspired one of her most popular paintings, Blue Monday, which depicts a woman struggling to pull herself out of bed on a Monday morning. Her trademarks are the animated emotion of the personalities in the artwork and the faces which are painted without features. At age fifty, Lee had her first gallery show. She allowed prints to be made of four of her original paintings. Using her unique designs, Lee also developed figurines, high fashion dolls, decorative housewares, and kitchen tiles.


After showing her work in other galleries for a number of years, Lee opened Annie Lee and Friends Gallery where she displayed her works as well as the works of other artists. When several of her paintings appeared on the sets of popular television shows such as The Cosby Show and A Different World, the exposure helped popularize her work.


Although she regularly receives requests for public appearances, Lee prefers to appear at gallery shows. She also enjoys visiting schools to encourage and inspire students.


"Annie Frances Lee Biography." The HistoryMakers.com. The History Makers, 5 April 2007. Web. 24 February. 2011 2009.

Majora Carter - Activist and Environmental Protector

Photo By James Burling Chase

Majora Carter simultaneously addresses public health, poverty alleviation, and climate change as one of the nation’s pioneers in successful green-collar job training and placement systems. She founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 to achieve environmental justice through economically sustainable projects informed by community needs. Her work has garnered numerous awards and accolades including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, one of Essence Magazine’s 25 Most Influential African-Americans in 2007, and one of the NY Post’s Most Influential NYC Women for the past two years.

She is a board member of the Widerness Society, SJF, and CERES; and hosts a special national public radio series called “The Promised Land” (thepromisedland.org). Her work now includes advising cities, foundations, universities, businesses, and communities around the world on unlocking their green-collar economic potential to benefit everyone as President of the Majora Carter Group, LLC


Here is an interview she did with Natural Home
What does “greening the ghetto” mean?
Poverty exists all over America. These are often the places of greatest environmental degradation, as well—for example, in the South Bronx with power plants and trucking, or in West Virginia with mountaintop removal coal extraction. Not only are these public health burdens that we all pay for now, they are major sources for greenhouse gases. If we green these areas first, we double our impact on the short- and long-term health of our society and planet.
Poor communities often have the most energy-inefficient homes. Energy costs represent a greater percentage of household income there as well. Greening those areas first will help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and help create jobs, because somebody has got to do the work of retrofitting buildings.
How do you define environmental justice? 
No community should have to face more environmental burdens than any other. Period. We have to strive for equality in all aspects of life, but the environment is chief because it affects everything—how we breathe, what we eat and how we move through our communities and our lives.


How has bringing green to the South Bronx changed the community?
Studies by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign show the social benefits of having more greenery in people’s lives—everything from lower crime to higher self-esteem in young girls. The changes I have noticed are in the attitudes of the people. When you have nothing beautiful in your day-to-day life, it is very difficult to hope or dream of something great.


How can ordinary people bring forth change in their communities?
Start talking to each other. Chances are, others feel the same or have something to add, and that can only come out during an exchange of ideas.


Are we beginning to tackle environmental racism?  I don’t think “environmental racism” is a productive way to describe the problem for two reasons: The first involves the psychology of racism—most people don’t feel as though they are “racist,” so “environmental racism” is not their fault: end of engagement. The second and more important issue is that these problems affect people of all colors, and poor people in particular.


What is the best way to keep polluters out of urban communities?
Most of them are already there so the real question is, how can we keep them around, but in a clean and responsible way. We need the jobs after all, and we need electricity and our food delivered. The best way to accomplish these goals is to talk to them. Many people in these corporations want to help if you give them the right opportunity. Some companies just don’t care for whatever reason. While I ran Sustainable South Bronx, we purchased stock in one of our uncooperative local polluters and launched a shareholder action to study the pollutants they were putting into our community. This exposed them to potential liability and risk—which shareholders don't like. After over a decade of being ignored, we suddenly had top executives flying in from Texas to meet with us.


What has been your biggest environmental justice challenge?
Helping people and groups understand that when we value all people, the value of all people rises. Environmental problems may seem impossible to solve, but when we accept the challenges of equality, economic opportunity and the environment, we uncover the keys to more powerful solutions for all of our issues. When we can do that, we will experience real peace with ourselves and our planet.


How can people go green without spending lots of money?
Take a bike instead of a car. If you drive, make sure your tires are properly inflated every time you fill up. Compost your food scraps and fertilize your garden with it, even if your garden is a container garden on your fire escape. Wear a sweater and turn down the thermostat. Use natural products like baking soda and vinegar to clean your home; they are cheap and effective, and you can eat them too (can you do that with bleach?!?). Look for low-interest energy efficiency loans—these almost always pay back more than they cost.

Work Cited:


Change.org. (2011) Changemakers. Retrieved from http://www.change.org/changemakers/view/majora_carter


Wallace, Kim. With Liberty and Environmental Justice for All. May/June 2009. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/People-and-Places/Majora-Carter-Green-the-Ghetto.aspx. 




Sites to check out:
The Majora Carter Group

Archibald Motley - Painter

Blues (1929)

Archibald Motley Jr.

Archibald John Motley, Junior (September 2, 1891, New Orleans, Louisiana – January 16, 1981, Chicago, Illinois) was an American painter. He studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s. He is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance.

Unlike many other Harlem Renaissance artists, Archibald Motley, Jr. never lived in Harlem—-he was born in New Orleans and spent the majority of his life in Chicago. His was the only black family in a fairly affluent, white, European neighborhood. His social class enabled him to have the benefit of classical training at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was awarded the Harmon Foundation award in 1928, and then became the first African-American to have a one-man exhibit in New York City. He sold twenty-two out of the twenty-six exhibited paintings--an impressive feat for an emerging black artist.

In 1927 he had applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship and was denied, but he reapplied and won the fellowship in 1929. He studied in France for a year, and chose not to extend his fellowship another six months. While many contemporary artists looked back to Africa for inspiration, Motley was inspired by the great Renaissance masters available at the Louvre. He found in the artwork there a formal sophistication and maturity that could give depth to his own work, particularly in the Dutch painters and the genre images of Delacroix, Hals, and Rembrandt. Motley’s portraits take the conventions of the Western tradition and update them--allowing for black bodies, specifically black female bodies, a space in a history that had traditionally excluded them.

Motley was incredibly interested in skin tone, and did numerous portraits documenting women of varying blood quantities ("octoroon," "quadroon," "mulatto"). These portraits celebrate skin tone as something diverse, inclusive, and pluralistic. The also demonstrate an understanding that these categorizations become synonymous with public identity and influence one's opportunities in life. It is often difficult if not impossible to tell what kind of racial mixture the subject has without referring to the title. These physical markers of blackness, then, are unstable and unreliable, and Motley exposed that difference.

His night scenes and crowd scenes, heavily influenced by jazz culture, are perhaps his most popular and most prolific. He depicted a vivid, urban black culture that bore little resemblance to the conventional and marginalizing rustic images of black Southerners so popular in the cultural eye. It is important to note, however, that it was not his community he was representing--he was among the affluent and elite black community of Chicago. He married a white woman and lived in a white neighborhood, and was not a part of that urban experience in the same way his subjects were.




Work Cited:
http://www.areaofdesign.com/americanicons/motley.htm


Picture Cited:
http://www.barewalls.com/pv-496298_Blues-1929.html


http://www.wpamurals.com/motleyAJ.htm