Life has a way of shifting when you least expect it. One moment, you’re grinding through critiques at MICA, wondering if the work is hitting the mark; the next, you’re standing in Gallery 314 down in Fells Point, watching strangers pause in front of your piece, lean in, tilt their heads, and see themselves in your strokes. That kind of moment? It changes you. Makes you realize the work you’ve been doing in the studio, in the classroom, and in your spirit;it matters.
I’ve just stepped into a new chapter as Department Chair of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at an early college on an HBCU campus. It’s heavy and light at the same time. Heavy because shaping young African American identities through art, through storytelling, through every image we create, is work that carries weight. Light because I see the faces of my students, bright, brilliant, fearless, and I know this is exactly where I need to be.
And while the classroom feeds my mind, lately my body’s been finding release on the dance floor. Latin dance, salsa, bachata, and merengue has been teaching me how to move in alignment with the rythmn again like it’s an old friend. There’s something wild and liberating about spinning into a step, letting go, and letting the beat take over. And there’s history there too. African American musicians and dancers have always been part of the backbone of salsa and bachata’s rise in urban cities; New York, Chicago, Miami. The jazz riffs, the R&B grooves, the ways bodies moved in Black social dance scenes, they seeped into those rhythms, bent them into something electric, something communal. That influence is still alive every time I step on the floor.
It’s bleeding into my paintings too. The brushstrokes feel more like dance steps, fluid, syncopated, sometimes improvisational, but always reaching for that moment when the music hits and everything makes sense.
But here’s the thing. We live in a world that doesn’t always want us to have those quiet, sacred moments. Hyper-surveillance, authoritarian creep, everywhere, eyes watching. That’s why I’ve been designing my upcoming speakeasy-style figure drawing workshops the way I have. Low-key. Intimate. Word-of-mouth only. Spaces where you can breathe without feeling monitored. Places where creativity and privacy meet in the dark corners, away from the noise, away from the cameras. We need those sanctuaries now more than ever.
And as I juggle teaching, painting, and finding my own rhythm, I’ve been leaning into words too. Right now, I’m reading A Man Finds His Way by Freddie Lee Johnson. It’s a reminder that finding your path is messy, beautiful, sometimes painful, but always worth it.
So here I am, an artist, an educator, a dancer, a department chair. Learning. Teaching. Moving. Painting. Always becoming. And I want to bring you along on that journey. Thank you so much for reading. Check out the link hereto register for my free speakeasy figure drawing workshop.
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