Finding Solice in Local
Dear Friends, Last September, when my father died, I had been in South Carolina for two months and stayed for a third month to be with my mother and continue
A New Model for Supporting Black, Artist-Led Organizations
In late-August, Red Olive began a pilot program with the South Carolina Arts Commission and three South Carolina-based Black art organizations: Gullah Traveling Theater, Speaking Down Barriers, and The Watering Hole. In addition to receiving a one-time general operating support grant, these Black artist-led arts organizations will work with Red Olive to develop fundraising best-practices and to increase their organizational capacity and stability. We’re thrilled about this innovative partnership and the opportunity to test ways to better support small, Black artist-led organizations in the compounding challenges they face.
Support the Generational Power of Black Cultural Spaces
DEAR FRIENDS, I finally made it to witness the Toni Morrison documentary The Pieces I Am this month while visiting Pittsburgh, PA. By the time I saw it, she was gone from
The Myth of the Artsy Side Of Town
My current home-place, Columbia, South Carolina, like many other cities, has a downtown where many of its arts institutions are concentrated. Off-hand, I can count five museums, a major university,
Curating and Preserving Black History in Local Communities
We were thrilled when BAFF grantee and Red Olive client i, too arts collective received a grant from The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund earlier this month. Red Olive is a named consultant for this project, and we look forward to digging in and doing the work to save our Black places.
What Freedom Looks Like: Black Artists Provide Needed Alternatives
As stars and stripes line the aisles of big box stores and buzz words like “freedom” and “independence” pepper mainstream media, we’re called to re-up on a narrative that equates early American government with ideals it stole and withheld from most of the era’s inhabitants. In the face of this dissonance, we’re spending time this month seeking out contemporary black artists that encourage us to think differently about freedom(s), its origin and location, its limitations and possibilities. By no means an exhaustive or representative list, here are three recent works by black creatives that currently have us (re)thinking…
