 Daisha Board Gallery hosted a moderated artist talk with William Toliver Wednesday night. Toliver, a self-taught artist based in Dallas, has a solo exhibit titled “After Dark” in the gallery until Jan. 14. Just weeks after opening the current exhibit, the artist was in conversation with life coach and consultant Rah Kalon. During the talk, Toliver discussed the surrealism in his current work, which spans 37 designs, the contrast and significance of the color red in the paintings and what inspires him. Kalon kicked off the conversation with a question about where his art begins and ends. “I want to start off with a question about the alpha and the omega of your work, the beginning and the ending of it,” Kalon said. “What was it like starting this exhibit, and then what was it like dropping it off when it was completed?” Read More He was going through a transformative time around February/ March when he was trying to figure himself out as an artist. Though his life seemed good from the outside, he was struggling on the inside, he says.
A lot was going on in life. After five years of teaching, he quit his job and was trying to find himself through art. Some of that previous teaching experience—and his internal struggles— played a part in some of his artistic process. “You can understand not only how to deal with different groups of people but also how you deal with conflict and interacting with others. So, having to become aware of how you process interactions and deal with conflict— so many things played a role in how I wanted to convey these pieces.” Within months, he had produced the “After Dark” series. “It was like a big sigh of relief when I got here, and dropped everything off, because I had talked about this moment five or six years ago,” he says. “Seeing it come to fruition now, I never would have imagined that.” Unlike his previous work, which includes vibrant colors, Toliver leaned into the unknown and went with something he’s not used to with more vulnerable pieces. “This work is the most I’ve connected with anything I’ve ever done.” Each piece has red, bringing attention to some element whether it’s through strings, a broken red circle, halo or clouds. Toliver explained he chose the color red because of its power and minimalism. “Red is a powerful color, but it’s also very offsetting,” he says. “With the black and white, I like the minimalist idea, then the red is enough to tie everything in together but puts emphasis on the thing I wanted to show as important. I chose this shade of red because it’s soft, yet strong.” The art leaves room for individual interpretation and experience, and Toliver makes it clear he’s not going to define how people should feel about how they reflect on the paintings. In a way, the words on canvas and larger pieces are all connected and can be treated as a maze for viewers, he says. After the conversation between Toliver and Kalon, the floor was opened to questions from the audience. Questions about his work “Angel” came up quite a bit. It’s a depiction of a naked figure embracing a cloaked figure representing the Angel of Death. “After Dark” is on exhibit at Daisha Board Gallery now until Jan. 14. Gallery hours are 12 -6 p.m. Tuesday – Friday and 1-6 p.m. Saturday. SOURCE- Dallas Weekly
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 From board composition to decision making, women of color who lead arts groups across the country are calling for institutional change. Women are leaving top jobs at a higher rate than ever before. It’s being called the “Great Breakup.” And it’s happening to women of color at arts groups nationwide, from theaters and opera companies to museums. There’s still little data on the issue, according to Zannie Voss at Southern Methodist University and Randy Cohen with Americans for the Arts. There’s often a time lag with such data, Cohen said. Still, research and conversations with women of color who are leaders in the arts suggest a concerning trend. In recent years, following calls for racial justice, arts groups have been hiring more women of color into leadership positions. Last month, Martine Elyse Philippe, who is Haitian-Cuban American, became the new director of Dallas’ Office of Arts and Culture. Women of color are often hired as leaders by arts groups to diversify programs and reach communities of color. But once women step into these leadership roles, they often don’t have the support to succeed or even stay, according to Artnet contributor Lise Ragbir. Problems they face include pressures to assimilate, different expectations from their white or male colleagues and added stressors from taking on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to six women of color who are leaders in the arts from across the country. Read More Afton Battle, one of the first Black women to ever lead a U.S. opera company, resigned in November as general and artistic director of Fort Worth Opera. She left amid tensions over the direction she was taking the company. (Battle declined to speak with The Dallas Morning News or KERA for this article.) The turnover is telling, said Kaisha S. Johnson, co-founder of Women of Color in the Arts, a national service organization. Organizations often assert that “we are with you,” Johnson said, but don’t back that up with their actions. “There’s no more poignant point in bringing in Black and brown leadership and then allowing them to exit [stage] left as soon as it gets real,” said Johnson, who is Black. So what can be done to address the issues? Arts groups need to make institutional changes to support these new leaders, according to women leaders of color at these groups. They say solutions often seem obvious, but tend to be overlooked. 1. Change starts with the boardTeresa Coleman Wash, the founder and executive artistic director at Bishop Arts Theatre Center in Dallas, said pushes for equity must start with the board of directors. The board helps manage and guide an organization. Its responsibilities include fundraising, public relations and hiring top leaders. “I don’t think it’s enough to appoint women of color in leadership positions without having done the work at the board level,” said Coleman Wash, who is Black. If that doesn’t happen, she said, leaders will experience more trauma. Board members “set the tone” for how women leaders of color will be treated in an organization, Coleman Wash said. “If the leadership is not supporting that person of color, staff members certainly will not.” Vicki Meek, who managed the South Dallas Cultural Center for almost 20 years, said arts groups need to consider the makeup of their boards. Important factors include race, gender and socioeconomic status, according to Meek, who was the board chair of the National Performance Network for two years. She said arts groups that want to reach more diverse communities — and support women leaders of color in these efforts — need to move past outreach to what she calls “in-reach.” “You have to have a governing body that represents the community that you serve,” said Meek, who is Black. “You can’t get ideas about how to serve [diverse communities] if you don’t have anyone speaking from their experience in your governance.” 2. Welcome leaders into the groupYvette Loynaz, who is director of artistic administration at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, said inclusion and retention start the moment a leader is introduced to an organization. Loynaz, who is Latina, compares it to inviting a guest into your home. You make sure they feel comfortable and introduce them to others. The initial impression, Loynaz said, is essential for when conflict and challenges arise later on. “When you feel like you’re being taken care of,” she explained, you’re more likely to stay. 3. Allow women leaders of color to build their teamsColeman Wash said it’s important to surround women leaders of color with colleagues who will support them and their work. “We need people on our team who, first of all, are accustomed to championing a woman of color in a leadership position,” Coleman Wash said. Camille Delaney-McNeil, who is director of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s youth education program, said she can attest to the challenges of inheriting a team. That’s why she believes new leaders should have more of a say in staffing decisions. “If I can’t do it right now, I will need a timeline of when I can assess, evaluate and possibly build a new team,” said Delaney-McNeil, who is Black. When new leaders are given that authority, she said, it allows them to find people who are trying to achieve the same goals. “We can find folks who are on board with the mission and on board with this kind of evolutionary progress,” she said. But Meek said it’s hard to diversify arts staff when low salaries make jobs unsustainable for those who aren’t financially privileged. She says that’s why more organizations need to talk about pay equity, which involves recruiting and compensating employees for their level of experience and making sure they are paid a living wage. “The salaries are abysmal in these organizations,” Meek said. “So these institutions need to start looking at what’s fair remuneration for these jobs.” 4. Let them lead inclusivelyTo foster a more inclusive workplace, groups need to be willing to change how they make decisions, leaders in the arts say. “If you’re coming in and bringing something completely new and different and have a lot of big ideas and are very energized to come in and make an impact, it can be very challenging to be constantly met with barriers,” said Loynaz, in St. Louis. Johnson with Women of Color in the Arts said it’s important to consider how traditional structures are serving an organization to see if there’s a better way forward. “Perhaps in order to eradicate the power war, maybe you move from a less hierarchical organizational structure to a more horizontal or lateral one, where power is shared among many people,” she said. The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, for example, started an initiative called the New Works Collective, which invites a group of community members — including a journalist, sociologist, activist and others — to help select new commissions. Loynaz said the New Works Collective shows “how you involve the community in the process, how you shift and share power in the organization [and] how you center artists through your programming, your process.” 5. Listen and embrace discomfortWomen of color in arts leadership stress the importance of listening and embracing discomfort. Loynaz, in St. Louis, said inclusion goes hand-in-hand with listening. This is especially important for women leaders, who often face an “authority gap,” or gender bias that leads to women being overlooked, underestimated or ignored, according to Mary Ann Sieghart’s book The Authority Gap. “It’s easy to hire people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives,” Loynaz said. “For me, retention is really about that step of inclusion. It’s very harmful to bring people on and then not include them, not listen to them.” She feels heard when her co-workers listen carefully and in silence, and then ask questions about her ideas and how she would proceed. “That matters,” she said. “And if we move forward with a different decision, that’s OK. But I was included, and I think that’s what it boils down to.” Khori Dastoor takes a similar approach at the Houston Grand Opera. There, she’s general director and CEO of one of the largest U.S. opera companies. Dastoor, who is of Southeast Asian and South Asian descent, said listening to staff, artists and area residents leads to programming that resonates with audiences. “It’s not about what Khori wants to see on the stage or what Khori believes in,” she said. “It comes from listening to the creatives in my organization to identifying talent and really giving them the resources they need.” Part of listening is being able to sit in discomfort, says Coleman Wash. And that, she said, is one way groups can combat discrimination against women of color in leadership roles. “We have to have really hard conversations with folks who don’t look like us,” Coleman Wash said. “We cannot continue to talk in an echo chamber with folks who share our values and ideas. We have to be open to listen to everyone.” 6. Prioritize the well-being of women leaders of colorOverlooking the well-being of women of color has far-reaching implications. In fact, burnout is a significant reason why many women of color are switching or quitting jobs during the pandemic, studies say. Burnout is one of the issues addressed by Women of Color in the Arts, which has over 2,000 members from across the country. Johnson, co-founder of WOCA, said the group helps members learn how to assert their boundaries and protect their well-being. “It’s really about, how do we hold on to our unique [selves] and still be able to go into situations that do not value our unique [selves]?” she said. As a mother, director and wife, Delaney-McNeil, director of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, said she’s had to learn to say no to protect her boundaries. She often feels burdened by the idea that she can handle anything. “What I have felt in my work to date is the assumption that I can take care of it all, that I can do it all,” she said. “You know that, ‘Oh, you’re so strong or you’re this or that,’ and this assumption that it is my burden. Me as a woman of color in leadership to take all this on.” The “strong Black woman” stereotype is a pervasive trope that contributes to declining mental and physical health in Black women, studies say. Working to combat that stereotype, WOCA supports women beyond their jobs, helping them find ways to stay healthy — mentally, physically and emotionally. “A woman of color does not enter any professional place as just the professional,” Johnson said. “It’s their whole being that enters the space. And so that includes being able to talk about and nurture their well-being.” Nurturing their well-being is made harder by the wear and tear of microaggressions. These are everyday and subtle actions that reveal bias toward marginalized groups. Microaggressions can lead to increased rates of depression, anxiety, stress and even heart disease, according to a Pfizer study. They can also be hurtful reminders that a woman of color does not look like a traditional leader of an orchestra or opera or theater company, Coleman Wash said. In a 2018 opinion piece called “The Ugly Truth About Arts Institutions Led by Women of Color,” she wrote about the racism, classism and sexism she has faced as a woman of color leading an arts group. “Hidden behind a race-neutral job description is an expectation, grounded in a stereotype, of what a theater leader needs to look like: white and male,” she wrote. To challenge stereotypes about arts leaders, Coleman Wash said groups need to prioritize the well-being of women leaders of color. That means making lasting changes that set “folks up for success, rather than giving them responsibilities that we know are herculean efforts that no one can accomplish.” And that process, of course, comes with its own challenges. Coleman Wash believes it’s worth the effort. “Organizations want to be on the right side of history, and we see across the nation that our systems are failing,” she said. “Our systems are failing because we are doing the same thing. We’ve invested in the same people and that same investment should go toward people who historically have not been in those roles. But that’s going to take time.” SOURCE- Dallas Morning News  Dallas artist Vicki Meek is leading efforts to create a monument for the Tenth Street District.
The Nasher Sculpture Center has launched a collaboration with the Tenth Street Historic District to document and mark the historically Black neighborhood — before it’s possibly gone. Dallas artist-curator Vicki Meek will lead a team of collaborators, North Texas artists and a historian in creating a monument for the endangered neighborhood in Oak Cliff. The final product of this Nasher Sculpture Center project has not been conceived yet. Meek says it will be developed over time, through community conversations. The fellowship she was awarded by the Nasher runs for 18 months. “It could be a film,” Meek says of the end result. “It could be a play put on by Soul Rep [Theatre Co.]. It’s not traditional public art. What we’re doing is really looking at the way these communities get erased. But I want to remember them by getting the stories, because that’s really what communities are about — the human beings that lived there and the stories they create.” African American slaves were first brought to Oak Cliff in 1845; by 1900, the neighborhood had some 500 Black residents, and Tenth Street had become a segregated Black enclave within Oak Cliff. But by the late 1950s and early 1960s, the neighborhood was split by the construction of Interstate 35 — which had led to the demolition of some 175 original structures. Since then, Tenth Street has been battered by city neglect. But it was also left isolated from the kind of wildfire gentrification that took over Bishop Arts, just across the freeway from the district.  Soul Rep Theatre Company is presenting the regional premiere of ‘Travisville,’ a fictionalized account written by sitcom star William Jackson Harper.
A play inspired by racism in Dallas in the 1950s and ‘60s has finally landed here. It’s about time, says the director, Guinea Bennett-Price, co-founder of Soul Rep Theatre Company. Soul Rep is presenting the regional premiere of the play, Travisville, in Fair Park, not far from where some of the events it depicts took place. Travisville is a fictionalized account and never mentions Dallas by name. “I’m sure other theaters considered it and had to say, ‘I don’t know if our audience is going to be comfortable.’ That’s the last thing we’re thinking about,” Bennett-Price says in a phone interview. |
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January 2023
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