This event explored the impact of art in trying times as well as its responsibility and effect. We gathered a group in the arts industry to discuss the role and impact of creativity in the context of the pandemic and BLM. They delve into what it means for artists to show up, the relevance and significance of artists in times of distress and change, what it means in a time of crisis for artists to lead particular aspects of the conversation, how to take galleries and organizations to task, policy and politics around race, and more. While these are loaded topics, the chat was free-flowing in the form of a cocktail hour to brainstorm and essentially figure this out together.
Grab something to sip on and come sit in at the table at the table with us!
This event is sponsored by Sophie James. Scroll down to read more about their organically-farmed wines.
About the group
Angela Hennessy is an Oakland-based artist and Associate Professor at California College of the Arts where she teaches courses on visual and cultural narratives of death and contemporary art. Through writing, studio work, and performance her practice examines mythologies of blackness embedded in linguistic metaphors of color and cloth.
In 2015, she survived a gunshot wound while interrupting a violent assault on the street in front of her house. Her manifesto, The School of the Dead, was written in the following months of recovery. Alternating between poem, prayer, and call to action, The School of the Dead is now in development as an educational program for aesthetic and social practices that mediate the boundary between the living and the dead. Hennessy volunteers with hospice and works with families on home funerals, death vigils, and grief rituals, leading workshops and lectures nationally.
Her work has been exhibited at Patricia Sweetow Gallery, The Growlery, Bellevue Arts Museum, Exit Art, Southern Exposure, The Richmond Art Center, The Small Gallery, and The Oakland Museum of California. Hennessy’s work is in the permanent collection of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum and was featured in the Journal of Cloth and Culture and In The Make: Studio Visits with Artists.
Montgomery is the Director of Special Events at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco which includes the de Young and Legion of Honor. There, she oversees a team of five to develop the strategy and vision for over 100 cultivation, member, donor and fundraising events annually, positioning the Museums as a leader in presenting signature experiences that strengthen and build relationships with the many communities of San Francisco and the Bay Area. Prior to that, she was the Senior Manager of Events at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Development Events Manager at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Through her 10 years of experience in fundraising, program development, community engagement, and donor relations, Montgomery is committed to fostering creative partnerships that support the arts and culture throughout the Bay Area, while radically rethinking the role that museums play in the cultural fabric of a city.
Montgomery, along with her partner Quinlin Messenger, steward and direct annual operations for Takoja Institute, an artist residency and retreat center in northern New Mexico. Takoja operates today as a sanctuary for creatives to discover and learn more about their path of personal, spiritual, and social growth. Takoja’s vision is to support a sustainable community, dedicated to inspiring individuals to be seeds of the future through core values of tradition, community, healing, and ecology.
Demetri Broxton received his BFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley in 2002 with a focus on oil painting. In 2010, he earned a Masters of Arts in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University with an emphasis on Curatorial Studies.
From 2007 to 2010, Demetri Broxton served as the Education Program Manager at Museum of the African Diaspora. In 2010, Broxton assembled Past Forward: African Spirituality in Contemporary Black Art at the Sargent Johnson Gallery in San Francisco. This experience solidified his fervor for curatorial work. In 2014, through a selective RFP process, Broxton was selected as the curator for two City of Berkeley art galleries: Addison Street Windows Gallery and the 1947 Center Street Lobby Gallery.
Erendina A. Delgadillo joined OMCA in November 2017 from the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles, where she was the Curator and Registrar. Delgadillo was the lead developer for the center’s permanent exhibition on the Mexican and Mexican American history of Los Angeles. While at OMCA she has curated the Black Power installation in the Gallery of California History, El Movimiento Vivo: Chicano Roots of El Dia de los Muertos, and co-curated the forthcoming Hella Feminist.
Delgadillo has earned several awards for her work, including the 2016 New Professional Award from the National Council on Public History and the 2017 Minority Professional Award from the American Association for State and Local History. She holds a Master of Arts in Public Humanities from Brown University and a BA in American Studies from UCSC.
Originally from South Florida, Pataky moved to San Francisco in 2002 to attend the Academy of Art University. She fell in love with the tactile nature of sculpture and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture. An artist of many disciplines and mediums, Meryl focuses on the relationship between her own hands and material. Informing her material selection is a meditation on the elements of the periodic table from noble gases to metals and organics. She is aware of the history of her elements from their origins in the universe to their applications in culture and myth. The artist derives deeper meanings from these histories to add layers to her concepts. Both a personal and process driven narrative drive the work further forward.
Meryl is currently working on exhibitions in Oakland, California as well as curating the all-female, all neon exhibition entitled, “She Bends”. The exhibition features female benders from around the world.
Born in West Oakland, CA, Tahirah Rasheed is an artrepreneur and founder of “Fresh Made Productions” (arts content promotion and production), and co-founder of “See Black Women” (a movement to be led by activists, curators, artists, writers, photographers and poets). See Black Women is a new venture focusing on triumph over the twin parallels of invisibility and hyper-visibility of black women through a platform dedicated to elevating the work of black women, political campaigns, and events.
As an internationally traveled Disc Jockey, former medical lab assistant, and published researcher, Tahirah lends her many talents and experiences to each venture in service of community. She is focused on using art and business to fortify broader movements for justice. Her passion for the arts grows with every exploration of possibility. Tahirah is working toward a day in which her ventures are part of the sustainable support of black art in service of black freedom, black love, and black prosperity.
About our sponsor, Sophie James
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Sophie James is a first generation family-owned and female-run wine company founded in 2017 by Sophie and James Gray on the principles of organic farming, their love of nature, and sharing the simple pleasure of thoughtfully-crafted food and wine surrounded by the magic of their extreme Sonoma Mountaintop. The picturesque Sophie James estate property is planted to five acres of organically-farmed Pinot Noir vineyards, situated at the apex of Sonoma Mountain, at 2,340 feet elevation. They produce distinct, single vineyard wines including a rosé of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, and their estate-grown Pinot Noir – each expressing a sense of place, time, and terroir – and are all available exclusively to Sophie James wine club members.
The Sophie James Club
The Sophie James mission is to celebrate the magic of the Sonoma Mountaintop by connecting club members with nature, and building a community around a collective love of exceptional shared experiences over food and wine, at Sophie James’ unique estate vineyard property, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and beyond. To manifest this mission, the Sophie James club is a small, but inclusive wine community that releases organically-farmed Sophie James wines to its membership in the Spring, Summer & Fall. For more information and to become a member, please visit sophiejameswine.com.
About the Wines
Sophie James produces wines from organically-farmed Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, including the estate Pinot Noir and a rosé of Pinot Noir. All Sophie James wines are farmed organically, with love and intention. Sophie and James Gray believe in the highest standards of winemaking, starting with the health of the vines, the quality of the fruit, an absence of chemicals in the vineyard, and a minimal intervention approach to winemaking, allowing the wine to express a sense of place and a true representation of the distinct Sophie James Mountaintop terroir. Each vintage is unique to its weather conditions and its growing season, and so it is approached differently in the winery. There is no formula, except to concentrate on the health of the vineyard, and then to highlight the very best of what Mother Nature has provided.
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