ART + WINE + CHEESE: Opening of “IMPORTANT, INSPIRING and JOYFUL ARTWORKS by BLACK ARTISTS” featuring artist DARLENE TAYLOR

Darlene R. Taylor is a Master Instructor and co-faculty advisor to the Sterling A. Brown English Society at Howard University. She is also a multidisciplinary artist and fiction writer. Her creative works in fiction and mixed media collage, examine silences in historical archives and reclaim narratives of Black life.

From the artist:
“I explore kinship, place, and history in fiction and visual art. Collage and silhouette are ways of finding my way to the pieces of half told stories. Remembering histories of everyday Black women centers my practice. Mine is a family of makers. I learned dressmaking and needlework from the women in my family. There was whisper, laughter, and song, so storytelling comes to me as visual verse.

I call my work Heirlooms because of the handed down, antique and vintage textiles, and sewing traditions I employ to craft these narrative silhouettes. Heirlooms is tradition, ancestral ties, memory, creative archive, and the beauty of Black family life. Heirlooms claims personal memories and assembles visual stories alongside verse and prose. Heirlooms honors ancestors.”

We have been waiting a long time to introduce the Nepenthe Community to this wondrous woman and artist!