DEEP in the Work

In this episode, we’re talking to Gina Duncan, who I met when she ran BAM Film in Fort Greene Brooklyn, and while there partnered with my husband’s film organization Luminal Theater. It always made me feel at home at BAM to walk in and know that a Black woman was behind the scenes and making me feel seen. I don’t know when we went from Black girl head nods across the room to sister-friends texting each other about the absurdities of the work, but I am so glad we have each other these days.

As Producing Director of Sundance Institute, Gina integrates the artistic vision of the Festival with its practical elements as well and managing year-round programming and engagement among the industry and artist communities. Duncan previously served as V.P. of Film and Strategic Programming at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was Director of Industry Engagement and Special Programs at the Jacob Burns Film Center.

This episode was recorded on April 9, 2021

Produced by Lauren Francis

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode we’re talking to Toya Lillard, one of our faves over at Black Art Futures Fund, and champion of safe spaces and theater and strong voices for our young Black women and girls. We met when viBe Theater Experience was awarded our inaugural Shay Wafer Legacy Fund, then decided to continue to do good and deep work together through Red Olive. These days we enjoy sisterhood and laughter, and pointing towards the absurdities of what it means to be Black women in this work, in the fields where we find ourselves.

Toya Lillard is Executive Director of viBe Theater Experience. She has directed plays, developed curricula, led advocacy efforts and implemented innovative teaching artist training programs both in and out of New York City schools. Prior to joining viBe, Toya served as Director of School Programs at The New York Philharmonic, in the Education Department, where she helped to develop its nationally recognized School Partnership Program. In addition to leading viBe, Toya is a facilitator of “difficult" conversations” around racial equity and inclusion; most recently having served as a reflection facilitator for The National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Anti-Racism as Organizational Compass series. Toya part-time faculty at The New School, where she teaches Collaborative Theatre Practice, and serves on the Cultural Change Taskforce. Toya serves on the Board of the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, where she is co-chair of the Roundtable’s TaskForce on Equity and Inclusion. Toya is also an Affiliate Representative on the Board of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance. Toya holds a B.A. from Vassar College, and an M.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

This episode was recorded on March 12, 2021

Produced by Lauren Francis

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode we’re talking to Novella Ford, super connected arts maven who read my unsolicited book of poetry Weary Kingdom then invited me to come and read my poems about Harlem at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—a dream come true. Connecting over poetry and Black culture and Black art meant that we were destined to be fast friends, and I’m excited to be in conversation around what it means to care for Black culture, make way for others, and more.

Novella Ford is a cultural producer. She connects diverse audiences to the archives and engages history through dialogue, performance, literature, and visual arts. She serves as the Associate Director of Public Programs and Exhibitions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research division of The New York Public Library.

This episode was recorded on January 8, 2021

Produced by Lauren Francis

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode we’re talking to Caitlin Crews, who I met through Fatima Jones at a Black Art Futures Fund friendraiser, and we became fast friends, and neighbors in Bedstuy Brooklyn. Then over the course of the interview, we learned — it turns out— Caitlin is related to one of my closest poetry friends from my days in college at UNC Chapel Hill! What a small world, and truly, we’re all connected. Caitlin has volunteered her time with Black Art Futures Fund and encouraged her colleagues at Adobe to support the work as well. Of course, we love that!

Caitlin Crews is originally from Uniontown, PA  and has called Brooklyn, NY home for the past 11 years. Currently, Caitlin is the Design Templates, Lead at Adobe. Her focus is on the advancement of creatives through design on the Adobe Stock Team. At Adobe, Caitlin is the lead for Black Employee Network in NYC for Adobe (BEN), served on the Community Grant Panel Decision Committee for Adobe New York, Adobe for All site lead and is a member of the Taking Action Task Force for Advocacy and Responsibility.

Previously, she worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Brooklyn Museum. At Nautica she was a still life photographer and retoucher.  She was also a design and photo coordinator at Lord & Taylor and Victoria’s Secret. Her curatorial and community projects include Art 4 World Trade Center (2017) Northside Festival Block Party (2013-2018), Brooklyn Public at World Trade Center Gallery (2015), and Curatorial Assistant for Art in Odd Places RECALLed (2015). Caitlin has written for Got a Girl Crush Magazine, as well as a current member of the ISCP Young Patrons Committee. She received her M.P.S in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute and her B.S. in Photography from Kent State University.

This episode was recorded on February 5, 2021

Produced by Lauren Francis

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode we’re talking to Hallie Hobson, who I first met at the Cave Canem summer poetry retreat in 2007, which was also the year I graduated from undergraduate school at UNC Chapel Hill. I knew I was moving to NYC and so meeting a Black woman who lived and worked there—and especially Harlem—was exciting, and I had NO IDEA at the time what development meant, but I was jealous Hallie got to work at a museum—then I think the Museum of Modern Art. When it became time for me to understand the idea of fundraising for culture, and doing that work as a Black woman, I turned to Hallie as a possibility model and way maker. I’m super honored to call her colleague today, and to think about what it means for us to be poets and creatives doing the work of institutional cultural storytelling in order to do the work of fundraising--what I define as moving people and resources towards a mission.

As the founder of HSH Consulting LLC, Hallie S. Hobson contributes to the vitality and health of philanthropic and nonprofit institutions by developing and implementing innovative planning, fundraising and patron engagement strategies including: philanthropic strategy development and implementation; capital campaign and strategic planning; individual giving program design; major gift pipeline development; department buildout and optimization-staffing and systems; CDO coaching; board development.

Current clients include Destination Crenshaw, The Ford Foundation, Junebug Productions, and The Laundromat Project. Prior to launching her consultancy, Hallie served as the Director of Institutional Advancement for the Studio Museum in Harlem and led that organization’s Capital Campaign. Prior to that she was at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where she served as Deputy Chief Development Officer for Individual Giving and the Senior Development Officer at The Museum of Modern Art. She has also held roles at a number of other cultural institutions including the New York Foundation for the Arts and The House Foundation for the Arts/Meredith Monk and has lectured about her profession at New York University, the Yale World Fellows Program, and Sotheby's Institute of Art.

In addition, Hallie is an accomplished poet and playwright. She holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from UCLA and a B.A. in African-American and Theater Studies from Yale University.

This episode was recorded on January 15, 2021.

Produced by Lauren Francis

Music by audionautix.com

Note: In the interview, Hobson refers to Kinshasha Holman Conwill and it sounds like "is the director of AAMHC...". Ms. Holman Conwill is the Deputy Director of AAMHC.

In this episode we’re talking to Renée Watson, an award-winning Young Adult author whose narratives and characters I truly wished I had on my bookshelves growing up. Her protagonists are tough cookies: brown and full-bodied young Black girls, and yet resilient. Renée herself is a dynamic world-builder who put that expertise to work in real-life with the I, Too Arts collective, a project to activate the Langston Hughes’ house in East Harlem. We talk through what it means to build a world that doesn’t yet exist, who you need with you along the way, and how Black women are truly the center of the universe, and maybe there wouldn’t even be a world without our generosity and care. You’ll hear more in the conversation.

Renée Watson is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, and activist. Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together (Bloomsbury, 2017) received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor. Her poetry and fiction often centers around the lived experiences of black girls and women, and explores themes of home, identity, and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Renée served as Founder and Executive Director of I, Too, Arts Collective, a nonprofit committed to nurturing underrepresented voices in the creative arts, from 2016-2019.

Renée grew up in Portland, Oregon and currently lives in New York City.

This episode was recorded on May 22, 2020.

Music by audionautix.com

Episode 6: Alison McNeil

In this episode we’re talking to Alison McNeil, who I met in 2019 at the Grantmakers in the Arts annual convening, but who we both learned as Black women consultants, have a lot of circles and circles of beloved arts organizations and workers in common. Alison has been helping me amplify what it means to think about data and evaluation for arts organizations, as well as how to ask the deep and right questions of our organization and mission to tell the best stories.

Alison T. McNeil is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of McNeil Creative Enterprises. She is an award winning strategic thinker and creative entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience in performing arts and education.  She leads with the intention of creating resources, removing roadblocks and designing roadmaps to make arts and culture accessible to all. With technical expertise in nonprofit management, grantmaking, assessment and program evaluation, Alison has led  multi-million-dollar   change   efforts that have directly   informed   policy, grantmaking, and strategic partnerships. Her efforts have also fortified leadership and secured grants that expand equity and access for women, emerging leaders and communities of color. She has served as a thought leader and speaker on numerous grant panels, boards, conference panels, and advisory committees. If you really want to get Alison to smile, ask her about her nephew or her favorite Stevie Wonder song.

This episode was recorded on May 26, 2020.

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode, we’re talking to Shaunda McDill, who is my philanthropy sister, and a member of the maybe newly formed “Shay’s Babies” group -- folks who have had the pleasure to come of professional age in the culture world with Shay Wafer as a mentor. We met back in 2018, but leaned heavily on each other in the early days of the pandemic, mourning, sharing best practices, fast-money-movements to organizations, and looked to the future.

Shaunda McDill joined The Heinz Endowments in October 2017 As program officer for arts and culture, promoting the strength and vitality of a suite of Pittsburgh-based artists and arts organizations through general operating support and a programming portfolio comprised of the Investing in Professional Artists program, the Small Arts Initiative, the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh initiative and the foundation’s first cross-programmatic social justice initiative, Just Arts, which she helped to found.

Shaunda has more than a decade of nonprofit executive and arts management experience, working for theater companies across the country. In 2006, she also founded demaskus Theater Collective, a nonprofit, service-oriented collective of artists and administrators who produce theatrical projects that share stories of the marginalized.

This conversation was recorded May 1, 2020

Produced by Curtis Caesar John

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode, we’re talking to Jessica Lynne, a beloved sister, a Southern center for me, someone for whom I would not be in the arts + culture space without, and who I advise on most of my life moves before I make them—and someone who I ask to always to continue to journey with me, including on the executive Board of Black Art Futures Fund. I tell everyone in an introduction to Jessica Lynne that I absolutely make no life decisions without her. Yall know her also as  a writer and art critic. She is a founding editor of ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Art in America, The Believer, BOMB Magazine, The Nation and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about love, faith, and the American South.

This conversation was recorded on May 21, 2020

Enjoy

Produced by Curtis Caesar John

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode, I’m meditating on what defines community, especially Black community, and what it means to be a Black cultural worker at a major museum in Columbia, South Carolina with my friend Sherrie Belton.

Sherrie Belton is a Fairfield County, SC native who loves asking questions, solving problems, and causing good trouble. From classrooms to museums, she has spent the last decade doing creative community work across the Midlands of South Carolina. Though typically she serves as an arts programmer and arts educator, she began exploring what it means to be a maker through an open call for proposals for Indie Grit Lab’s Rural Project. It’s where Route 3 Box 187D was born, an audio series that celebrates the everyday triumph and resiliency of Black families in rural South. Sherrie is particularly interested in Black community regeneration, cultural preservation, and creative placemaking.

This conversation was recorded on April 5, 2020.

Produced by Curtis Caesar John

Music by audionautix.com

Deep in the Work Intro—Stephanye Watts

In this episode, we’re talking to Stephanye Watts, who is a Philly native, music fan, and one of the biggest and most-active HBCU Alumni reps I know.

A graduate of Clark Atlanta University, Stephanye is the Assembly Program Coordinator at Recess, an artist-led alternative to incarceration empowering court-involved young people to take charge of their own life story and imagine a positive future through art. Stephanye served her community in her previous post as Community Engagement Manager at Weeksville Heritage Center and continues to do so as a member of the Association of African-American Museums, CAU's alumni association, UNCF's Inter-Alumni Council, and the HBCU Hub.

When the Philadelphia native isn't pushing the Black agenda, she is the woman behind the world's only R&B trivia night, #RhythmNBodyroll, a podcast, The Psyce, and the Be Reel Black Cinema Club.

This conversation was recorded on May 18, 2020

Enjoy!

Produced by Curtis Caesar John

Music by audionautix.com

In this episode, we’re talking to Shay Wafer, who is a mentor, Mama, grandmama, And so much more to many Black cultural workers in the world right now.

In her long career in performing arts, Shay Wafer, has demonstrated a stalwart dedication to the arts and community development through many years of service to the field.

Her passionate vision is balanced with pragmatic experience, as she has held senior level positions at a number of non-profit arts organizations with a focus on African Diasporic programming and community engagement.

Currently the Executive Director of WACO Theater Center in Los Angeles, Shay was the Executive Director of 651 ARTS in Brooklyn and the founding VP of Programs for the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, a multi-disciplinary center and museum in downtown Pittsburgh. Prior to that, she served as the managing director of Cornerstone Theater Company, LA Theatreworks and the St. Louis Black Repertory Company.

She also was a founding partner of Marla Gibb’s Crossroads Arts Academy and Theatre. Shay has engaged in additional community and volunteer activities throughout her career including serving on the Board of Directors of National Performance Network (currently the Board Chair), Theatre Communications Group and as a New England Foundation for the Arts National Theatre Project and National Dance Project Advisor.

Shay has served as a peer panelist for The National Endowment for the ARTS, MAP Fund, Doris Duke, Mellon, Kresge and Bush Foundations, among others.  She holds a BS from Howard University in Early Childhood Education and a MFA from the Yale School of Drama, Theatre Management program.

Our conversation was recorded on April 15, 2020.

Enjoy!

Produced by Curtis Caesar John

Music by audionautix.com

In this excerpt of the full episode, Sherrie and DéLana discuss one of two poems, and this excerpt is a poem by Marge Piercy, "To be of use" and their experiences with what it means to be an invisible / maybe essential laborer in a white work force. What does it mean to have a "responsibility" to a community, and a responsibility to self? In response to the poem, and her work in the cultural sector, specifically at an art museum, Sherrie says, "I don't want to be the one always carrying water...but I'm the only one here." 

Sherrie Belton is a Fairfield County, SC native who loves asking questions, solving problems, and causing good trouble. From classrooms to museums, she has spent the last decade doing creative community work across the Midlands of South Carolina. Though typically she serves as an arts programmer and arts educator, she began exploring what it means to be a maker through an open call for proposals for Indie Grit Lab’s Rural Project. It’s where Route 3 Box 187D was born, an audio series that celebrates the everyday triumph and resiliency of Black families in rural South. Sherrie is particularly interested in Black community regeneration, cultural preservation, and creative placemaking.

In this excerpt of the full episode, Stephanye and DéLana reminisce about their year together in 2016 at Weeksville Heritage Center, "dreaming up possibilities with pennies."  DéLana reminisces on the day Stephanye came into her office with a red wool coat and found a place for her, and what it means to look for a place for Black women with divergent careers, and then with the blessing and love from a Black woman, Tia Powell Harris program and fund a new 19,000 sq ft building with---inadequate funding from philanthropy, and yet! And yet! The work we did was not at all visible part of the contemporary story of Weeksville's "saving" so we had to do some documenting. And storytelling--what we do best.

A graduate of Clark Atlanta University, Stephanye R. Watts is the newly appointed Assembly Program Coordinator at Recess. Stephanye served her community in her previous post as Community Engagement Manager at Weeksville Heritage Center and continues to do so as a member of the Association of African-American Museums, CAU's alumni association, UNCF's Inter-Alumni Council, and the HBCU Hub. As a non-traditional arts worker, Stephanye is invested in nurturing a generation of people like her to create a true representation of what diversity looks like in the arts.