Tag Archives: Artist

Community

The Morning Update Show — 8/12/21

The Morning Update Show — hosted by Trae Holiday and The Big O (Omari Salisbury) — is the only weekday news and information livestream that delivers culturally relevant content to the Pacific Northwest’s urban audience. Omari and Trae analyze the day’s local and national headlines as well as melanin magic in our community. Watch live every weekday at 11 a.m. on any of the following channels, hosted by Converge Media: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Periscope, and whereweconverge.com.

We also post the Morning Update Show here on the Emerald each day after it airs, so you can catch up any time of day while you peruse our latest posts.

Morning Update Show — Thursday, August 12

Live from Liberty Bank Building | LIVE — Elisheba Johnson of Wa Na Wari | LIVE — Stephanie Morales of The Liink Project | LIVE — Edimbo Lekea Artist | Community Building Through Art

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Arts & Culture

Hungry

by Andy Panda

This comic is a story of common miscommunication between my grandmother, who didn’t speak much English, and young me, who didn’t (doesn’t) speak much Chinese. The dialogue is in both Chinese and English to emphasize the miscommunication, but includes enough of each so you, the reader, can understand what is going on. In the end, food becomes the ultimate communicator. Growing up with an immigrant grandmother, when neither of you spoke the same language, was sometimes difficult. My grandmother and I shared a room (that’s a whole other comic) and she babysat me often, yet we could barely communicate. Like many immigrant families, we had to just make it work. This is a story about one of the times we just made it work. Thanks to PARISOL for translation help and to Bill Cheung for the pun idea.

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Arts & Culture

Xavier Raymond Kelley Debuts ‘Going Thru thEMOTIONS’ at Columbia City Gallery

by Mark Van Streefkerk

Xavier Raymond Kelley’s Instagram bio reads “Jumping and Art,” two concepts he says are more interrelated than you’d think. The 19-year-old sophomore competes on Seattle University’s (SU) track and field team in the Long Jump, Triple Jump, and High Jump events, and is also an artist rising to citywide recognition, poised for his first gallery debut “Going Thru thEMOTIONS” at Columbia City Gallery from March 21 to May 9. 

An alumni of Franklin High School, Kelley’s athletic and artistic expressions only keep on growing. His first love was basketball, but Kelley picked up track his senior year where he excelled, eventually leading to a spot on SU’s team. Always an artist, Kelley explored drawing with markers and pastels long before moving to acrylic paint on canvas within the last year and a half. His latest work features Black athletes, basketball, ancient Egyptian imagery, and symbols that point to the complexities of racism. 

“My background is definitely in athletics — that really informs my art and the concepts and motifs that show up in my art,” Kelley said. “Art and sports are very intersectional, and they’re both very acute forms of self-expression. Just like dance is a form of art, I believe sports is also a form of art and self-expression.”

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Voices

Seedcast: On Home and Belonging for Black and Indigenous Peoples

by Inye Wokoma

Indigenous peoples and communities have long used stories to understand the world and our place in it. Seedcast is a story-centered podcast by Nia Tero and a special monthly column produced in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald about nurturing and rooting stories of the Indigenous experience.

One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather waking up every morning before the sun came up. I was born in 1969 and in my early years, before my mother married my father, we lived with my grandparents. By the time I was maybe 4 or 5, my grandfather had retired. He had served in World War II in the motor pool in the South Pacific, and then, when he came to Seattle, he got a job at the Naval shipyards down on the piers here in the sound, later working with the transportation department until his retirement in the early ’70s. He came from a family of tenant farmers who migrated to the Northwest from the South who were used to working on the land. Their work ethic never left him. 

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Arts & Culture

barry johnson Artist Interview: “anything is anything” Can Become Structural Change

by Vivian Hua 華婷婷

(This article first ran in REDEFINE Magazine and appears under a co-publishing agreement.)

Speak to Renton-based visual artist barry johnson for any substantial amount of time, and one quickly understands why his latest catchphrase, “anything is anything,” has become an overarching mantra. As johnson explains, “Because I’m a self-taught artist, [the phrase] gives me freedom …”

“anything is anything” was the title of johnson’s first solo art show at Tacoma’s Alma Mater in August 2019, and is now the title of his weekly podcast on “the origins of myths, idioms, stories, and nonsense.” Both offer tiny glimpses into johnson’s varied interests and atraditional way of moving through traditional art spaces, which has led to an art practice that includes numerous mediums, from painting and architecture to performance and film — all with a focus on Black communities.

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