Día de los Muertos Altars

by | Sep 14, 2022

I always carry my mother’s words with me, and I share them with everyone I teach about Día de Los Muertos. She said, “We all suffer three deaths. The first death is the day that we give up our last breath, the day that we die. Our second death is the day we are...

To Gather and to Grieve

by | Sep 14, 2022

  Not long before Covid-19 reached the Southwestern United States, I listened to a podcast interview with the Nigerian writer and spiritualist Bayo Akomolafe in which he spoke of grieving as ceremony, “…when we grieve, it’s not instrumental to anything but, it’s...

Riding with James

by | Sep 14, 2022

  Let me tell you about my cousin James. First of all, he was almost 50 years older than me and we were actually like fourth cousins, once removed. I think. Anyway, from the time my Aunt Dorothy—who is actually not my aunt, but also a distant cousin, a couple of...

Derecho Days

by | Aug 24, 2022

Derecho Days is an experimental, personal comic art piece that navigates the aftermath of enduring the August 2020 derecho: an inland hurricane that, in 14 hours, led to $11 billion in damage, caused 25 tornadoes from Nebraska to Ohio, and destroyed 70 percent of the...

The Smithsonian’s Will to Adorn Youth Access Project

by | Sep 8, 2021

Zora Neale Hurston, the renowned anthropologist and folklorist, observed in 1934 that “the will to adorn” is one of the primary characteristics of African American expression. Like orature, quilting, and musical forms such as the blues, African American dress and body...