Nicoletta is also an adjunct faculty in the MFA in Community Arts Graduate Program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), former Visual Art Department faculty member at Baltimore School for the Arts and is the Maryland Citizens for the Arts (MCA) Artist Navigator. Her work reconceives the life of an artist as thriving, nourishing herself and others during and through her creative practice. She is a chamána (shaman) and comes from a long line of healers. Nicoletta is a Black Latinx and proud first-generation Panamanian born in the United States. Nicoletta de la Brown is a Maryland-based performance artist, interdisciplinary fabricator, filmmaker, mother of four, and self-love champion. Through interactive workshops and salon-style gatherings, de la Brown will examine how modern society asks women, and people of color, to hold space to care for others and questions, “When do we care for ourselves?” The goal of Spirit / Art is to co-create with other self-identified healers by discovering new ways of sharing modes of self-healing. The Fellowship will allow de la Brown to expand on her prior project “Spirit / Art,” that investigates divine feminine self-healing through reconstruction and re-definition with the use of video, sound, poetry, performance art, and immersive sculptural installation as creative tools. The scarcity of pigment also serves as a metaphor for the empty voids created by oppressively homogeneous spaces. Thus, she intentionally withholds color from her pieces, allowing the focus to solely become impression, form, and shadow. Additionally, her work seeks to emphasize the overbearing impact of whiteness on society. This has led her to explore themes centered on identity, faith, escapism, and place. Her recent work visually expresses the (constant) subconscious reality of being a Black woman in an unaccepting white world. She specializes in a printmaking technique that combines heavy relief printing, abstract messages, and photographic elements in an attempt to generate community dialogue. Morris draws inspiration from education reform, literature, syntax, and the textural exploration of paper and printing. Shavon Morris is a visual artist and printmaker, she also prides herself on being a mother and wife. What does it look like to continue to generate art in Third Ward? How will this art help to reestablish the concept of “HOME,” within the community? How do we still honor the beauty that exists in our communities? Where are the hidden gems, and how are families/households still thriving in this historic community? How might housing instability and/or chronic household stress lead to creativity? How are children impacted if they come home to an empty house and/or are not greeted after school? Why is this important? Katrina, Harvey, Covid19, Winter Storm 2021 - How do events like these damage the hope of peace for families who were already in crisis? What happens when “home” is no longer an anchor for children in Third Ward?ĭoes residential security truly lead to optimism? More specifically, the idea of “home as refuge.” Her guiding questions include: Through this Fellowship program, Shavon seeks to examine the concept of “Home” in America. We are limiting all applications to the greater Houston area, and will only be awarding one Fellowship for this cycle. *In response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the new realities of our university and Third Ward communities, we are altering the format for the 2021 Fellowship. Local housing at Project Row Houses with up to $3,500 in travel support for non-Houston fellows The pilot of this program was funded by a generous gift from Texas philanthropist Suzanne Deal Booth, which also supports future public programs to promote community engagement.Ĭommunity Brain Trust of local artists, community members and faculty to advise and ground the project in a local discourse The Fellows will present to the public their research–to-date at the end of their fellowship. Local artists, faculty members, community members and selected leaders will offer their support during this process. McGovern College of the Arts, and Sidney Mori Garrett, PRH's Curatorial Assistant and Art Programs Coordinator. The two fellows have a year-long mentorship with project administrators Sixto Wagan, director of the UH Center for Art and Social Engagement at the University of Houston's Kathrine G. The fellows will engage in creative collaborations that involve the Houston's historic Third Ward community and address issues important to them. Center for Art and Social Engagement and Project Row Houses have created a fellowship program that invites artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers.