Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 1 of 2): Looking Back

12/26/2022

The beginnings of the last few years––“arguably,” as some like to say––have presented humanity with more reasons to dread flipping the calendar from December to January that to celebrate it. But some of us insist on excavating beauty out of horror and looking forward with measures of hopefulness: regardless of reasons to do otherwise.

Prior to the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine back in February, the year 2022 had already started on a somber personal note due to the death of fellow author Robert T.S. Mickles, Sr., on December 31, 2021. While mourning his death, I celebrated Mickles’ life and legacy online at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated intentions to hang around much longer than anybody wanted. I then moved cautiously forward into the year addressing the following:

After posting the above stories and essays, I was all set to push forward on the completion of the previously-announced letters, poetry, and art book project. Then a certain Russian oligarch, not necessarily addressing me directly, said not so fast. The barrage of images showing cities in Ukraine tumbling like dominoes, children and elderly people lying dead in the streets or struggling to escape the relentless unprovoked chaos, and a future Time Magazine Person of the Year requesting assistance from world leaders, made it impossible to ignore what many nations viewed as a direct attack on democracy.

("Ukraine Russia & The Art of Being Human" artwork by Aberjhani originally published in 2022 with article on LinkedIn.)

Some have actually criticized the outpouring of support for Ukraine, measured in billions of dollars and public expressions of solidarity, since the war’s beginning. They point out what they perceive of as a disproportionate response to violent clashes in other non-European countries.

These other equally abhorrent conflicts were already taking place in the world. They remain major factors in numerous international leaders and everyday world citizens belief that Russia’s brutal aggressiveness cannot stand unanswered. Responding to the threat of a potential world war 3 is something most have never anticipated in our age of technical wonders but respond we did:

Why Genocide in Ukraine Matters to A Black Poet in America (Pt. 2 of 2)

In addition, dominating international political discourses as it did, there was no way to keep the war out of the Conversations with the World series here at Bright Skylark. Given that the pens of poets and brushes of artists have long been employed to make sense of human beings’ tendency to inflict destruction upon each other and planet Earth, it would have been irresponsible not to address Russia’s war in Ukraine on multiple platforms throughout 2022. The global ripple effects of the war have generally been unavoidable: the crippling inflation, food and energy insecurity, and increased ecological instability.

Conversations with the World 110: Some 2022 Thoughts on Love and War

There was no official war declared in America against Jews, Asians, Muslims, or African Americans. Yet hate crimes against them rose to some of the highest levels in years.

Confirmations of Beauty and Justice

In the midst of all the international and domestic rage, certain achievements have helped us to maintain faith in the better qualities of our collective characters. The breath-taking photos of double-deep space captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, with its remarkable images of barely-formed galaxies and developing stars, reminded everybody just how much bigger existence is than a single individual, nation, planet, or even universe.

Closer to the literary values promoted on this website: In nods to the often overlooked contributions of African-American women to their homeland, the late memoirist-poet-educator-activist Maya Angelou became the first Black woman to be featured on a U.S. quarter. Ketanji Brown Jackson stepped into history by becoming the first Black woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Moreover: an 18-year-old named Jaylen Smith became the youngest Black man in American history ever elected mayor when he won his bid for the position in Earle, Arkansas. And Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) became the first African-American voted to lead the House Democratic Caucus.

Defying the COVID Pandemic Lockdown Blues

The “Hidden Histories” Savannah authors and books collage by Hannah Brawley can be found on the Georgia Historical Society's website at https://georgiahistory.com/marker-monday-hidden-histories-2/. Located at top center of the collage is ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love by Aberjhani and Luther E. Vann. Also included are works by authors: James Alan McPherson, Conrad Aiken, Johnny Mercer, Jack Leigh, Mrs. Wilkes, Murray Silver, Flannery O'Connor, and John Berendt.

I’m also glad to note advancements on different fronts here at Bright Skylark. Back in March, I had the honor of participating in a very successful Authors Day event. It was held in historic Lafayette Square, in downtown Savannah, Georgia, just across the street from iconic author Flannery O’Connor’s Childhood Home and the world-famous Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist. This was my first such outing since the pandemic hit in 2020 and turned me into a semi-comfortable recluse. The Authors Day event made it possible for me to finally make up for all the Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind launch presentations I’d had to cancel due to COVID-19 surges.

In addition, later in the year, the long-awaited 2022 Flannery O’Connor Review spotlighting my artwork and poetry was published. Some celebrated the rarity of such an occurrence while others quietly dismissed it. For this author-artist, it helped bring some much-needed balance to public discourses on racial issues attached to O’Connor’s work and life. It also alerted readers to recently completed art, letters, and poetry book.

Later, in the summer, I joined fellow authors George Dawes Green, writer-poet Jon Goode, and Edgar Oliver on stage as a guest “raconteur” for a celebration of The Moth organization’s 20th anniversary and the release of Green’s novel: Kingdoms of Savannah. (Still need to carve out time to write my essay on KINGDOMS.) The sold-out Moth performance was enough to convince me to also participate in the Art on Bull Street fundraiser in October. Sadly, while I was invited to participate in The Oxford Union’s 2022 International Poetry Symposium on November 28, several developments prevented me from making the trip across the Atlantic Ocean for that event.

Which brings me to plans and works in progress for the year 2023.

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NEXT: The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2): Looking Ahead

Aberjhani (Author-Poet-Artist)
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Laureates and visionaries: Chronicling legacies of black artists in Savannah (part 2/3)

5/6/2022

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"Luther and the Coming of Light No. 2" digital art by Aberjhani)

In his introduction to section two of Luther E. Vann’s Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love, contributing writer Bill Dawers makes this statement:

“Even those already familiar with Luther’s work are likely to find the images collected here startling. (Doubly startling, I imagine, since so many of the works are still in the collection or the artist.) Certain thematic and structural elements are visible across the decades––the presence of the spirits, the grids, the convergence of multiple realities, the exploration of human interaction in public spaces.”

(To read part 1 of this article please click here.)

In the decades following his move back to Georgia, the month of May became one in which Vann’s life and career saw numerous milestones. It was May 1991, and again in 1994, that the city of Savannah’s Beach Institute hosted critically acclaimed exhibits by him. Although the historic Elemental show opened at the Jepson Center for the Arts in April 2008, the book launch occurred May 29. Moreover, the legendary Barn Studio and Gallery show took place May 24, 2014. It would seem appropriate enough, then, to consider at this time the implications of the work that remains.

Visionary Artists and Thinkers

The synthesis of Vann’s cultural, spiritual, and philosophical perspectives within his paintings and sculpture––what Dawers referred to as certain thematic and structural elements–– make him something of an anomaly in African-American art. He eschewed what could have been, for him, the easier path of producing––or, more accurately, re-producing–– popular images cast in a Southern motif.

He chose instead to make visual statements aligned with the observations of visionary artists and thinkers with whom he felt a kind of metaphysical kinship. Influences like Italy’s 15th-century Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci, Spain’s 16th-century Renaissance painter El Greco, and African America’s 20th-century Harlem Renaissance talent Beauford Delaney probably would not surprise many people. Certain others might.

Doris Lessing and Vann's Universe That is Actually a Multiverse

British author Doris Lessing’s novel, The Golden Notebook, was one of Vann’s favorite reads. He easily related to what it portrayed about a creative individual’s attempt to bring intellectual order to the fragmented landscape of her inner being by working with a collection of four notebooks to produce one definitive Golden Notebook. Those who might question such a link between Nobel Prize for Literature winner Lessing and Georgia Arts Festival winner Vann need only do two things: first read The Golden Notebook, and then study different images in Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love.

Just as Lessing’s character Anna Wulf drew on different aspects of her imploding biography to compose a more wholistic representation of herself, Vann fused personal spiritual meditations with more objective public observations to paint his evolving theories on humanity as “One.” This oneness was organic in the sense that our physical activities inevitably impact each other’s lives and our spiritual dispositions, or the lack of such, color the nature of our relationships.

The concept of conscious unity is important to the artist because these intertwining dynamics (what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called “an inescapable network of mutuality”) occur quite paradoxically within a universe that is actually a multiverse. While Doris Lessing’s novel may be described as an innovative work of feminist fiction, it contains numerous passages descriptive of experiences in Vann’s life and the place art occupied within it. Moreover, in Lessing’s introduction to the 1971 edition of the novel, she discusses how opposing characters reconcile their different perspectives:

“…They have also reflected each other, been aspects of each other, given birth to each other’s thoughts and behavior––are each other, form wholes. In the inner Golden Notebook, things have come together, the divisions have broken down, there is formlessness with the end of fragmentation––the triumph of the second theme, which is that of unity...”

Lessing’s aesthetic declaration could be applied to many of Vann’s masterful works, such as “The Widow Remembers” or “For the Love of the Poet,” and prompt the viewer to discover how dominant and sub-narratives flow in and out of each other on their way toward wholeness. The freedom allowed by such a strategy could produce what Lessing referred to as “delicious intoxication” leading to “the recklessness of infinite possibility.”

For Luther E. Vann, Infinite possibility meant painting outside the lines of aesthetic and cultural assumptions. Even as he relished celebrating his adored African-American community on Millen Street in West Savannah, when it came to making some of his more profound statements either on canvas or off it, he reached so far beyond his earthbound surroundings that commentators often referred to him as a visionary.

Carl Jung and More Benevolent Consciousness

From the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung’s mapping of the human psyche the artist extracted an operational template which influenced the language he committed to paintings. You could say it helped him both to literally paint his place in the world at a given time, and to shape the purposes that defined his life as they unfolded throughout adulthood.

Jung’s teachings allowed him to view and embrace human beings beyond categories defined by racial, political, or social constructions. In Vann’s multiverse, whether lost in shadows or made radiant by grace, all living souls are on a mission to manifest and serve a self-contained, higher, and more benevolent, consciousness.

NEXT: The jazz factor: Chronicling legacies of black artists in Savannah (part 3/3)

By Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

More from Aberjhani on Cultural Heritage and Erasures of History

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History and Erasure: Chronicling Legacies of Black Artists in Savannah (Pt. 1 of 3)

5/4/2022

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"Luther and the Coming of Light" digital art by Aberjhani C2022)

Introduction

.he last thing I expected to find myself writing about as we moved deeper into the year 2022 was a 3-way war between Russia, Ukraine, and professed defenders of democracy around the world. But write about it I have on the LinkedIn website as well as here at Bright Skylark. Hopefully, the articles have made it clear one of my primary concerns regarding the war has been the brutal erasure of history and culture as well as that of human lives.

The Chronicling Legacies of Black Artists in Savannah series was first published in my AXS cultural arts column as an expression of that same concern. It is reposted at this time both to encourage unwavering support in their struggle for what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called “the right to live,” and, in observation of the 14th anniversary of the publication of ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love:

Contributors to Unique Traditions

Upon his passing on April 6, 2016, Luther E. Vann joined an illustrious group of brilliant contemporary African-American creative artists who, prior to their transitions, produced numerous celebrated works which have added tremendously to Savannah’s (Georgia, USA) reputation and value as a favorite travel destination for lovers of the cultural arts.

Vann (b. 1937) and Allen Fireall (1954-2014) bestowed upon the city a legacy of fine visual art that documented daily life in different communities throughout the Low Country in Georgia and South Carolina. Like artist William M. Pleasant Jr. (1928-1997) before them, they also contributed greatly to the unique traditions of Gullah art.

(Digital portrait of late Savannah Gullah artist Allen Fireall by Aberjhani)

In many cases, particularly where Fireall is concerned, their painted canvases depict scenes representative of historic cultural activities rarely practiced as part of everyday living in contemporary times. Making nets and sewing quilts by hand, for example, are more likely to be done for creative enjoyment [or to be sold as cultural artefacts] rather than, as they once were, out of simple necessity.

Similarly, men and women carrying bushels of crabs atop their heads, or gathering in parks or alongside roads to wait for job assignments are seen even less rarely (if ever). Nor are you as likely while driving or walking down a lane in the American South to see women in adjoining back yards laughing and talking as they hang freshly-washed laundry out to dry.

Restoring Erased History

The late world-renowned Rev. Dr. Ja A. Jahannes (1942 -2015) was something of a polymath whose exceptional talents included writing plays, poems, novels, and children’s books–– as well as publishing anthologies, producing fine-art photography, composing music, teaching, and delivering inspired sermons. Through his multiple positions as an educator at the HBCU Savannah State University, a minister at Savannah’s now 105-year-old Abyssinia Baptist Church, and a public intellectual, Jahannes empowered many others to pick up where he would leave off.

The names presented here are not done so to invite nostalgic reveries, though studied reflections are certainly appropriate for people familiar with them. They are offered (and a number of others could easily be included) to help prevent their consignment to discarded files marked “erased history, or being deleted, via guerrilla decontextualization by omission, from the more “official” channels of documented acknowledgements.

Whether using the term “erasure of history” or “history of erasure” the final definition points to the same legacy-destroying result: the removal of consequential names and events from their authentic historic context and thus from public awareness. An erasure of history indicates the active or conscious deletion of a subject from various official records. Histories of erasure, as it were, possess the paradoxical distinction of referring to accumulated instances of eradication. The first describes the act of omitting relevant events or biographies. The second describes accounts of such actions.

The late painter William M. Pleasant Jr. surrounded by some of his celebrated works.

Guerrilla decontextualization by omission tends to occur frequently when it comes to African-American cultural arts workers who have not been embraced by certain institutions. Whatever prominence they command stems more from the direct support of, and engagement with, appreciative audiences than from disinterested commercial outlets. Some, such as William M. Pleasant Jr., had the good fortune to produce heirs, like Jalal Pleasant, who also became accomplished artists and have labored to ensure their parent’s work is properly noted.

The Example of Luther E. Vann

All of the people mentioned here have won some level of recognition in their own right. Vann earned his place beside the luminous talents he has joined through a lifetime of dedication to both the spirit and the forms of his craft. It was that dauntless commitment which prompted organizations like the Telfair Museum Friends of African-American Art to back the publication of the ekphratic book, Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love, in honor of his individual genius.

NEXT: Laureates and visionaries: Chronicling legacies of black artists in Savannah (part 2/3)

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

More from Aberjhani on Cultural Preservation and Erasures of History

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A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

9/9/2019

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Title-art graphic featuring artist Suzanne Jackson in conversation on stage at the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts. (Art graphic by Aberjhani)

Anyone on June 27, 2019, attending the opening of the Suzanne Jackson Five Decades retrospective at the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia (USA), or involved in its production prior to that historic evening, could tell something exceptional was happening. In addition to the mesmerizing kind of vibrant textiles and stunning canvases one might expect to discover at such an opening for a contemporary artist, there were seven vitrines (display cases) filled with family photographs, vintage 1960s flyers advertising a "Revolutionary Art Exhibit," sketchbooks, program notes, letters, photographs, and other revealing archival materials from different chapters of Jackson's, and America's, life stories.

The items made available went beyond career highlights to illuminating an artist's considerable immersion in a significant historical moment: the 1960s-1970s Black Arts Movement as it rooted and flowered in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. For those observers of African-American history who contend America's West Coast contributed much less to the Harlem Renaissance than other regions because it lacked, during the 1920s-1940s, a heavy representation of the traditions and institutions then associated with Black culture in the South, the 1960s may be considered the bridge which connected history and geography.

Ideas of how and why that might be the case, within the context of Five Decades, first struck me as apparent while listening to the on-stage conversation between Jackson, fellow artist Alonzo Davis, and Telfair Museums curator Rachel Reese. Jackson's and Davis's stories of establishing art galleries in downtown Los Angeles, building a sustainable cultural arts community, and balancing commitments to careers and political struggle with commitments to family life were not completely unlike what we find in the life stories of East Coast predecessors like Lois Mailou Jones and Augusta Fells Savage.

This observation does not contradict the contexts of ecowomanism and black feminist ethics contexts in which the brilliant essays by Reese, julia elizabeth neal, Melanee C. Harvey, and Tiffany E. Barber place Jackson's work in the forthcoming Five Decades catalog. It simply acknowledges one more powerful aspect of the place she now occupies as an influential contemporary artist of historical importance. In her foreword to the catalog, artist Betye Saar alludes to the significance of Jackson's role as someone whose art and advocacy have bridged gaps:

"In the 1960s, black artists in Los Angeles were struggling to be recognized. Some public venues had integrated exhibitions, but generally speaking black artists were ignored... Suzanne made a concrete imprint when she opened Gallery 32 on Lafayette Park Place..." (Appropriately enough, work by the 93-year-old Saar herself is currently undergoing a kind of revival with forthcoming solo shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.)

After Jackson's, Davis's, and Reese's dynamic conversation, the feeling when walking among the dozens of artworks hung with dazzling appeal in the Steward North and Kane Galleries, absorbing the full impact of the actual exhibit, was like glimpsing a long-hidden priceless American treasure. Those who have yet to treat themselves to the experience still have until October 13, 2019, to do so at the Jepson. Just as importantly, the exhibition catalog is due out September 25 and orders for it are being accepted now.

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Artist Suzanne Jackson (right) speaking with librarian Mark Darby (left) at historic 2004 "Harlem Renaissance in Savannah" book signing and lecture presented by Aberjhani (center) at the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah, Georgia (USA). (Photograph Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collection)

My journey toward the almost magical evening of June 27 actually began on August 28, 2004, when Ms. Jackson attended my "Harlem Renaissance in Savannah" lecture and book signing at the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah. Since relocating to the city eight years earlier, she had been surprised to discover the African-American cultural arts scene was as vibrant as it was and included someone who had co-authored (with the late Sandra L. West) the groundbreaking Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.

I was surprised and impressed to learn she had lived on the West Coast--just as I had in San Francisco--and now taught at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). If I'd had the slightest prophetic clue of the visual marvels that would be revealed 15 years later, I would have been flat-out amazed.

Mounted wall screen showing video images from life and career of artist and educator Suzanne Jackson. The video was part of the opening for Jackson's Five Decades Retrospective at the Telfair Museums Jepson Center for the Art in Savannah, Georgia, on June 27, 2019. (Bright Skylark Literary Productions photograph by Aberjhani ©2019)

That early meeting was genuinely fortuitous because in those days my responsibilities as a caregiver had already started to limit participation in public events. I nevertheless did make it out occasionally and during the years which followed the lecture our paths crossed enough for an acquaintance to become a friendship. As it turned out, we had more than the cultural arts and California in common. We had both also spent time in Fairbanks, Alaska--she as a child growing up there and me some years later as a U.S. military journalist.

We came to know many of the same creatives and shared enthusiasm over their triumphs. Grief, too, demanded acknowledgement when experiencing the loss of such individuals as painter Allen M. Fireall (1954-2014), his fellow artist and friend Luther E. Vann (1937-2016), and author-educator Ja A. Jahannes (1942-2015). More personal, more blood-connected losses inserted themselves into the stories of our individual lives as well, both stalling and fueling painted poems and poemized visions that would manifest in coming years.

NEXT: A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 2): Jazz, Art, & Partying

Aberjhani
author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player

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Tribute to Harlem Renaissance Chronicler Sandra L. West (part 2): Worthy of Our Ancestors' Legacy

3/7/2019

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Honoring educator, author, & community activist Sandra L. West. Title art graphic by Aberjhani.

That the story of two chroniclers of the Harlem Renaissance should have had its beginning in Savannah, Georgia, in the early 1990s, might seem unlikely but it did. Sandra and I met as writers often do: in a bookstore. I was the manager at a now defunct Waldenbooks store interviewing for a part-time worker and she was interested. The interview turned into a two-person literary salon as, somehow, we started talking about writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and contemporary art.

Scheduling requirements would not allow me to hire her but neither did it bring our dialogue to an end. Long before either of us would consider working on Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, within a year she would suggest I consider writing poetry for a book of her then husband Luther E. Vann's art. We would for a time work together on the Savannah Literary Journal, and in her role as an assistant editor for the weekly Savannah Tribune, one of the oldest African-American newspapers in the country, she would publish a feature story on me. We would also team up for different literary programs, so when the time did come to tackle the encyclopedia we were ready, as a team, to answer history's call to duty.

Worthy of Our Ancestors' Legacy

Although we moaned, groaned, and outright blubbered over difficulties encountered completing Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, the hardcore truth was we were two lit-geeks who would have been disappointed had there not been any major hurdles to overcome and thereby prove ourselves worthy of our ancestors' legacy. If ever any book was worth burning candles at ends we did not even have, it was the encyclopedia. Sandra trusted that I would pull through because I was somewhat younger and had energy enough to carry my multiple loads. I trusted she would pull through because she had one of the finest literary minds and most committed dispositions toward African-American literary culture I had ever encountered. Moreover, it was she who had invited me to join the project.

This is a framed news article titled "A legend’s place" written by Sandra L. West about Georgia civil rights icon W.W. Law. It hangs on the wall of the W.W. Law Center in Savannah, GA. The photo in the lower right corner is of West. The article was published in the Savannah Morning News Black History Month 1996.

The really big surprise was one that often stuns first-time authors. It was learning how much promotional work remained to be done after the writing was accomplished. That was also the fun part with Sandra taking on book signings and interviews up north while I did the same down south. Still, she emailed to remind me it was not enough that we had completed the history-making volume itself. We needed to record the history we were continuing to make through related activities:

"Aberjhani, we need to keep a running list of what we have done thus far. Especially since we have done a ton of public relations stuff ... I know you have been busy on your end and I would like to have at least one major list of things done ... because, you never know. Please plug in what you did... radio interview for Michael Porter and WBAI, the Gusby TV interview, signings, etc. We also need to plug in print reviews, and all those newspaper interviews of you.
I know you are writing your next books. But, when you come up for air, maybe you can plug in an item or two so that by the end of the year, this will be in formal order and will be a very decent line of defense, etc.

Sandra

P.S. I think we are going to win the Before The Columbus Foundation Award.

By "line of defense" she meant irrefutable proof the success of the encyclopedia warranted additional printings and a revised, maybe expanded, second edition. The follow-up eventually would come in the form of InfoBase’s eBook of the title and its addition to publisher Facts On File's history database. Any plans on an updated edition to correspond with the current Harlem Renaissance centennial never surfaced. Given the significance of the 100th anniversary of the renaissance and the way numerous institutions are observing it around the globe, many thought an updated reissue was going to happen automatically. But the world of publishing in 2019 as impacted by social media and various Internet influencers is a far cry from what it once was. So in 2003 my co-author assigned herself the role of Team Encyclopedia scorekeeper and started recording notes like the following:

SEPTEMBER 2003, BOOK SIGNING. Aberjhani & Sandra L. West host Book
signing at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ. West and Dr. Clement Alexander Price presented formal papers on Harlem Renaissance. Includes interview on area cable tv show, Literary Forum. Host. Dorothea Moore.

OCTOBER 2003, BOOK SIGNING. Sandra L. West hosts book signing during
historic 2nd Street Festival at Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, Richmond, VA.

RADIO INTERVIEW. Sandra L. West is guest on "Jazz Tracks" WPLJ-FM, Cleveland, OHIO. Spoke about Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.

BOOK SIGNING/PRESENTATION. Sandra L. West book signing host. Delivered presentation on Harlem Renaissance at Sisters Uptown Bookstore, NYC.

BOOK SIGNING. Sandra L. West signed books at Hue-Man Books in Harlem.

BOOK SIGNING/PRESENTATION. Sandra L. West book signing host. Delivered presentation at Countee Cullen Library, Harlem.

NOVEMBER, BOOK SIGNING. Sandra L. West signed books at Gospel
Brunch with Vickie Winans, at Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, NJ.

PHONE INTERVIEW. Sandra L. West was interviewed by students at Denver School of the Arts in Colorado re Harlem Renaissance artists. Students are preparing a documentary film.

EXCERPT ON WEB. Excerpt from book, article on Harleston's written by Sandra L. West, included on Goucher College Website, as part of Alumni Showcase.

BOOK SIGNING/PRESENTATION. Sandra L. West and Dr. Clement A. Price hosted book signing and presented formal papers on Harlem Renaissance at Newark Public Library.

BOOK SIGNING. Sandra L. West signed books at Barnes & Noble, Libble Place and Broad Streets, Richmond, VA.

BOOK SIGNING/PRESENTATION. Sandra L. West signed books and spoke about Harlem Renaissance at Rare Wear Bead Shop, event co-sponsored by Sister Circle and Sacred Women, two community groups in Richmond, VA.

DECEMBER, BOOK AUCTION. Sandra L. West will auction off one signed copy of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE at fundraiser Radio-Thon for WBAI-FM, New York.

KWANZAA. Sandra L. West one of several featured authors to present speeches on topic of Umoja/Unity at Kwanzaa Celebration sponsored by African Voices magazine, New York.

In Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? Simply that no matter what notes or accounts might suggest anything to the contrary, Sandra was one of the most brilliant committed wordsmith's to ever glance in this writer's direction. The gift she labored to present this world is one I have no doubt put smiles on the faces of our Harlem Renaissance ancestors, that greatest of African-American generations which led our people through the barbaric wilderness of the post-Civil War Black Codes and Jim Crow apartheid toward the more democratic civil rights realizations of the 20th century. I can hardly say how honored I was--and how grateful I remain--to share with her such powerful work filled with meaning, overflowing with splendid vision, and so truly blessed with purpose.

Aberjhani
100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance

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The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 1 of 2): Looking Back

Confirmations of Beauty and Justice

Defying the COVID Pandemic Lockdown Blues

Aberjhani (Author-Poet-Artist)
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Laureates and visionaries: Chronicling legacies of black artists in Savannah (part 2/3)

Visionary Artists and Thinkers

Doris Lessing and Vann's Universe That is Actually a Multiverse

Carl Jung and More Benevolent Consciousness

By Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

More from Aberjhani on Cultural Heritage and Erasures of History

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

History and Erasure: Chronicling Legacies of Black Artists in Savannah (Pt. 1 of 3)

Introduction

Contributors to Unique Traditions

Restoring Erased History

The Example of Luther E. Vann

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Contact the Author

Tribute to Harlem Renaissance Chronicler Sandra L. West (part 2): Worthy of Our Ancestors' Legacy

Worthy of Our Ancestors' Legacy

In Conclusion

Contact the Author

Aberjhani

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The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 1 of 2): Looking Back

Confirmations of Beauty and Justice

Defying the COVID Pandemic Lockdown Blues

Aberjhani (Author-Poet-Artist)Author of Dreams of the Immortal City SavannahCreator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Laureates and visionaries: Chronicling legacies of black artists in Savannah (part 2/3)

​Visionary Artists and Thinkers

Doris Lessing and Vann's Universe That is Actually a Multiverse

Carl Jung and More Benevolent Consciousness

By AberjhaniAuthor of Dreams of the Immortal City SavannahCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceCreator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

More from Aberjhani on Cultural Heritage and Erasures of History

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

History and Erasure: Chronicling Legacies of Black Artists in Savannah (Pt. 1 of 3)

​Introduction

​Contributors to Unique Traditions

Restoring Erased History

The Example of Luther E. Vann

AberjhaniAuthor of Dreams of the Immortal City SavannahCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceCreator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

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Tribute to Harlem Renaissance Chronicler Sandra L. West (part 2): Worthy of Our Ancestors' Legacy

Worthy of Our Ancestors' Legacy

​In Conclusion

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Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Aberjhani (Author-Poet-Artist)
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Visionary Artists and Thinkers

By Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Introduction

Contributors to Unique Traditions

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Creator of Authentic Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

In Conclusion