Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

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

5/6/2022

"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

The 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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National Poetry Month 2022: Taking Flight on Wings of Early Morning Light

4/2/2022

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The late Luther E. Vann (Dec 2, 1937–April 6, 2016) and I worked as hard as we did to complete ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love, because we hoped the end results would help inspire people to employ healing creative vision, rather than destructive violence, to resolve various forms of conflict. I’ve thought about that a lot since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine. I thought about it further after seeing beloved actor Will Smith’s now forever-infamous assault upon comedian Chris Rock during the live broadcast of the 2022 Academy Awards. (Will Smith since then has reportedly resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)

The poem below, “Wings of Early Morning Light,” was published in ELEMENTAL and I am posting it at this time for several reasons. One is to celebrate National Poetry Month 2022. Another is to commemorate the sixth anniversary of Luther’s death. It is also to continue the Poems for Ukraine series begun with Angel of War and the Year 2022. And, finally, the fourth is to reaffirm at a time when the world can use such reaffirmations, ELEMENTAL’s major themes: creative problem-solving respectful of life as innately sacred, mindfulness strengthened by compassion, and coexistence anchored by the power of illuminated love.

The first public announcement that the late artist Luther E. Vann and author Aberjhani had begun working on ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love, appeared in the former weekly Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) Newspaper called The Georgia Guardian on June 25, 1993.

Wings of Early Morning Light

Gliding above the ruins of the world’s broken soul
destruction and mutation speak in parables of the
ignoble history that dragged us here, and glittery
prophecies promising kingdoms and glories to come.

A man traveling on wings of early morning light
(this man, that man, the man that a woman is)
suddenly captivated by a group of children gathered
around a fire. Away from this circle an infant
pinned to an oak tree, knives and daggers crucifying
every possibility it managed to bring to this world.

“We’ve learned,” said an elder child,
“to rid ourselves of life before it can hurt us
too bad. That way we hurry up to the next existence
where beauty hopefully will join us.”

“But do you pray before you act? Or have you
taken barbarism for your imam and your prophet?”

“Prayer is a chasm of delusion for the hopeless.
Wouldn’t you agree our good wise brother?”

“No, I would not little brother.”

A volley of blades and arrows cripple his flight.
The man traveling on wings of early morning light
gathers into his soul visions of exultant sorrow
and sorrowful joy. From his spirit blood drops
like petals of night and bright crimson rapture.

The rocks below split like ancient wombs opening
to the language of an unwritten history, to the
lights and music of a city we’ve yet to create.
Six billion people shout one new soul into the universe.
Dawn opens the sky like prayers from a god just waking up.
(from ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love)

Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

More from Aberjhani on National Poetry Month and War in Ukraine
Holiday Letter for a Poet Gone to War Poem with Video
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Angel of Peace 2022
Ukraine, Russia, and the Art of Being Human
Angel of War and the Year 2022
Voices of Poets on War and Peace

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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.

To read part 1 of this article PLEASE CLICK HERE. Part 2 begins now:

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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Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections & renewed hopes (part 2 of 2): illumination

5/4/2018

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That Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love, would prove a challenge to get published had always been known. Potential traditional publishers had no problems admiring its bold creativity and uninhibited spiritual intensity. What most could not accept was something traditionally troublesome when it comes to artists and the marketplace: the financial risks involved.

With all respect to healthy doubts and sensible reservations, so far as Luther and I were concerned the years of energy, labor, and determination already invested in Elemental by the time 2006 rolled around equated to something more than a calculated transactional value. From the perspectives of our deepest meditations and intentions, the completion of Elemental meant contributing to the cultural legacies established by creative artists like those who made possible such movements as Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and the Harlem Renaissance. This last, especially, was one which had already stamped our destinies as Luther had studied with artists of the Harlem Renaissance and I had already co-authored Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.

The center image for this art graphic features the first two stanzas of a poem by Aberjhani from ELEMENTAL (p. 22) titled "Past, Present & Future Are One" based on a Luther E. Vann painting of the same title. The third-eye illustration seen above was drawn by Jason Maurer when the poem was published in the former SCAD newspaper The Georgia Guardian in 1993, 15 years prior to the publication of ELEMENTAL. The combined creative synergy demonstrates how ELEMENTAL has helped to inspire and empower others from the beginning.

But once creative passion and committed partners empowered us to finally produce a physical book, we reached two important conclusions. First: we recognized the need to articulate, both for potential buyers and booksellers, as definitively as we could, the goals and values inherent in Elemental. Secondly: it seemed obvious the work could be adapted for different mediums. These considerations resulted in the following statements:

ILLUMINATED LOVE

1) The vision behind ILLUMINATED LOVE is that human beings and the environments we inhabit are inherently multidimensional in ways that are typically ignored but which can make our lives richer and more fulfilling than generally recognized or consciously experienced.

2) The mission of ILLUMINATED LOVE is to express through visual art, poetry, and music the creative and spiritual harmony that connects shared public spaces with individual need and existence; and, to demonstrate the multidimensional nature of the same.

3) The objective and/or goal of ILLUMINATED LOVE is to provide a product that functions as a source of entertainment, as inspiration, and as an enhanced tool for the study of employing complementary creative genres within an appealing multi-media format.

When envisioning Elemental as a staged musical or as a video production, I described it thus:

...An exploration and documentation of the way human beings occupy public spaces in interpretative contrast to how they experience inner spaces... It illustrates the way collective intention makes communal interaction possible while individual need and impulse maintain the integrity of a person's separate being.

For example, the Luther E. Vann painting "Christ Listening to Stereo" (p. 27) is of a youth on a bus in New York City (please see image below). The image reveals how the youth is at once physically part of a larger setting while remaining, via his personal stereo, completely apart from it. Immersed in his music, he claims a connection to the artist who made the music and who allows him to not only share in the expressed creative passion, but to utilize the same as a kind of soundtrack for his own anticipations, memories, desires, needs, or fears of the moment. Very similar and yet very different scenes are enacted in such public spaces as parks, malls, back yards, office buildings, clubs, and street corners. They all make the individual part of a larger whole even while many individuals continue to exist primarily as isolated fragments of that whole.

The image used for the cover of the novel Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player is from a section of Vann's painting "Christ Listening to Stereo."

From One President and Generation to the Next

Some might consider the timelessness of the project a good thing in regard to aesthetics but then questionable for the way Elemental's implied commentaries on social and political conditions of a decade ago remain relevant today. In this sense, it continues to illuminate how our least and most desirable practices impact humanity's quest for mutually-advantageous coexistence.

Another example: the ebb and flow of dismay and inspiration from the time of publication until now might be seen in criticisms of former President George Bush's administration as the book was heading to the printer in early 2008. Likewise: less that a year later, after its publication, came Barack H. Obama's unprecedented election to the White House followed by eight years of spectacular innovations and shifts in public consensus regarding everything from race relations and gender equality to environmentalism and economic reforms. And now: current POTUS Donald Trump continues to implement policies resulting in a tug of war between the Oval Office and American citizens committed to resistance.

From one president to the next and one generation the next, Elemental has always proposed for leaders and followers alike a path of informed awareness built on common ground:

The states of interaction with one another and estrangement from each other represent states of being, or levels of reality, that the artist seeks to capture and identify in order to understand their possible implications and consequences in the modern world. Social conditions and activities indicate different outcomes. Some appear to thrive in powerful socially rewarding ways—such as economic advancement or political prestige––while others seem to quietly wither away, turning into the infamous "damned souls" of the world existing in states of perpetual despair leading to the destruction of self and others.

In its essence, Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love, maintains we are all on a quest to experience qualities of compassion and acceptance capable of helping to sustain both the individual and the larger society. Because such a journey tends to take place even more within than without, the visual imagery, words, and music of ILLUMINATED LOVE incorporates both levels of that reality.

Admittedly, those words might sound a bit more grandiloquent than intended. That does not mean they are any less sincere or applicable.

Powerful and Cherished Allie

This celebration of the 10th anniversary of a book of art and poetry is not to suggest that such a volume holds the key to solving all the world's very serious problems. It is, however, to suggest that humanity for too long has remained too comfortable investing faith in fear and violence. Student walk-outs in protest against gun violence in their schools, calls for police policy and training reform, the #MeToo movement, and resistance to government policies which threaten to widen even further the gap between "haves and have-nots" prove the need and desire for something more healing and beneficial than relentlessly suffocating trauma.

We celebrate Elemental because it identifies not just a potential but a capability already within our reach. It helps take the edge off the impulse to destroy what we fear to understand and allows sufficient time to remind ourselves of this: Love, Knowledge, and Beauty are not our enemies. Whether dressed up as art, poetry, or a simple smile, they have always been among our most powerful life-sustaining allies.

Aberjhani
© May 2018

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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

National Poetry Month 2022: Taking Flight on Wings of Early Morning Light

Wings of Early Morning Light

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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

Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections & renewed hopes (part 2 of 2): illumination

From One President and Generation to the Next

Powerful and Cherished Allie

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

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

National Poetry Month 2022: Taking Flight on Wings of Early Morning Light

​Wings of Early Morning Light

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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

Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections & renewed hopes (part 2 of 2): illumination

​From One President and Generation to the Next

Powerful and Cherished Allie

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

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

Wings of Early Morning Light

In Conclusion

From One President and Generation to the Next