I have spent the last few days creating a PowerPoint presentation with a dear friend (who is a great writer and should really have her own newsletter). She’s a deep thinker and teacher and exceptionally patient with my Google Slide limitations. My weekend plans had been to finish editing the index for my soon-to-be published book on radical collegiality and educational care (May 2023!), along with the many other writing projects that
and I have going on. I learn, I write, I edit, I share — that is the general process. Said process doesn’t always play out in such a linear fashion but the long game is always to share.The PowerPoint we were asked to put together was for our church’s weekly engagement with and ongoing learning throughout Black History Month. We were given materials that had been used in past years and from there decided to move forward with a new theme: Black Faith, Black Resistance, Black Futures. For years we have both used such themes and associated arts-based texts in our classrooms. But bringing nuanced ideas into a format that translates into a thoughtful takeaway while driving past a church sign on a busy city street? That has taken some time and serious thought! Thus, this weekend’s writing has been a sort of creative pivoting where the end result for me has been much learning. New names. New art. New thinking.
And because sharing is part of my process, here is some of what I learned:
Artist Jan Wade was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. Her work was always strongly influenced by the Black church and often focused on crosses, altar pieces, shrines and memory jugs–vessels of faith, worship and remembrance. She was known to add to her works, changing them over time, “rebuilding the work out of old and new items.”
Brampton born artist and elementary teacher Gordan Shadrach uses his art to speak to themes he explores in his work such as the under-representation of African-Canadians in Canadian culture. Refashion is his reimagining of Louisa Pipkins, a freedom seeker who escaped slavery in the south and ended up working as the laundress for a rich banking family in Toronto. Shadrach has reimagined her as the owner of the historic Spadina house where she worked.
My brilliant friend wrote this next one:
Tina QueenTite Opaleke is a disability rights activist and and the co-founding director of Prosthetics For Foreign Donation. She has a non-apparent disability and is the mother of a child amputee. Her child was initially denied access to an assistive limb because he is Black, but Tina QueenTite challenged the Canadian medical system and, eventually, after a silent protest at a prosthesis clinic, a cast of her son’s leg was taken. When they received the prosthetic leg several weeks later, it was white. The doctor said he did not see colour. Tina QueenTite’s son had to wait another three weeks for the privilege of walking. She has continued to fight for the rights of disabled Black bodies. (The above image is by artist and activist Syrus Marcus Ware).
These names might be new to you. Two of the three were new to me! I learn, I write, I edit, I share. What is your learning process as you move forward into the days and months ahead? I write, yes, and I read. But my pivot is to keep diving deeper into the link-making project that is Good Enough to keep learning. And sharing.