Black History Month
In 1976 during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial, President Gerald Ford designated the month of February to celebrate and recognize African American History, calling Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” This month-long celebration came 50 years after Harvard historian Carter G. Woodson (“Father of Black History”) announced in 1925 that the second week of February would be “Negro History Week.” The significance behind selecting the month of February for these celebrations coincided with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs, and host performances and lectures celebrating prominent Black voices throughout American history.
It is our responsibility to keep up the fight for equity, equality, and social justice, and it is ARCK’s goal to provide under-resourced students with opportunities that allow them to creatively express themselves and build their confidence to become innovative, socially-minded leaders who will fight for a better tomorrow. We believe human connections are rooted in creativity, and art is a human right. We must first start by giving the gift of creativity to light up the path of our students, ignite their inner spark to learn, and lead as agents of change.
While we recognize the significance of Black history, we also aim to highlight today’s inspiring Black voices. We want to call attention to artists with whom you can engage right now, making active steps towards a more inclusive society. There are many incredible Black artists in the Greater Boston area (and beyond!) who are dedicated to making a difference in their communities. Below are just a few of those artists who are inspiring others by using creativity to express their own unique perspectives.
Meet Artists Making a Difference in Boston TODAY
Ayana Mack is a Visual Artist & Senior Graphic Designer from Boston, MA. For nearly ten years Ayana has worked with early-stage and established businesses/organizations. With a focus on brand development, print marketing, merchandise, product design & more.
As an artist, she creates bright and texture-rich work to enrich communities and uplift individuals. Inspired by personal experiences, Black culture, and self-love, she shares essential messages through art while inspiring others to discover their passion. She recently instructed a paint party for middle school girls at the Let Me Lead Girls Conference which met at Brooke High School last fall to provide a space for dialogue among young women of color in the Boston area.
Carlos Freire: “Greetings! ✌I am a multidisciplinary designer/art director/illustrator/human who advocates for ethical representation within the arts. I am driven to serve as a catalyst for cultural impact in design and in the community at large, as well as problem solve with a refreshing perspective.”
Freire’s designs have been featured by Cumberland Farms, Evolved by Nature, a sustainable green chemistry company based in Medford, and even beyond the Boston area by Apple music.
Learn more about Carlos at https://www.carlos-freire.com/
Delmeshia Haynes is an educator, healer, Wrapologist, and entrepreneur. She is part of a mother-daughter team with Imani (Faith) McFarlane.
She is currently the Operational Manager and Headwrap Stylist at House of Tafari Collection and Tafari Wraps, a holistic Afro-Diasporian lifestyle brand. She directs the business’s marketing and branding initiatives, accounting and delivery logistics, event coordination, and photoshoot and set styling, all while centering her work around outreach and education about the ancestral practice of head wrapping.
A community leader, she has years of experience in academic case management, supervising staff and working with at-risk youth in various neighborhoods from West Harlem to Chinatown. Delmeshia also holds a certificate of accreditation from NYU’s SPS in restaurant management and has spent the last seven years as a server at several luxury NYC restaurants, catering companies, and private events for the celebrity elite.
A plant mother and deep believer in the healing power of sustainability and ancient spiritual wisdom, Delmeshia seeks to bring her passion for fabrics, food, farming, community, and ancestral lineage to all aspects of her life and work. She earned a BA in Africana Studies from New York University and is now based in Boston.
Imani (Faith) McFarlane is an internationally-acclaimed designer and educator with over 40 years of experience in high-end fashion, interior decorating, and sustainable home goods. She is the founder of the House of Tafari Collection (HOTC) and Tafari Wraps, a holistic luxury head wrap and home décor brand steeped in African diasporic traditions. McFarlane spent her early career designing couture fashion for Miss Universe and Miss World beauty pageants, and has shown her work on runways in Boston, New York, London, Lima, and Jamaica. For nearly a decade after, she worked as an interior design consultant and decorator, trained in some of Boston’s most prestigious high-end showrooms. In 2006, McFarlane founded the House of Tafari Collection (HOTC) to bring African and Caribbean influences on fashion and the home goods market. HOTC joins African landscapes, ancestral healing practices, and the vibrancy of the Caribbean with the design and creation of ready-to-wear and couture headwraps and accessories, Wearable Art pieces, and high-end home Décor.
Today, McFarlane facilitates workshops on the art and fashion of African head wrapping, or “Wrapshops,” at retail establishments, hair salons, festivals, medical and educational institutes from Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Mass College of Art and Design to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her Wrapshops have been endorsed by the American Cancer Society, Massachusetts Cancer Coalition, and the Lupus Foundation of New England, and her headwraps have been continuously named as a resource for women thriving through cancer in Exhale Lifestyle Magazine and Boston Magazine. Additionally, her workshop Creating Textiles with Adinkra Symbols is an immersive program sharing the artistic practice of Adinkra using hand-carved Adinkra Stamps.
McFarlane holds a degree in Fashion Merchandising from Fisher College, where she served as a goodwill ambassador. She lives and works in Boston Seaport.
Elisa H. Hamilton is a socially engaged multimedia artist who creates inclusive artworks that emphasize shared spaces and the hopeful examination of our everyday places, objects, and experiences. She holds a BFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and an MA in Civic Media from Emerson College. Her work has been shown locally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions and she has been the recipient of four public art grants to create temporary public works in Boston's Fort Point neighborhood, as well as two grants from New England Foundation for the Arts. Hamilton has held artist residencies with Vermont Studio Center, Boston Center for the Arts, the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, and the Fenway Alliance. Her interactive community projects include Sound Lab, a special community sound project created for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Community Legacy, a collaboration with the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Slideshow, co-presented by HUBweek and Now+There, and Jukebox, a percent-for-art public art commission for the Cambridge Foundry, Cambridge, MA.
Learn more about Elisa at www.ElisaHHamilton.com or on Instagram and Twitter @ElisaHHamilton
Marlon Forrester, born in Guyana, South America, is an artist and educator raised in Boston, MA. Forrester is a graduate of School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, B.A 2008 and Yale School of Art, M.F.A. 2010. He is a resident artist at African-American Masters Artist Residency Program (AAMARP) adjunct to the Department of African-American Studies in association with Northeastern University. He has shown both internationally and nationally, concerned with the corporate use of the black body, or the body as logo, Forrester’s paintings, drawings, sculptures, and multimedia works reflect meditations on the exploitation implicit in the simultaneous apotheosis and fear of the muscular black figure in America. Recently, Forrester shared his own words in a poem called “If Pain” expressed through movement in a collaboration with others in the Celebrity Series of Boston to create a piece called “Black Voices Boston.”
We want to thank all our participating artists for sharing their stories with us!
There are some truly incredible artists right in our backyards working to bring beauty and inclusivity to our community. We at ARCK admire these artists’ work and are proud to have such role models for our students to emulate.
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