I’m excited to be presenting at the 2024 College Art Association annual conference (in Chicago, IL) as part of the panel “Confronting the Legacy of New Deal Art in the Twenty-First Century" about my research on the People’s Art Center of St. Louis. The session, which is co-chaired by Dr. Erika Doss and Dr. Mary Okin, will take place on Wednesday, February 14 from 2:30-4 p.m.
People's Art Center
Guest lecture at St. Louis University on the People's Art Center
I had the pleasure of giving a guest lecture about my research on the People’s Art Center of St. Louis for Prof. Devin Johnston’s “Folk Modernism” seminar at St. Louis University. My talk involved a broad overview of the WPA/FAP art programs, narration of my process of conducting archival research at numerous local repositories — including the St. Louis Public Library, the Missouri Historical Society, the Missouri State Historical Society, the St. Louis Art Museum, the George B. Vashon Museum, and Washington University’s Special Collections — and a discussion about the challenges of researching subjects/persons historically marginalized by the structural inequities of archives themselves.
Graduate Research Fellowship from The Divided City
I was awarded a 2022 Graduate Summer Research Fellowship from the Divided City: An Andrew W. Mellon-Funded Initiative. This fellowship, issued through the Center for Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, supports interdisciplinary graduate research centered on how segregation in the broad sense has and continues to play out as a set of spatial practices in cities, neighborhoods, and public spaces.
I will use this fellowship to continue my research on The People's Art Center of St. Louis (1942-1965), a community art space founded via the WPA/FAP with a racially integrated mission.