This Podcast Garage community discussion celebrates two award-winning artists, collaborators, and friends: Vusumuzi “Vuzi” Maduna and Ekua Holmes. Their sculptures, masks, and collage-based works are an exploration of ancestral voices, family histories, and the power of hope, faith and self-determination.
Ekua Holmes is a painter and collage artist who uses news clippings, photographs, vibrant color, and skillful composition to infuse her work with energy. Her layered, abstract creations convey a sense of unity and evoke memories that are both personal and universal. In her collages, she revisits the joy and challenges of childhood through adult eyes. These works reexamine the foundational relationships, games, and rule that we learn at an early age and apply throughout our lives. Holmes illustrated \_Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer\_ (2015), written by Carole Boston Weatherford.
Tamar is a Somerville-based art historian and independent radio producer. In the year since The Lonely Palette launched, it's been written-up in WIRED, Paste, and aired on PRX, the CBC, and NPR. She is an adjunct lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and picks a banjo in her spare time.
Edmund Barry Gaither is the founding Director and Curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA), an organization that he developed from a concept to an institution with collections exceeding three thousand objects and a thirty-two year history of exhibitions celebrating the visual arts heritage of black people worldwide. Gaither is also Special Consultant at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston where he has served as curator for eight exhibitions including a ground breaking show in l970, Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston. A world-wide traveler, Gaither has studied and lectured in Europe, Africa, Russia and the Caribbean. He has published many articles and essays and has been a leader In the Museum field. He was the first president of the African American Museums Association. Gaither headed the national committee that commissioned the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and has consulted to the National Endowment for the Arts. Gaither was educated at Morehouse College, Georgia State University and Brown University. Among his many honors is the Commonwealth Award for Organizational Leadership, Massachusetts’ highest award in the arts. Gaither has received honorary doctorates from Northeastern University, Framingham State College and Rhode Island College.