Scott Carey is losing weight. He does not look any different, but his weight loss is steady and relentless, regardless of his efforts. This condition cannot be medically explained. As he comes to terms with this condition, Scott confronts some of his own prejudices, and those apparent in the town of Castle Rock. Read this book and find out how Scott helps make Castle Rock a better community.
Find uplifting books in the Popular Reading Collection!
(Left) African American Communist Party pamphlet collection.(Right) Alpha Kappa Alpha pamphlets,
the first African American women’s sorority in the United States.
The Archives & Special Collections will host an open house today, February 26, from 3:00 to 5:00 in honor of Black History Month. We will have items related to the African American experience available for viewing. Some materials that will be on display include university records related to fraternity desegregation in the 1960s and the history of the African American Studies department, rare books, and artists’ books. We will also have pamphlets from our African American Communist Party pamphlet collection and our NAACP pamphlet collection available for viewing, and a selection of zines from the Collins Library Zine collection.
Zines from the Collins Library
Zine collection.
The Archives & Special Collections is located on the 2nd floor of the Collins Library. All are welcome!
The Archives & Special Collections has drop-in hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM or is open by appointment.
By Laura Edgar, Assistant Archivist
Collins Library is pleased to welcome Erin Zona, Artistic Director at Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. Erin received her M.F.A. from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2009 and a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute in 2002. Erin will be showing recent artists’ books created by artists affiliated with the workshop.
Women’s Studio Workshop envisions a society where women’s visual art is integral to the cultural mainstream and permanently recorded in history.
Their mission is to operate and maintain an artists’ workspace that encourages the voice and vision of individual women artists, provides professional opportunities for artists at various stages of their careers, and promotes programs designed to stimulate public involvement, awareness, and support for the visual arts.
For more information visit Erin’s Website: www.erinzona.com or the Women’s Studio Website: https://wsworkshop.org/
Be a Maker! The perfect way to end the Logger Day Challenge – pop into the Makerspace and learn about the new equipment and resources. Make a button to show Logger Pride, see our laser cutter in action, make a beautiful felt flower for your office, or experience 19th century technology by printing a unique one of a kind keepsake on our newly restored Iron Hand Press!
During the month of February, in celebration of Black History Month, Collins Library will be featuring posts on some of the men celebrated in the traveling exhibition “Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.” currently on display at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. Men of Change opened December 21, 2019 and will close March 15, 2020. The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service developed the exhibit and maintains a website with additional information on the highlighted men.
The Men of Change are arranged by seven themes: Storytellers, Myth-Breakers, Fathering, Community, Imagining, Catalysts, and Loving. Artists were invited to interpret each of the men in portraits that are as diverse as the African-Americans they represent.
COMMUNITY
Represent.
[Dr. Rob Gore], date unknown.
Image Courtesy of Dr. Rob Gore.
We will never die (Goldlink) [Dr. Rob Gore], 2018.
Tariku Shiferaw. Courtesy of the artist.
After becoming a physician in his native Brooklyn, Dr. Rob Gore saw that a healing was needed—one that went beyond the practicalities of medicine and tapped into the power of community.
Believing that violence is an endemic public health problem, in 2008 Gore founded the Kings Against Violence Initiative (KAVI). The nonprofit offers alternatives to the number of at-risk youths who Gore found himself treating in the ER after they’d become victims of the violence that pervaded their neighborhoods. According figures cited by the Ted Residency program in 2016, the No. 1 cause of death among African-American men 15 to 34 is homicide. Through KAVI, Gore offers group mentoring, teacher training, therapeutic response to victims, leadership camps, conflict de-escalation training, and more. The trauma that has been inflicted upon his community has inspired Dr. Rob Gore to empower a generation of young adults to take hold of their potential and heal their world. KAVI’s mission is grounded in the belief that “young people are our greatest hope for a more just and peaceful world. When we partner with our communities to invest in our youth, we understand their challenges and can work to change the course of historical inequities, tackling critical social issues such as different forms of violence. Only when ALL youth are treated with compassion and given opportunities to thrive, can we ensure that all communities are vibrant and successful.”
Dr. Gore was an inaugural Ted Resident in 2016. The TED Residency program is an incubator for breakthrough ideas. It is free and open to all via a semi-annual competitive application. Those chosen as TED Residents spend four months at TED headquarters in New York City, working on their idea. Selection criteria include the strength of their idea, their character, and their ability to bring a fresh perspective and positive contribution to the diverse TED community. In 2018, he was named a CNN Hero.
Portrait Artist: Tariku Shiferaw
Tariku Shiferaw was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in Los Angeles, CA, and presently lives and works in New York City. Through his ongoing body of work titled, “One of These Black Boys,” Shiferaw explores mark-making in order to address the physical and metaphysical spaces of painting and societal structures. He is a current participant of Open Sessions at The Drawing Center and an artist in residence at the LES Studio Program.
Bio from artist website
In a masterful work of suspense brimming with lies, seduction and intrigue, this fast-paced novel is a twisty psychological thriller about status and revenge in Savannah, Georgia.
Thrillers abound in the Popular Reading Collection!
During the month of February, in celebration of Black History Month, Collins Library will be featuring posts on some of the men celebrated in the traveling exhibition “Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.” currently on display at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. Men of Change opened December 21, 2019 and will close March 15, 2020. The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service developed the exhibit and maintains a website with additional information on the highlighted men.
The Men of Change are arranged by seven themes: Storytellers, Myth-Breakers, Fathering, Community, Imagining, Catalysts, and Loving. Artists were invited to interpret each of the men in portraits that are as diverse as the African-Americans they represent.
Imagining: Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin and Cleveland Robinson, photograph by Orlando Fernandez, 1963. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. Library of Congress, prints and Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-DIG-ppmsca-35538, left; Finding Bayard aka Double or Nothing [Bayard Rustin], 2018. Sissòn. Courtesy of Stephanie Bridger and artist Sissòn, right.
As a young man, he was involved in the founding of CORE, the Congress for Racial Equality, and studied and incorporated nonviolent tactics in his protest of Jim Crow laws. In 1947, Rustin and George Houser, one of the founders of CORE, organized the Journey of Reconciliation, the first of the Freedom Rides, that tested the Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation on interstate transportation was unconstitutional. As a result of his actions, Rustin was arrested in North Carolina and served twenty-two days on a chain gang. In 1953, Rustin was arrested in California for having sex with two men in a parked car. He pled guilty to a charge of sex perversion (sodomy) and served sixty days in jail. In January 2020, California State Senator Scott Wiener, chair of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, and Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, called for Governor Gavin Newsom to issue a posthumous pardon for Rustin’s arrest for having sex with men, citing Rustin’s legacy as a civil rights icon. Newsom issued the pardon on February 5 while also announcing a new process for fast-tracking pardons for those convicted under historical laws that made homosexuality illegal.
As one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Rustin worked with Martin Luther King Jr. to bring about the boycott of Montgomery’s segregated buses in 1956 and introduced King to Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance, something that had been absent from King’s arsenal prior to their partnership. Rustin’s crowning achievement as an activist was organizing the People’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. King was forever memorialized for his “I Have a Dream” speech. However, because of his past membership in the Communist Party and his homosexuality, NAACP Chairman Roy Wilkins insisted that Rustin not receive any public credit for his work. Over time, Rustin’s name faded from the storied ranks of civil rights movement icons.
Bayard Rustin died on August 24, 1987 of a perforated appendix. Six years later, on August 8, 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award in the United States, on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The citation in the press release stated:
Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all. An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights.
Portrait Artist: Sissòn
Sissòn (b. 1986) is a non-binary, self-taught American artist. Their work reveals and questions the experiences and social constructs of race, identity, and power. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Glendale, Arizona, Sissòn began their creative curriculum at age seven under the tutelage of their mother, Kimberlin. When she passed away in 2006, Sissòn abandoned their practice for almost a decade. They returned in 2015, creating work that would form the basis of their first solo show, Ivory, Gold, Slaves. Sissòn continues to eschew the gallery system, showing independently in New York and Los Angeles where they live and work.
Artist bio and photograph from Smithsonian site.
Exhibit photographs by Angela Weaver, 2020.
“Acclaimed historian Gretchen Sorin reveals how the car – the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility – has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road.”
Read this and more non-fiction from the Popular Reading Collection!
Photographs courtesy of Marquand Editions.
The artists’ book One Tree, by environmental scientist Gretchen C. Daily and photographer Charles J. Katz, describes how one relict tree, the Ceiba pentandra, located in the village of Sabalito, Costa Rica, carries physical and spiritual importance far out into the world. In poetic language interwoven with scientific fact, Daily describes the historical and natural history of this tree and its species. Katz’s photographs of the tree and the village of Sabalito amplify this message.
The Archives & Special Collections has many artists’ books related to environmental issues. If you are interested in seeing them, come by during our drop-in hours or schedule an appointment with us!
The Archives & Special Collections has drop-in hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM or is open by appointment.
By Laura Edgar, Assistant Archivist
During the month of February, in celebration of Black History Month, Collins Library will be featuring posts on some of the men celebrated in the traveling exhibition “Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.” currently on display at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. Men of Change opened December 21, 2019 and will close March 15, 2020. The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service developed the exhibit and maintains a website with additional information on the highlighted men.
The Men of Change are arranged by seven themes: Storytellers, Myth-Breakers, Fathering, Community, Imagining, Catalysts, and Loving. Artists were invited to interpret each of the men in portraits that are as diverse as the African-Americans they represent.
(Right) Kendrick Lamar, photograph by Andrew Lih, 2018.
Myth-Breakers: Kendrick Lamar
African-American musician Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 LP Damn became the first Hip-Hop album to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Music, recognized by the awards organization as being “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” Hailing from Compton, CA, Lamar rose to mainstream prominence with his second studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which won the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2016. Damn, in addition to the Pulitzer Prize, also won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. In total, The Recording Academy has awarded Kendrick Lamar thirteen gilded gramophones. His explosive performance at the 58th Grammy Awards became one of the cultural touchstones of 2016. Lamar was also responsible for curating the soundtrack for the 2018 Marvel film, Black Panther, directed by another of the exhibition’s Myth-Breakers, Ryan Coogler.
Photograph of Kendrick Lamar by Christopher Polk. Figure in the Urban Landscape #25
(portrait of Kendrick Lamar) [Kendrick Lamar], 2018. Derrick Adams. Courtesy of the artist.
Bio and photograph from artist website;
photograph by Mark Poucher.
Portrait Artist: Derrick Adams
Derrick Adams is a Baltimore-born, Brooklyn, New York-based artist whose critically admired work spans painting, collage, sculpture, performance, video, and sound installations. His multidisciplinary practice engages the ways in which individuals’ ideals, aspirations, and personae become attached to specific objects, colors, textures, symbols, and ideologies. His work probes the influence of popular culture on the formation of self-image, and the relationship between man and monument as they coexist and embody one another. Adams is also deeply immersed in questions of how African American experiences intersect with art history, American iconography, and consumerism.
*Burton, Justin Adams. “ “Cheap and Easy Radicalism” The Legible Politics of Kendrick Lamar,” Posthuman Rap. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2017. Web. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190235451.001.0001/oso-9780190235451-chapter-3
*Exhibit photographs by Angela Weaver, 2020.
