Aiming for Freedom: Race, Reparations, and Right Paths

Co-facilitated with three Black feminist visual artists, the “Aiming for Freedom” arts-based workshop is a multiracial space for the bold visioning of our shared liberation through the development of individual and collective art works.

Acknowledging the essential yet marginalized position of art and artists in the public discourse on racial repair, this workshop provides participants to be guided in an artistic exploration of our freedom. Recognizing the importance of a material investment in art and artists, a minimum collective commitment of $10K in reparations from registrants is required for the workshop to take place.

Participants will enjoy art instruction, artist talks, and discussion about the artistic path to liberation in this week-long immersive experience. Registrants are encouraged to make pledges of any amount based on ability and inspiration. Ninety percent of pledged money will support the facilitating artists and ten percent will provide scholarships for Café Darkness writing workshops for people of color.

Leader(s)

K. Melchor Quick Hall is the author of Naming a Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness and the co-editor, with Gwyn Kirk, of Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. She is a popular educator who works with students of all ages. Melchor is also the Interim Executive Director of African American Education & Research Organization (AAERO) and Melchor-Quick Meeting House (MQMH), both organizations founded by her mother. Through Pendle Hill, she co-facilitates an annual writing workshop for people of color and a reparations workshop for US-based, white inheritors of wealth.

Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla is an artist committed to radical social change. She promotes visual art as a vital element in the struggle for human rights, and in the creation of new ways of living. Her own practice is primarily sculpture, illustration, and mixed media. Her community collaborations are mainly murals, mosaics, and workshops. She has directed murals across Boston, and assisted with mural projects with Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program and New York City’s El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice and Groundswell Community Mural Project. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master of Art in Teaching from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Read more about her work at https://www.facebook.com/Darrell-Ann-Gane-McCalla-119251458102737/.

Marla Lenore McLeod holds a Bachelor’s degree from Southern Connecticut State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. McLeod explores black identity and social constructs through her portrait paintings, textiles, and sculptures. Her MFA thesis made her a featured artist on the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2020 Takeover Fridays social media project, the 2020 Area Code Art Fair StoreFronts Projects, and one of the Boston Globe’s “5 Outstanding Art School Grads.” In 2019, she received the Will and Elena Barnet Painting Award, a Tisch Library Graduate Research Fellowship, and presented at Black Portraitures, NYU.  McLeod co-curated the Special Exhibitions section of the 2020 Area Code Art Fair and is currently an Adjunct Professor at SCSU and a Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow at the SMFA at Tufts University. Read more about her work at https://www.marlamcleod.com/.

Destiny Palmer is currently working at Thayer Academy and most recently was an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Palmer is trained as a painter, but her work explores the intersections of painting, history, and color, allowing it to blur the lines of painting, sculpture, and installation. Palmer explores and investigates what it means to be an artist, educator, and advocate for the arts. She has worked with various communities to create public art projects ranging from traditional murals to community engaged/lead mural to digitally created murals. Creating art in public realms has been a focus for Destiny; she received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Destiny is co-founder of Traditions Remixed, an artist collective whose goal is to create a supportive community for young artists, especially artists of color, encouraging collaboration and networking. Read more about her work at https://www.destinypalmerstudio.com/.

Financial aid may be available. If you are seeking funds to participate in this program, click to review and complete our Financial Assistance Application and a Pendle Hill staff member will follow-up with you shortly (please do NOT register online). Thank you for your interest.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Please make sure to review our health and safety expectations at https://pendlehill.org/stay/covid-19-information/.