This week, "Art and Soul" focuses on the local visual arts. WEMU's Lisa Barry and state and local arts leader Omari Rush talk with Avery Williamson, who works with many different types of materials to weave and paint and write blending her love of history, especially the history of Black women in this country.
Avery Williamson weaves, paints, draws, and writes using yarn wool and paints and works with archival materials blending her love of history with an exploration of materials to create different works of art. She says working during a pandemic has been therapeutic for her but also challenging. She says she has had to reorient to what is possible now but believes there are a lot of possibilities to be creative moving forward.
Williamson says her work has also considered and centered around Black women and the recent external dialogue has pushed her in some ways to dig even deeper into some of these themes coming from her own neighborhood.
She says anti-Blackness is very present in the air, and as a Black female artist, she would like to believe there will be more opportunities looking ahead.
Check out all of Williamson's work on her official website, or follow her onInstagram.
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— Lisa Barry is the host of All Things Considered on WEMU. You can contact Lisa at 734.487.3363, on Twitter @LisaWEMU, or email her at lbarryma@emich.edu