Welcome to our sixth podcast for the year 2010. For the month of July 2010, we are continuing our celebrating our exhibition, Soul Revival: A Poetic and Visual Experience of Renewal. The exhibition is on view at Meroe Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland until August 1, 2010.
This exciting exhibition features emerging artists and poets based the DC/Baltimore Metropolitan area on the theme of “Soul Revival.” What do we mean by revival? We are speaking of revival of the soul, spirit, neighborhood, community, nation, and even the world. The result is a eclectic visual range of artistic expression, ranging from realism to abstract and everything in between! Selected works from the visual artists work has been paired with a poet/ spoken word artist who developed a poem that expresses their view about the art. Their contributions are an integral part of the exhibition, resulting in an innovative creative representation from a variety of artists–literary and visual– of the meaning of Soul Revival.
During this podcast, which is part two of a two part series on the exhibition, we talked to two participants of this exhibition, visual artist J’Nell Jordan and poet/songstress Stephanie Renee.
Artist J'Nell Jordan (photo courtesy of J'Nell Jordan)
J'Nell Jordan poses next to Mirage oil and acrylic on masonite board, 24 x 48
"LH" by J'Nell Jordan - oil and acrylic on masonite
J’Nell Jordan is an emerging artist working out of the DC Metropolitan area. She was born and raised in Northern Virginia. She attended Adelphi University in New York on a visual arts talent scholarship and received her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in 2009. She has since shown her work at Gallery 788 and Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, Maryland and Soundry in Virginia. She was recently recognized on the online art gallery artscenetoday.com as the 2nd Place Winner and Merit Award winner for the My Personal Best Art Contest. Visit her website http://www.jnelljordan.com and her blog http://impressionsinfluence.wordpress.com for more information.
Stephanie Renee (photo courtesy of Stephanie Renee)
Stephanie Renee’s passion for writing is both inherited and well-groomed. Descending from a long line of college professors and ministers, she has a genetic predisposition for composing lyrical passages and poetic metaphors. As a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, her first English instructor was none other than Obama inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander. No stranger to the music world, Stephanie’s voice first introduced to mainstream audiences through her inclusion on Who is Jill Scott: Words and Sounds Vol. 1 and Patti LaBelle’s When A Woman Loves CD. In 2004, she became the lead female vocalist and lyrical collaborator with NJ-based production company Steal Vybe, and together they have released a string of critically-acclaimed dance singles, which earned her a vocal residency for Ministry of Sound Sinagpore.
As a respected media mogul, Stephanie pours her dynamic energies into the expansion of her non-profit arts education foundation Soul Sanctuary and her creative services company Creator’s Child Productions, among a wide variety of other performance and educational endeavors. She recently moved back home to her native Washington, Dc, but maintains a presence in the Philadelphia arts and culture scene. View the poem she composed for Soul Revival here. And visit her website at http://www.stephanierenee.com.
Down load and listen to the conversation here (or the podcast player on the right column of this blog).
