{"id":13095,"date":"2018-06-27T17:35:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T21:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/?p=13095"},"modified":"2020-12-17T10:58:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T15:58:24","slug":"three-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/african-american-heritage\/three-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michelle Black-Smith
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the spring of 2018, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with three unique, creative, and insightful people.\u00a0 These individuals inhabit all four spaces \u2013 Black, Woman, Artist, Bridgeport Native \u2013 and they do so with great pride, expression and articulation through their various art forms and discussion. \u00a0We watched a vocal interpretation of Nina Simone\u2019s tour de force Four Women <\/em>performed by Dianne Reeves, Angelique Kidjo, Lizz Wright and Nina\u2019s daughter, Simone before the start of our discussion.\u00a0 This article might have been titled Two Women<\/em>.\u00a0 I had to convince Wendy Bridgeforth that despite her near twenty-year hiatus from the professional art scene, she belonged in the circle.\u00a0 Ina Anderson and Shanna Melton are artists whose works are established in Bridgeport, the state of Connecticut, and beyond.\u00a0 \u00a0Anderson and Melton share both a professional and personal relationship, having collaborated on projects, supported each other\u2019s endeavors, and embraced one another as friends.\u00a0 Bridgeforth knew of Anderson and Melton\u2019s works, but was not acquainted with either woman.\u00a0 It is my pleasure to present:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Wendy Bridgeforth<\/strong> – visual artist.\u00a0 She grew up on the East End of Bridgeport.\u00a0 She attended the Silvermine College of Art in 1970, and later studied graphic arts.\u00a0 Bridgeforth is an original instructor of the A.B.C.D. Cultural Arts Center (affectionately known as the Art Center), a vibrant cultural center active in Bridgeport during the 1970s and mid-1980s.\u00a0 She is an award recipient of the P.T. Barnum Festival juried art competition.\u00a0 She took a nearly twenty-year hiatus from the profession of art to raise her relatives\u2019 children, working at various jobs including custodian for the Bridgeport Board of Education.\u00a0 Bridgeforth is an early childhood art instructor at one of the longest running daycare centers in the city of Bridgeport, cementing her more than four- decade career of instructing various age groups with an emphasis on children\u2019s art education.\u00a0 She enjoys painting by the water at Seaside Park.<\/li>\n
  2. Ina Alisa Anderson<\/strong> \u2013 singer, writer, director, playwright. She was raised in Father Panik Village, and attended Waltersville, East Side Middle School and Harding High School.\u00a0 Anderson retired with the rank of Lieutenant from the Bridgeport Fire Department.\u00a0 She is a minister at Mount Aery Baptist Church.\u00a0 She has both performed and directed productions of the Maafa<\/em>, commemorating the holocaust of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.\u00a0 She is the founder and CEO of Emerging Voices Production Company, specializing in the writing and production of community theater.<\/li>\n
  3. Shanna Tanika Melton<\/strong> \u2013 poet, painter, art consultant, educator. She was born in Bridgeport, moved to California, and returned to the city, where she grew up on the North End.\u00a0 She attended Wilbur Cross and Central High School.\u00a0 Melton continued her education at Housatonic Community College, Southern Connecticut State College, and Northeastern University.\u00a0 She is the creator of The Writer\u2019s Group, and is a frequent curator of events such as the Lyrical Voices Night of Poetry & Arts.\u00a0 Melton\u2019s work has received city, state and national recognition.\u00a0 Her portrait of Kalief Browder<\/em> was featured in both African Voices <\/em>magazine, and in a documentary of the young man produced by Jay-Z.\u00a0 \u00a0Melton is the Producer\/Director of Maafa 2018<\/em>.\u00a0 Her art work is currently on view in an exhibition documenting the Freeman Little Liberia Houses at Housatonic Community College.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    During the course of our conversation, the three expounded on topics including whether artists have a role in society, how to find the creative communities in Bridgeport, and if it is relevant and\/or unique to be a Black woman artist in Bridgeport?\u00a0 Another question at the table \u2013 can an artist stop being an artist?\u00a0\u00a0 Following are thoughts on and excerpts from the conversation:<\/p>\n

    WB<\/strong>: On early influences<\/p>\n

    I never saw Bridgeport as being cultural or an arts scene.\u00a0 When I initially, you know, my little [inaudible], this was before all the government programs.\u00a0 \u2018Cause the only thing that was here in the city of Bridgeport was Parks and Recreation.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I started to explore creativity.\u00a0\u00a0 Right here at Newfield Park, that\u2019s when I started to explore creativity by arts and crafts.\u00a0 One of the park leaders saw that I was interested in art and, like I say, I was very na\u00efve, and I was in a restricted household.\u00a0 I mean, my mother was like this \u2013 when she said whatever, we did.\u00a0 So, she never saw the worth in it.\u00a0 I pursued something that I just had the strong desire that I was going to get into. \u00a0And later on I found out my favorite artists, but usually I had to sit in a room where I was the only Black person.\u00a0 Which was very hard to do, and be creative.\u00a0 Sometimes the teachers didn\u2019t even know what to say to what style of work I was producing.\u00a0 So, later on when the programs came in, like A.B.C.D., when they put the Art Center, when they put that program together, and they had Out Bridge [sic<\/em>, referencing Youth Bridge], the drama [referencing the Drama Club], that\u2019s when it started for me.\u00a0 When the artists came through the Art Center.<\/p>\n

    STM<\/strong>: On responsibility and representation<\/p>\n

    I always feel like I have the obligation to tell stories of people of color through my art because we don\u2019t get that enough.\u00a0 So, there\u2019s been this guilt about just wanting to paint a water scene.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 [Laughs] Or even, maybe, a lack of interest or feeling that it\u2019s archaic because it\u2019s not enough.\u00a0 But it is enough.\u00a0 There\u2019s this need for every day, mundane images of people of color that are not just revolution, maybe just chillin\u2019, that is lacking.\u00a0 And, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s necessarily lacking, but it\u2019s not as visible as, like, a Black Panther.\u00a0 You know what I mean?\u00a0 But it\u2019s necessary because we do just sit in circles, or we do just get up and look out the window.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t get captured.<\/p>\n

    IAA<\/strong>: On early impressions and expressions<\/p>\n

    In the earlier years, my mother\u2019s sisters and brothers were Philadelphianites.\u00a0 I spent a lot of time in Philly.\u00a0 I have a cousin who\u2019s now deceased, Edward Chambers, \u201cSpanky\u201d he was called in the industry.\u00a0 Wonderful guitar player.\u00a0 He had the pleasure of playing all across the country, around the world, and in different genres, and we would get together, just cut up and experiment, and just do what it was that we did.\u00a0 The street that my aunt lived on, 28th<\/sup> Street, there were singers.\u00a0 Like the Three Degrees, you know, they would come to the house and we would go down to the basement and have jam sessions.\u00a0 We would end up going to Uptown Theater.\u00a0 Aunt Pearl would have everybody at her house after the shows were over.\u00a0 You get to just meet artists, and people.\u00a0 A lot of that stuff, I think, when I was young I just kinda took it for granted that this is what people do.\u00a0 Later on, I always found myself strange.\u00a0 We grew up in Father Panik, but inside our house was very Southern.\u00a0 The floors were always very shiny.\u00a0 My mother always kept the apartment very immaculate.\u00a0 We would do stuff like go out, get chickens, and pull the eggs [feathers?] from the chickens.\u00a0 Just crazy stuff!\u00a0 Inside the house!\u00a0 But from that, music, whether it was jazz and John Coltrane, and whether it was R&B, and when funk came out, and you know, the biggest challenge I had was how am I gonna say this word in the presence of my Mom and get away with it\u2026 Probably, when I was about 17, I started writing.\u00a0 We would enter into pageants and stuff, and speaking, doing spoken word was how I got to see all of the East Coast and Canada, and going out West.\u00a0 Just because of being a part of the movement.\u00a0 And that was always what I told, I told what I knew.\u00a0 Just a rebel at all times.<\/p>\n

    Wendy, Ina and Shanna are practicing artists in the city of Bridgeport.\u00a0 You might see them in production at the Klein, at the mic in one of the city\u2019s galleries, or painting by the sea.\u00a0 Each embodies in her work, and her approach to it an affirmation of the question I posed to each at the close of our discussion.\u00a0 \u201cIs there something unique or special about being a Black woman artist in Bridgeport?\u201d\u00a0 I end this article with a quote from Shanna<\/p>\n

    STM<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

    As an artist, I have the opportunity to offer the alternate perspective, the alternate reality \u2013 my reality.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve actually struggled a lot in the recent months with the conversation of \u201cis advocacy as an artist sufficient or are you required on some level to be an activist at the same time?\u201d\u00a0 Because there\u2019s a lot of people I see who are fine with just the advocacy.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve always known myself to be an activist through my art on some level.\u00a0 Especially as you get older you don\u2019t have the energy for a lot of the stuff [Laughs] because the Chronic Black Fatigue can get real.\u00a0 You kinda play with the idea of \u201cIs advocacy enough now?\u201d\u00a0 Do I make room for other people, how I make room, and then you see some ignorance blow up and you\u2019re like \u201cOh, God\u201d here I have to go.\u00a0 And I know that\u2019s how generations before me have felt.\u00a0 And so there is a point where you sort of have to let go, and let the world do what it\u2019s going to do \u2018cause it\u2019s going to do it regardless.\u00a0 But I think it\u2019s a blessing as a creative person to be able to add your voice and your perspective and what you know to the conversation.\u00a0 And when we\u2019re not here anymore, they\u2019re going to do what they want to do with it anyway, but at least you\u2019ve said it.\"\"<\/p>\n

    Note: Special thanks to Frankie White, Executive Director of the St. Mark\u2019s Day Care Center for allowing us space within her facility to host the discussion.<\/p>\n

    N.B: The circle affirmed unanimously that Wendy Bridgeforth\u2019s lifetime membership as an artist is in good standing, no matter the hiatus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Michelle Black-Smith In the spring of 2018, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with three unique, creative, and insightful people.\u00a0 These individuals inhabit all four spaces \u2013 Black, Woman, Artist, Bridgeport Native \u2013 and they do so with great pride, expression and articulation through their various art forms and discussion. \u00a0We watched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":13104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,6,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-american-heritage","category-art","category-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13095"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13122,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13095\/revisions\/13122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}