Three Voices

Featuring Marita Dingus, Carletta Carrington Wilson, and Monad Graves Elohim

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BLAC; 15 East Pennington; Tucson, AZ 85701

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About the Artists

Marita Dingus

I consider myself an African-American Feminist and environmental artist. As a child my father would bring his discarded engineering paper home from work so I could use the backsides for drawing paper. In a 1982 visit to a beach in Morocco, a nearby garbage dump with “rats as big as cats” caught my eye, leaving a deep emotional imprint about the vast waste humans produce. I’ve also come to the viewpoint that people of African descent were “used” during the institution of slavery and then callously discarded. The idea of discarding human beings is nothing but wrong.

Therefore, I make art out of discarded materials to express an empowering missive. The goal of my art remains to show how people not only survive but prosper under dire circumstances. From the foundation of my Afro-centricity I shape my art and garments, using repurposed fabric, leather, plastic, and other found objects to create eclectic and inspiring pieces to convey a powerful message about the sustainability of the human spirit.

MARITA DINGUS was born and raised in Washington State. She continues to maintain her childhood home in Auburn where she raises goats, chickens, and two cats. Marita attended parochial school where the nuns encouraged her talents, using mimeographed copies of her drawings as images for her classmates to color. During high school, her brother-in-law questioned why she never drew Black people, awakening her self- consciousness. Marita attended Temple University and studied abroad in Rome, where she was exposed to ancient Roman and Renaissance art. After earning her BFA, Marita enrolled in a study abroad program in Morocco. This first-hand exposure to African art resulted in her changing from painting to sculpture. Marita travels whenever possible to Asia, Africa, Europe and across North and South America, harvesting inspiration and ideas that can be incorporated into her art.

Carletta Carrington Wilson

The narrative threads of Carletta Carrington Wilson’s literary and visual works merge as literary works; artist books, installations and collages mirror the melding of language and form. For Wilson, language is a visual medium, one by which form, shape and color inform an eye and shape a mind. Wilson’s poems peer into a vast unwieldy past to interrogate the role language has played in the creation of the past and the scripting of its future.

Wilson states, I connect threads of thought to lines of descent by exploring a body as a body of text. A text infused with cotton’s print and imprint. Thus, lines lock a life onto a page and breathe into it a body’s breadth. Collages and poems are footprint and handprint of lives that have been denied their story in the great ages of print and sale. What else is left but undefined ancestral lines exploring slavery and its aftermath, connecting an enslaved body to a trade and the laws that govern that trade. And, so defined, a becoming body becomes commodity, becomes anchored to ships with come-thither names of lovers and, yes, to a singular role in commerce by way of production and reproduction on and off the page.

Carletta Carrington Wilson’s installations, mixed-media textile works, artists books and collages have been exhibited at the Seattle Art Fair, Wa Na Wari, CoCA (Center on Contemporary Art), Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, ArtXchange, Kittredge Gallery, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Denver Public Library, Northwest African American Museum, Gallery 110, Columbia City Gallery, Onyx Pacific Place and Gallery Onyx Midtown Square, and Port Angeles Arts Center.

Carrington Wilson is the author of Poem of Stone & Bone: The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days. Her work appears in This Light Called Darkness, Cascadia Zen, Take A Stand: Art Against Hate, Stealing Light, Make It True: Poems from Cascadia, Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century, the African American Review, Calyx, Obsidian III, Raven Chronicles and the Seattle Review.

Monad Graves Elohim

I am a well-established community artist and musician who is dedicated to creating positive thought, art, and music for the public. Many years ago I decided to live my life as an artist and musician. I wanted to create something that would be an effective instrument, to possibly stimulate people positively and subjectively. I wanted to do something to help people create love, peace, and happiness on the earth. Through much meditation and introspection, by creating using the medium of art and music, I have realized that I must practice thinking, loving, positive thoughts and doing loving actions in my relations with other people in my daily life, When I do this I am doing my part to create a better world. By doing so I can make a valuable contribution to the people of the earth, helping to make this world a better place to live, for everyone.

I am trying to pass the torch of love. I am radiating love, peace, and unity to all people. By thinking positive thoughts and doing loving, harmonious actions in the world I am radiating the uplifting vibrational energy of my art and music to the minds and souls of the listeners. I feel that art and music are two of the best mediums that a person can use to communicate with people. Art and music transcend all racial, religious, and ethnic boundaries. Art and music can connect with the soul of a person, stimulating their mind which can help to bring about a positive and lasting peace on earth. My sculptures are about the unity, harmony, love, and oneness of all people. May people see and feel these qualities when they hear and feel my drumming, view my art sculptures, and see my paintings.

Monad