G A L L E R Y P E T ER B L U M

JOYCE J. SCOTT PETER BLUM GALLERY

JOYCE J. SCOTT Current as of June 2021

Born 1948, Baltimore, Maryland Lives and works in Baltimore, MD

EDUCATION

1976 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME 1971 Instituto Allende, San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico (MFA) 1970 Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (BFA)

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018 What Next and Why Not, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY Open Spaces: ‘Araminta’ by Joyce J. Scott, Union Station Kansas City, Kansas City, MO Joyce J. Scott: It's Still Happening in 2018, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD 2017 Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township, NJ 2016 Joyce J. Scott: Generations, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD (Catalogue) Baker Artist Award: Joyce J. Scott, Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Joyce J. Scott, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA 2015 Joyce J. Scott: Truths & Visions, Sarah Moody Gallery, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL Joyce J. Scott: Truths and Visions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH 2014 Can’t We All Just Get Along?, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD (Catalogue) Maryland to Murano: Neckpieces and Sculptures by Joyce J. Scott, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY 2012 On Kilter, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD (Catalogue) Joyce J. Scott: A Solo Exhibition of Prints, Film, and Performance, The Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD 2011 Prospect .2, Joyce J. Scott, Dillard University, New Orleans, LA Prospect .2, Joyce J. Scott, Newcomb Gallery at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 2010 Li’l Lies and Purty Thangs, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD (Catalogue) 2010 McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, NC The Wine Dark Sea, The Mitchell Gallery at St. John's College, Annapolis, MD Love Letters, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA 2009 Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women, and Art, UC San Diego University Art Gallery, San Diego, CA Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women, and Art, Tijuana Cultural Center Tijuana, Mexico 2008 Joyce J. Scott: PAINFUL DEATH/PAINLESS LIFE, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD (Catalogue) Joyce J. Scott in Tampa, Scarfone/Hartley Gallery, Tampa University, Tampa, FL 2007 Kickin’ It with Joyce J. Scott, Houston Center for Contemporary Art, Houston, TX Kickin’ It with Joyce J. Scott, Polk Art Museum, Lakeland, FL Joyce J. Scott: Breathe, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD (Catalogue) 2005 Joyce J. Scott, Selected Sculpture, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Joyce J. Scott, Dirtwork, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD This Hand Washes That Hand Too, Mesa Contemporary Arts at the Mesa Art Center, Mesa, AZ 2004 Kickin' It with Joyce J. Scott, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA

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Joyce J. Scott, Snyderman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Joyce J. Scott, Selected Sculpture, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Joyce J. Scott, Walter Gropius Artist, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV Still Alive in 2004, Ward Center for the Arts, St. Paul Schools, Brooklandville, MD 2003 Joyce J. Scott, Untethered, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA What a Long, Strange, Bumpy Trip it’s Been!, Sculpture & Monoprints by Joyce J. Scott, Center of Contemporary Arts (COCA), St. Louis, MO 2001 Joyce J. Scott, In Search of Self-Unfathomable, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Joyce J. Scott, Journeys, Gallery of Art, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA Joyce J. Scott, WTC Series and Sculpture, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD 2000 Joyce J. Scott, Kickin' it With the Old Masters, Baltimore Museum of Art Baltimore, MD (catalogue) Life After Fifty, Noel Gallery, Charlotte, NC Treacherous Tickles: Recent Sculpture & Prints, Main Gallery, University of Texas, El Paso, TX Joyce J. Scott, Sybaris Gallery, Royal Oak, MI 1999 Incognegroism, Richard Anderson Gallery, New York, NY Joyce J. Scott, A Muse, American Craft Museum, New York, NY Joyce J. Scott, The Radiance of What Is, Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA Joyce J. Scott: New Lithographs and Monoprints, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD 1998 Things That Go Bump in the Night, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Things That Go Bump in the Night II, Gallery 181, Iowa State University, Ames, IA Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA Habitat Galleries, Boca Raton, FL 1997 Extended Foreplay, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Joan Rapp Gallery Scottsdale, AZ Joyce Scott, Selected Sculpture and Prints, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna, FL 1996 Joyce Scott, Mixed Bag, Leedy Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO High Gloss, Houston, TX Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA 1995 Images Concealed, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA (catalogue) Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Joyce J. Scott, The Hand and the Spirit, Scottsdale, AZ 1994 Hard Choices, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO (catalogue) Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Sybaris Gallery, Royal Oaks, MI Okun Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1993 City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Raleigh, NC Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA 1992 Dimensional Objects & Jewelry, Politics of the Body, Esther Saks Fine Art, Ltd., Chicago, IL Joyce J. Scott, Brooklyn College of Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (traveling, catalogue) Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD Wellington B. Gray Gallery, Jenkins Fine Arts Center, Greenville, NC Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 1991 I-con-no-body / I-con-o-graphy, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (catalogue) New Work, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA 1990 Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, OK 1988 Through the Veil, Textile Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL 1985 Dreamweaver, The Cultural Center, Chicago Public Library, Chicago, IL

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1981 Something Got a Hold on Me, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC

SELECTED TWO PERSON & GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021 A Face Like Mine, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT Glasstress, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL 2020 Come Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA Beaded, Institut Francais, Munich, Germany Never Done: 100 Years of Women in Politics and Beyond, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga, NY All Decked Out, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, MD Visibilities: Intrepid Women of Artpace, Artpace, San Antonio, TX Women X Women, Selections from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection, Ronald K. de Long Gallery, Penn State University, Center Valley, PA To the Hoop: Basketball and Contemporary Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC 2019 Afrocosmologies: American Reflections, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford CT Waking Dream, Ruby City, San Antonio, TX Cultural Ties, Baum Gallery of Fine Art, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR Adore | Adorn: The Elsie Michie Contemporary Jewelry Collection, LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA RED, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA Hitching Their Dreams to Untamed Stars: Joyce J. Scott & Elizabeth Talford Scott, Baltimore Museum of Art Baltimore, Baltimore, MD REALITY, Times two: Joyce J. Scott & Elizabeth Talford Scott, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Reflecting Perspectives: Artists Confront Issues of Diversity and Inclusion, Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Neenah, WI Jewelry: The Body Transformed, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY 2017 After the Fall, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY PhilAesthetic: 40 Years of Collecting African American Art, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA Current Reflections on the Natural & Manmade, Landmark Gallery, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX human· NATURE, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Both Sides Now: Joyce J. Scott & Sonja Clark, Tulsa, OK POWER, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, CA Dark Humor: Joyce J. Scott & Peter Williams, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, MD Tell Me More, Unique Perspectives on Our Collective Human Experience, McColl Center for Art & Innovation, Charlotte, NC Guns, Violence and Justice, Metal Museum, Memphis, TN I.M.A.G.I.N.E Peace Now, Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA Current Reflections on the Natural and the Manmade, Landmark Arts Gallery, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 2016 Baltimore Rising, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD Generations: Joyce J. Scott | Sonya Clark, Goya Contemporary Gallery, Baltimore, MD Impact! The Legacy of the Women's Caucus for Art, Katzen Arts Center, American University, Washington, DC Renee Stout: Circle of Friends, Katzen Arts Center, American University, Washington, DC Another Better World, Bas Com Art Center, Highlands, NC Dark Humor, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE

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2015 Represent: 200 Years of African American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia, PA WPA: 40th Anniversary – Washington Produced Artists, Washington DC Passing from One Hand, Betty Cooke, Joyce J. Scott, Shana Kroiz and a Tradition of Metalsmithing and Jewelry in Baltimore, Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore, MD Common Wealth/Art by African American Artists in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Bead, Greater Reston Arts Center, Reston, VA Schmuck 1970–2015: Sammlung Bollmann. Fritz Maierhofer, Sammlung Bollmann Collection, MAK Museum of Applied Art, Vienna, Austria 2014 The Brides of Anansi: Fiber and Contemporary Art, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund: Second Act, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC Multiple Eposures/Jewelry and Photography, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY Unveiled: Works from the UMUC Art Collections, University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD 2014-13 Ashe to Amen: African-Americans and Biblical Imagery, Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), New York, NY; Traveling Exhibition: Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD; Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN 2013 Glasstress: White Light/ White Heat, 55th international Venice Art Biennale, Palazzo Cavalli, Venice, Italy Fear Strikes Back, DC Arts Center, Washington, DC Dazzling Dancing Beads, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND (Travelling exhibition) Reloading the Canon: African Traditions in Contemporary Art, James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Artist to Artist, McColl Center for Visual Arts, Charlotte, NC Philosophy of Figure, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD 2012 Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists, developed and organized by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, Baltimore, MD Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists, Museum of Fine Art, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA Glasstress Beirut, Beirut Exhibition Center, Beirut, Lebanon Glasstress New York: New Art from the Venice Biennales, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY 2011 Congress Taipei-International Craft Design Exhibition, Taipei, Taiwan OPEN MIND, International Contemporary Jewelry Exhibition-History and the New Material, Sungkok Art Museum, Sungkok, Korea Prospect .2 US Biennial, Joyce J. Scott & Nick Cave, Newcomb Gallery at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD CORRIDOR, The Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC 2010 Pacini Lubel Gallery, Seattle, WA Synderman/Works Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Craft in America, Silver Dollar City's 50th Anniversary, Branson, Missouri BROOCHING THE SUBJECT: ONE OF A KIND, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

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The Harvey Gantt Center for the Arts, Charlotte, NC Loot, The Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY Global Africa, The Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY 2009 Intrinsic Trio: Sanford Biggers, Sam Gilliam, Joyce Scott, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD NuVoodoo, Traveling Exhibition, African American Art Conference, West North Gallery, Baltimore, MD Art Under Glass, Baltimore Conservatory, Baltimore, MD 2008 A People's Geography: The Spaces of African American Life, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, Baltimore, MD Accumulation: Joyce J. Scott, Madeleine Keesing & Line Bruntse, York Arts, York, PA 2007 Kickin’ It with Joyce J. Scott, Houston Center for Contemporary Art, Houston, TX Kickin’ It with Joyce J. Scott, Polk Art Museum, Lakeland, FL Glassware, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY 2006 Basket [R]evolution/ Unique Baskets and Vessels, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA Shine On, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Women’s Glass, From Michigan Artists and Collections, University of Michigan- Dearborn, Dearborn, MI Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery, New-York Historical Society, New York, NY (catalogue) Beads, Pismo Fine Art Glass, Denver, CO LOOT! 2006, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY Making Sense, Robert Lehman Gallery at Urban Glass, Brooklyn, NY Dynamic Glass, The Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, NJ National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, PA In the Extreme, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore MD Handmade/ Fine Art Craft and Design, New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, FL At Freedom¹s Do/ Challenging Slavery in Maryland, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland, Baltimore, MD African- American History and Culture, The Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD 2005 Joyce J. Scott, Selected Sculpture, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD Joyce J. Scott, Dirtwork, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD Artist’s Salute Artpace, Christie’s Auction House, New York, NY The Arts of Crafts in America, Chautauqua Center for the Arts, Chautauqua, NY Bodies of Evidence: Contemporary Perspectives, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI Collection Remixed, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY (catalogue) Little Rascals / Images of Children in Contemporary Art, Linda Ross Contemporary Art & Projects, P.F. Galleries, Royal Oaks, MI Searching for Self, Loyola College, Jolio Art Gallery, Baltimore, MD Soft Openings, The Katzen Gallery, American University, Washington, DC 10 African-American Artists, Society for Contemporary Crafts, Pittsburgh, PA (catalogue) 2004 An Exploration of Polymer Clay, Kentucky Museum of Art & Design, Louisville, KY Sexing the Myths: Arts of Rebellion, Resource Center for Activism and Arts, Washington, DC 2003 Chess, Velvet Da Vinci Gallery, San Francisco, CA (catalogue) Conversations, Evergreen House of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Happy Sooja, Embassy of the Republic of Korea, Washington, DC Jewelry Hard and Soft / Plastic Fiber Glass, Society of Arts & Craft, Boston, MA Jewels & Gems, Renwick Gallery, American Art Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Magic Markers: Objects of Transformation, Des Moines Art Center, Edmundson Art Foundation, Inc., Des Moines, IA

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Select WPA, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (catalogue) Thinking with Blood, Conflict & Culture in the American South, Running Films, Inc., Kuttawa, KY (traveling, catalogue) Threading the Eye, Sherry Leedy Gallery, Kansas City, MO Women in the Arts / My Life in Art, Hood College, Frederick, MD 2002 The Artful Teapot: 20th Century Expressions from the Kamm Collection, Curated and Distributed by Exhibitions International, New York, NY (traveling, catalogue) The Big Picture Take III, Auction & Exhibition, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD Glass Now 2002, The National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, PA Joyce J. Scott / Hot Flashes, Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA Migrant Workers for the Arts: Prints & Sculpture by Joyce J. Scott, Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA National Black Fine Art Show NYC, Noel Gallery, Charlottesville, NC Threads on the Edge, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Traditions / Generations: The Intricate, Irreverent & Irrepressible Quilt & Beadworks of Mother/Daughter Artists Elizabeth Talford Scott & Joyce J. Scott, Bush Barn Art Center, Salem, NC True Colors: Mediations on the American Spirit / An Artistic Response to 9/11, Meridian International Center, White-Meyer Galleries, Washington, DC 2001 Broaching it Diplomatically: A Tribute to Madeline K. Albright, Schmuck Museum, Pforzheim, Germany Exploring Identity: Work by Contemporary African American Women, Maier Museum of Art, Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg, VA (catalogue) Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Art by African Americans, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD A Shriek form and Invisible Box, Meguro Museum, Tokyo, Japan (Catalogue) 2001: American Craft Odyssey, James Renwick Alliance/Craft Auction, Washington, DC The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI (traveling, catalogue) 2000 Beadwork in America: A National Invitational Exhibition, Haydon Gallery, Nebraska Arts Association, Lincoln, NB Biennial 2000, Delaware Museum of Art, Wilmington, DE (catalogue) Les Arts Decoratif Contemporains, Kent Fine Arts, New York, NY, Kent, CT, Paris, France The Likeness of Being: Contemporary Self-Portraits by 60 Women Artists, D.C. Moore Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) Progress of the World’s Women (An International Art Exhibition), The United Nations, New York, NY Pure Vision: American Bead Artists, Exhibits USA, National Traveling Exhibition (catalogue) Women Designers in the USA 1900-2000: Diversity & Differences, The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, New York, NY (catalogue) 1999 Borderscapes (with Susan Plum), Urban Glass, Brooklyn, NY Stereo Typical Errors (with Michael Ray Charles), Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton FL Re/Righting History, Counter Narrative by Contemporary African Artists, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY 1998 Centennial Exhibition: Fiber, The Society of Arts and Crafts Boston, MA Exposed Treasures, The Tuttle Gallery, McDonogh School, Baltimore, MD Glass Today, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH Jewelry Moves: Ornament for the 21st Century, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh 1997 Craft, Richard Salmon Gallery, London, England (traveling, catalogue) Celebrating American Craft, The Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (traveling, catalogue) Extended Foreplay, Susan Cummins Gallery Mill Valley, CA

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Recent Glass Sculptures: A Union of Ideas, Milwaukee Art Museum Milwaukee, WI Stitchers & Beaders; America’s Best, Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH Threads: Fiber Art in the 90s, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ (catalogue) 1996 Signs & Symbols: African American Quilts from the Rural South, Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY (traveling, catalogue) Breaking Barriers, Recent American Craft, American Craft Museum, New York, NY (traveling, catalogue) The 14th International Glass Invitational, Habitat Galleries, Boca Raton, FL Bearing Witness: Contemporary works by African American Women Artists, Spellman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA (Traveling, catalogue) The Ubiquitous Bead II & The Rebellious Bead, Bellevue Museum of Art, Bellevue, WA Baubles, Bangles & Beads: Jewelry from the Collection, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI 1995 Elizabeth T. Scott & Joyce J. Scott, Tubman African American Museum, Macon, GA Hand Me Downs- Innovation with a Tradition, African-American Cultural Center, Charlotte Relatively Speaking/Mothers & Daughters in Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, New York, NY (traveling, catalogue) Division of Labor: Women’s work in Contemporary Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY Breaking Barriers, Recent American Craft, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR (traveling, catalogue) 1994 Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (traveling, catalogue) Bad Girls, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (catalogue) World Glass Now ’94, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan (catalogue) Uncommon Beauty in Common Objects: The Legacy of African American Craft Art, National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, Wilberforce, Ohio (traveling, catalogue) 1993 Subversive Crafts, List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (catalogue) Outcry: Artists Answer AIDS, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI (traveling, catalogue) Hats! Ahead of Fashion: Hats for the 20th Century, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (catalogue) USA Today in Fiber Art, Nederlands Textiel Museum, Tillburg, The Netherlands (catalogue) 1992 Modern Jewelry: 1964 to the Present – The Helen Williams Drutt Collection Museum of Applied Art, Helsinki, Finland The New Narrative: Contemporary Fiber Art, Visual Arts Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (traveling, catalogue) Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Elizabeth & Joyce J. Scott, Afro-American Historical & Cultural Museum, Philadelphia, PA (catalogue) 1991 Places with a Past: New Site Specific Art, Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston, SC (catalogue) Beauty is a Story, the Kruithuis Museum, Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands (catalogue) Glass: Material in the Service of Meaning, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA (catalogue) 1990 American Dreams, American Extremes, The Kruithuis Musuem, Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Art in Fashion/Fashion in Art, New Orleans Contemporary Arts, New Orleans, LA Southern Black Aesthetic, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC (traveling, catalogue) 1989 Pyramid/Brandywine Print Show, Place, Baltimore, MD Elizabeth T. Scott/Joyce J. Scott, Family Traditions/Recent Works, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Structure and Surface: Beads in Contemporary American Art, John Michael Kohler Arts

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Center, Sheboygan, WI Stitching Memories: African American Story Quilts, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (catalogue) 1988 Art as a Verb, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD (traveling, catalogue) International Triennial of Tapestry, Lodz, Poland (catalogue) The Eloquent Object, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK (traveling, catalogue) 1987 Tangents: Art in Fiber, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD (traveling, catalogue) Art in Black America, Terada Warehouse Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 1986 Crossing Over/Changing Places, United States Information Services (traveling, catalogue) Other Gods: Containers of Belief, Fondo del Sol Visual Art Center, Washington, DC (traveling, catalogue) 1985 Arts of Adornment: Wearable Art from Africa and the Diaspora, Gallery Association of New York State (traveling) 1984 Linda DePalma & Joyce J. Scott, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Art Against Apartheid, The Henry Street Settlement, New York, NY Three Generations of African American Quilt Makers, the Scott-Caldwel Family, Fondo del Sol Visual Art Center, Washington, DC (traveling, catalogue) 1983 Ritual & Myth: A Survey of African American Arts, Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY (catalogue) 1982 Surface/Structure: Fiber of African American Arts, Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY (catalogue) 1981 Good as Gold, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (traveling, catalogue) 1980 Sculpture 1980, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (catalogue) 1979 Contemporary African American Crafts, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, TN 1978 Maryland Biennial, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD 1976 Maryland Biennial, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

SELECTED AWARDS

2020 Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship, American Craft Council, Minneapolis, MN 2019 Smithsonian Visionary Award, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. 2018 National Academician, Class of 2018 of the National Academy of Design, New York, NY Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD 2018 Honorary Fellow of the NYU Institute of Fine Arts, New York, NY 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, 46th Annual Glass Art Society (GAS) Women to Watch, The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD Best of Baltimore, Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore MD Best of Baltimore, City Paper, Baltimore, MD Lifetime Achievement Award, Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD 2016 MacArthur Fellow, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, IL Mary Sawyers Imboden Baker Award, Baltimore, MD Distinguished Artist Award, College Arts Association Best Artist, City Paper, Baltimore, MD 2014 The LOOT Award for Contemporary Art Jewelry, Museum of Arts and Design, NY 2012 Regional Star Award, James Renwick Alliance, Washington, DC 2010 Women’s Caucus for the Arts, Lifetime Achievement Award 2007 Master of the Medium/Metal, The James Renwick Alliance, Washington, DC 2002 The Governor’s Arts Award at Artsalute: Maryland Citizens for the Arts, MD Foundation Artist Honoree, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD

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Baltimoreans of the Year, Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore, MD Best of Baltimore Award (Hopkins Performance), Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore, MD 2001 American Crafts Council Fellow, New York, NY 1997 Anonymous Was a Woman, New York, NY 1996 National Living Treasure Award, Maryland Nominee 1995 The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 1994 Pace Roberts Fellowship Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Art Matters Incorporated 1992 National Printing Fellowship 1990 Mid-Atlantic Arts Consortium 1987 Maryland State Arts Council Fellowship, MD 1981 Maryland State Arts Council Fellowship, MD 1980 Artist’s Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts

SELECTED PERFORMANCES

2017 Tuvan throat singers, Alash, with vocalist Joyce J. Scott, beatboxer Shodekeh, and Raw Silk, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD 2016 Art to Fine For – Woman Power, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD 2012 Thunder Thigh Review: For Fat Women Only – And the Courageous Men Who Want to Attend, Theater Project, Baltimore MD 2011 Miss Veronica’s Veil, Prospect .2, US Biennial, New Orleans, LA Craft in America, PBS 2010 Art Promotional Trailers, CW, Baltimore, MD 2006 Walk A Mile in My Drawers, The Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD Race and Pedagogy Conference, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA Joyce J. Scott, Washington Correctional Center for Women, Tacoma WA Jumpin’ Keys with Joyce, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD 2005 Walk A Mile in My Drawers, The Maryland Summer Center for the Arts, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD The Arts as Multicultural Ambassador, Empowering the Creative Community (with Lorraine Whittlesey), The Multicultural Institute, Towson University, Towson, MD 2004 People in My Head, The National Black Arts Festival (Lecturer & Performer) Spellman University, Atlanta, GA Lea & Joyce: Righteous Rhythm & Romance (concert with Lea Gilmore), The Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD Ebony & Ivory VI / No Visible Panty Lines (concert with Lorraine Whittlesey), The Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD 2004 Commencement (performance with Lorraine Whittlesey), Tai Sophia Institute for the Healing Arts, Clarksville, MD Baltimore Composers Forum Concert (composer/performer), Goucher College, Towson, MD Baltimore Advertising Association’s Addy Awards (presenter), Hippodrome Theatre, Baltimore, MD 2003 COCA (cabaret), St. Louis, MO Lysistrata Project, The Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD The New Barbarians, The Baltimore Vivat Festival, The Walters Art Museum (Commissioned performance), Baltimore, MD

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Slaves & Slavs, Gertrude’s Restaurant, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Walk A Mile in My Drawers, Appalachia State University (commissioned performance), Boone, NC The Patterson Grand Opening, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD MO’POE, The Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD The Vagina Monologues (with MICA Students), Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD 2002 Divalicious! (conceived and performed for the Women’s Housing Coalition) with guests Ethel Ennis, Ruby Glover & Lea Gilmore, Center Stage, Pearlstone Theatre, Baltimore, MD Ebony & Ivory V: Unleashed (with Lorraine Wittlesey), Swirnow Theatre\Mattin Center, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Kitchen Party, Women’s Housing Coalition, Baltimore, MD Slippery Slope, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD 2001 Linc at Ten (with Wynton & Ellis Marsalis, featured vocalist & mistress of ceremonies), Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore, MD Lorraine Whittlesey with Joyce J. Scott, The Yale Gordon Residency Program, Western Maryland College, Westminster, MD Ebony & Ivory IV: Clinton Comes to Harlem, music and satire with Lorraine Whittlesey and Friends, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Common Ground on the Hill Music & Arts Festival (featured vocalist), Carroll County Farm Museum, Westminster, MD Freestyle (featured vocalist), Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD 1995 Generic Interference/Genetic Engineering, Tubman African American Museum, Macon 1994 The Body Politic: Creative Time, Cooper Union, New York, NY 1993 Generic Interference/Genetic Engineering, Diverse Works, Houston, TX; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD 1990 Honey Chil’Milk, (conceived by director Donald Byrd in collaboration with performers), Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD Diverse Works, BACA, Brooklyn, NY Women of Substance, (written in collaboration with Kay Lawal, performed by Thunder Thigh Revue – Scott & Lawal), Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA 1989 Generic Interference/Genetic Engineering, Progression Series, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, MD Women of Substance, The Bottom Line, New York, NY, Mike’s Talent Show, Caroline’s, New York, NY 1988 Bite and Smile (performed by Thunder Thigh Revue – Scott & Lawal) Alive from Off Center, WNET, New York, NY “Women of Substance,” The Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland, Bathhurst Street Theatre, Toronto, Canada The Stagedoor Festival, Amsterdam, Denmark Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

American Craft Museum, New York, NY Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY Charles A. Waustum Museum, Madison, WI Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA Corning Museum of Glass, New York, NY

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Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI Druid Hill Park Revitalization (Collaboration), Baltimore, MD Frederick Douglass- Isaac Myers Maritime Park/ A Living Classroom, Baltimore, MD Harlem Park Square Revitalization, Baltimore, MD Howard Peter Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens in Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, MD Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Kruithuis Museum, Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio, TX Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Nations Bank, Charlotte, NC Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, Philadelphia, PA Petrucci Family Foundation, Asbury, NJ Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI Roland Park Country School, Baltimore, MD Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington, DC Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Foundation, Towson, MD Speed Museum, Louisville, KY Spirit Square Center for the Arts, Charlotte, NC Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC Yale University, New Haven, CT

ABREVIATED VIDEO & FILM DOCUMENTATION

Samantha Brown’s Places to Love, television program, directed by Sylvia Caminer and Michael Indjeian, produced by Michael Indjeian and Sharon Dymmel, PBS, March 6, 2019 Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths, produced by Keith Pyatt for Grounds For Sculpture, 2017. Adapted for State of the Arts. Joyce J. Scott: New Work at Grounds For Sculpture, produced by Keith Pyatt. Aired on NJTV and WHYY, January 7, 2018 An Authentic Life: Joyce J. Scott, directed by Jeanie M. Clark, 2012-2013 Craft in America: Messages, Television program, Creator & Executive Producer Carol Sauvion, PBS, 2011 Try Me, Private Sector: Original Music by Lorraine Whittlesey, sung by Joyce J. Scott, 2001 Stop Asking, We Exist, American Craft Museum, 1999 The Silver Needle: The Legacy of Elizabeth & Joyce Scott, directed by Rebecca Crumlish, Osiris

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Productions, Washington, DC, 1990

ABREVIATED LECTURES

2020 MAM Conversations: Joyce J. Scott, Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey [Zoom, Online] 2019 Joyce J. Scott and Oletha DeVane in Conversation, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Joyce J. Scott: Truths, Foresights, and Persistence, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY Myrna and Sheldon Palley Glass Artist Lecture Series Presents: Joyce J. Scott: Truths and Visions, Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL Why I'm Joyce, Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Neenah, WI Voices : Joyce J. Scott & Oletha DeVane, The Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore, MD, Hosted by The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Keynote Speaker, 107th College Arts Association Annual Conference, NY Hilton Midtown, NY, NY 2018 What Next and Why Not: A Conversation with Joyce J. Scott and Lowery Stokes Sims, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY Like Minds: A Conversation with Artists Joyce J. Scott, Sonya Clark & Jeffrey Gibson, Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton Township, New Jersey Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO 2017 MacArthur Fellows in Dialogue: Joyce J. Scott and David Finkel, Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton Township, New Jersey Women to Watch, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD 2016 Annual Distinguished Artist Panel, College Arts Association Conference, Washington Marriot Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC 2015 Speaker Series: Craft + Defiance, Joyce J. Scott and Marquis Revlon, hosted by The Contemporary, Baltimore School for the Arts, Baltimore, MD 2014 Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, Portland OR Portland Bead Society, Portland, Or. International Flameworkers Conference, Salem, NJ Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK 2013 Fiberart International 2013 Forum Keynote: Joyce Scott, Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA 2012 Humorous Beadwork, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine 2012 Textiles & Politics, Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium, Washington, D.C. 2012 Motivated by the Challenge to Live and Create Authentically, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI 2005 Women of Vision, Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh, PA 2004 Women in the History of Art (with Lorraine Whittlesey), Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD 2002 Keynote Speaker, Maryland College of Art & Design, Kensington, MD Keynote Speaker, 5th Annual Waldorf School of Baltimore Civil Rights Commemorative Brunch, Baltimore, MD Keynote Speaker, Department of Art, Longwood College, Farmville, VA 2000 Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2021 Atina Sutton and Martina Tanga, “A Face Like Mine,” Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT 2020 Stamey, Emily and Wes Miller, “To the Hoop: Basketball and Contemporary Art”, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina Press, 2020, pgs. 64-65 2019 Reality, Times Two: Joyce J. Scott & Elizabeth Talford Scott, Goya Contemporary, 2019

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2018 Holcomb, Melanie, “Jewelry: The Body Transformed”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, 2018 Sims, Patterson and Lowery Stokes Sims. “Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths Exhibition Catalog”, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township, NJ, 2018. 2016 Stankard, Paul, Studio Craft as Career: A Guide to Achieving Excellence In Art-Making, Schiffer Publishing, 2016, ISBN# 9780764352522 2015 Sims, Patterson, Truths and Visions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, 2015, ISBN# 9780989955041 2014 Raehse, Amy, Can’t We All Just Get Along?, Goya Contemporary, 2014, ISBN# 9781495124051 Stokes-Sims, Lowery; Adamson, Glenn, Maryland to Murano: Neckpieces & Sculptures at the Museum of Arts and Design, The Museum of Arts and Design, 2014 Young, Brian; Grove, Donna; Reed, Barbara; Bernstein, Sandy; Key, Eric, Unveiled: Works from the UMUC Art Collections, University of Maryland University College, 2014, pg. 58 & 59 2012 Berengo, Adriano, Glasstress Beirut, Venice Projects, Venice, Italy, 2012, pg. 152 & 153 Berengo, Adriano, Glasstress New York, New Art from the Venice Biennales, The Museum of Arts and Design, 2012, pg. 112-117, ISBN# 978-88-572-1406-1 Joyce J. Scott: On Kilter, Goya Contemporary, 2012, ISBN# 978-1-4675-4223-4 2011 Buszek, Maria Elena, Extra / Ordinary Craft and Contemporary Art, Duke University, Durham, NC, 2011 Rouse, Ylva, Prospect.2 New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, 2011, pg. 116, ISBN# 10-0615549497 Roulet, Laura, and Irene Hoffman, Corridor: Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Art Museum of the Americas Organization of American States, 2011, pg. 44-47 2010 Joyce J. Scott: Li’l Lies & Purty Thangs, Goya Contemporary, 2010, ISBN# 978-1-4507-4147-7 L’ecuyer, Kelly H., Jewlery by Artists: In the Studio, 1940-2000, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, 2010, pg. 160 & 161, ISBN# 978-0-87846-750-1 Hanks, David, The Century of Modern Design: Selections from the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, Flammarion SA, Paris, 2010, pg. 389, ISBN# 9782080301611 The Global Africa Project, Museum of Arts and Design, 2010, pg. 176, 238 ISBN 978-3-79135084-4 2009 Intrinsic Trio: Sanford Biggers, Sam Gilliam, Joyce J. Scott, Goya Contemporary, 2009, pg. 5 & 6 2008 Joyce J. Scott: Painful Death / Painless Life, Goya Contemporary, 2008, ISBN# 978-1-60725-288-7 2007 Sims, Lowery Stokes, Leslie King-Hammond, and Amy Eva Raehse. Breathe. Baltimore: Goya Contemporary Gallery and Goya-Girl Press, 2007 2005 Hector, Valerie, The Art of Beadwork: Historic Inspiration/Contemporary Design Watson-Guptill, New York, NY, 2005, pp. 8, 77-83 2004 Clark, Garth, The Artful Teapot: 20th Century Expressions from the Kamm Collection, Watson- Guptill, New York, NY, 2004, pp. 156, 157, 165 & 244 2003 Miller, Rosemary Reed, Threads of Time/The Fabrick of History: Profiles of African-American Dressmakers & Designers, 1850 to the Present, 2003, pp.94-99 Pace/Russell, Dreaming Red, Creating Artpace, San Antonio, Texas: Artpace, A Foundation of Contemporary Art, 2003 2002 Stegman, Carolyn B., Women of Achievement in Maryland History, Anaconda Press, 2002, pg. 287 2000 Ciscle, George. Joyce J. Scott: Kickin’ It With the Old Masters. Exh. cat. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art and Maryland Institute College of Art, 2000 1994 Spirtzen, Alice. The Jeweler’s Art: A Multimedia Approach. Worcester, MA: Davis Publications,1994. Lewan, Susan Grant, One of A Kind American Art Jewelry Today, Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 1994 Scott, Joyce, Fearless Beadwork, Handwritings and Drawing from Hell, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, NY, 1994 Spirtzen, Alice, The Jeweler’s Art: A Multimedia Approach, Davis Publications, Worcester, MA, 1994

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Zelanski, Palul and Mary Pat Fisher, The Art of Seeing, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1994 Robertson, Alma (Ed.), New Breezes of 1994: An Anthology of African American Literary Voices, “The Fleck” by Joyce J. Scott, New Breezes, Inc., Baltimore, MD, 1994 1993 Brite, Jean Fassett, Contemporary Crafts and the Saxe Collection: Fiber Art Gathers Momentum, Hudson Hills Press, New York, NY, 1993 George, Phyllis, Craft in America: Celebrating the Creative Work of the Hand, The Summit Group, Fort Worth, TX, 1993 Wahlman, Maude Southwell, Signs and Symbols, African American Quilts, Studio Books, New York, NY, 1993 James, Joy, Spirit, Space and Survival: African American Women in (White) Academe, “Carrying “On” by Joyce J. Scott, Routledge, New York, NY & London, England, 1993 Wahlman, Maude Southwell. Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts. New York: Studio Books, 1993 1992 Moss, Kathryn & Alice Scherer, The New Beadwork, Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 1992

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

2021 Hughes, Rebecca Ann. “Venice’s Murano Glass Smashes Convention in New Florida Exhibition”, Forbes, June 22, 2021. 2020 The Editors. “Honoring Accomplishments”, American Craft Magazine, October/November 2020. Neyman, Bella. “Stories You Can Wear”, The Magazine Antiques, June/July 2020. 2019 Ober, Cara. “Art of the Decade: Best Baltimore Exhibits, Projects, and Experiments 2010-2019”, BMoreArt, December 27, 2019. Kirkman, Rebekah. “The Best Baltimore Art Exhibitions of 2019”, BMoreArt, December 23, 2019. Kirkman, Rebekah. “Material Dreams: Joyce J. Scott and Elizabeth Talford Scott at Goya Contemporary and the BMA”, BMoreArt, July 8, 2019. Sandy, Niama. “WITH LIGHT AND WIT: JOYCE J. SCOTT,” NAD NOW: The Journal of the National Academy of Design (online), July 1, 2019. LaRocca, Lauren. “Joyce Scott Mother-Daughter Show Opens at the BMA”, Baltimore Magazine, May 15, 2019 Martin, Andrew. “Why Baltimore Persists as a Cultural Beacon”, The New York Times Style Magazine, March 22, 2019 Valentine, Victoria L.. “Culture Type Picks: 18 Best Black Art Books of 2018”, Culture Type (online), January 4, 2019 2018 Tomaszewski, Patryk P.. “Art Basel Miami Beach: art glitz”, Vogue Polska (online), December 7, 2018. Loiseau, Benoît. “The Best Solo Displays at Art Basel Miami Beach 2018”, Cultured Magazine (Online), December 6, 2018. artnet Gallery Network, “8 Must-See Booths at Art Basel Miami Beach”, artnet (online), December 6, 2018. Cohen, Alina. “The 15 Best Booths at Art Basel in Miami Beach”, Artsy (online), December 6, 2018. Sims, Lowery Stokes. “In Conversation: Joyce J. Scott J with Lowery Stokes Sims”, The Brooklyn Rail (online), November 27, 2018.

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Schjeldahl, Peter. “Goings On About Town: Joyce J. Scott”, The New Yorker, November 2, 2018 Ober, Cara. “John Waters Is the Godfather of Baltimore’s Art Scene”, Vulture (online), November 1, 2018. Valentine, Victoria L.. “Joyce J. Scott Employs the Beauty of Beads to Raise Issues Such as Violence and Racism: ‘My Best Voice is as an Artist’”, Culture Type (online), October 26, 2018 Williams, Thomas Chatterton. “Joyce J. Scott: ‘I’d like my art to induce people to stop raping, torturing, and shooting each other’”, Art | Basel (online), October 2, 2018 The Editors of ARTnews. “9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week”, ARTnews (online), September 24, 2018 Drake, Sarah. “NYC Gallery Scene – Highlights Through September 30, 2018”, HamptonsArtHub (online), September 24, 2018 McMahon, Katherine. “Habitat: Baltimore”, ARTnews, Spring 2018 Gittlen, Ariela. “6 Artists Turning Beads into Spellbinding Works of Art”, Artsy (online), February 16, 2018 Dube, Ilene. ““I Was an Artist in Vitro”: Joyce J. Scott and Her Darkly Beautiful Art”, Hyperallergic (online), January 30, 2018 Hine, Thomas. “Joyce J. Scott at Grounds for Sculpture: A fierce vision in beads and glass”, The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 18, 2018 Princenthal, Nancy. “Inspired by Harriet Tubman, an Artist Takes Glass to Extremes,” The New York Times, January 4, 2018

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Inspired by Harriet Tubman, an Artist Takes Glass to Extremes By NANCY PRINCENTHAL | JAN. 4, 2018

Credit Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

It might seem that hand-threaded beads and blown glass wouldn’t lend themselves to depicting rank ugliness. Nor to provoking unruly laughter. But Joyce J. Scott’s art — angry, raucous and shamelessly gorgeous — proves just how sharp glass can get. The exhibition of her work now at Grounds for Sculpture, in Hamilton, N.J., is a revelation, inviting covetous attention to what often turn out, on close inspection, to be brutal subjects: vicious racism, violent misogyny. And it signals a marked change of direction for a sculpture garden that had long deserved a reputation for being a little lonesome, and a little odd.

Called “Harriet Tubman and Other Truths,” the show is the largest to date for Ms. Scott, a recent MacArthur “genius” award winner. It surveys decades of art making, from the exuberant jewelry for which she is best known to the figurative sculpture to which she is now most committed. The exhibition also includes a focused homage to Ms. Tubman, the fearless Underground Railroad “conductor,” organized with the guest curator

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Lowery Stokes Sims. (The main survey was curated by Patterson Sims, no relation to Lowery.) The work they assembled, Gary Garrido Schneider, the Grounds for Sculpture director, said, is a “catalyst” for transforming an institution not previously associated with politically pointed art.

A view of the “Harriet’s Closet” installation, which is presided over by a glass-beaded portrayal of Tubman as a haloed Buddha, seated in full lotus position and spilling jewels from her hands. An elegant black dress from around 1900 and recent works are also part of the display. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

A glass-beaded portrayal of Tubman as an extravagantly haloed Buddha, seated in full lotus position and spilling jewels from her hands, presides over the entryway to the installation “Harriet’s Closet.” The “Closet” combines vintage material — an elegant black dress from around 1900, an old trunk, a vanity — with such recent work of Ms. Scott’s as the quietly devastating “Shackles/Heart and Hand,” a blood-red blown-glass heart linked by a chain of golden beads to a beaded feminine hand of pearlescent, deathly white. It seems to be a testament to the soul-crushing, forced intimacy of slave and mistress.

Tubman is also represented in two monumental outdoor figures, a new mode for Ms. Scott, whose work is generally modest in scale. The first is armed with a long rifle, and further fortified with a bronze-colored patina (over high-density foam) and piercing eyes. But shadowing her from behind are “haints,” or ghosts, in the shape of obscure objects netted in beads, hung high on nearby trees. The second Tubman, bigger and rougher, is formed of rammed earth meant to erode over the course of the exhibition, “just as our memory of Tubman has dissipated over time,” the artist said in a phone conversation from her home in Baltimore. Again,

Blumarts Inc. 176 Grand Street Tel + 1 212 244 6055 www.peterblumgallery.com New York, NY 10013 Fax + 1 212 244 6054 [email protected] PETER BLUM GALLERY there is a massive rifle, this one made of resin studded with assorted trinkets; similarly, the pseudo-bronze one bears flowers. Beat those swords into plowshares, Ms. Scott suggests. Or, like a latter-day flower child, fix their attitude problem with daisies.

Ms. Scott’s “Araminta With Rifle and Veve,” from 2017, is a monumental outdoor figure armed with a long rifle and further fortified with a bronze-colored patina (over high-density foam).Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

Ms. Scott’s two heroic Tubmans may bring to mind David Hammons’s searing Nelson Mandela sculpture (1987) in Atlanta, with its granite head and barbed wire hair, and, inevitably, Alison Saar’s bronze portrait sculpture of Tubman, installed in Harlem in 2008. But Ms. Scott suggests another connection. “Harriet Tubman makes me think a lot about my mother,” she said, referring to Elizabeth Talford Scott, a quilter whose glorious work is sampled in this exhibition — “picture books made of cloth,” as her daughter has described them. She was “a forthright person,” Ms. Scott said. “I do believe she would have run to freedom on the train.”

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Another rifle-totting outdoor figure, “Graffiti Harriet,” also from 2017, is made of rammed earth meant to erode over the course of the exhibition, “just as our memory of Tubman has dissipated over time,” the artist said. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

She was also, Ms. Scott said, “my first art teacher.” Having made beadwork in grade school — “sewing beads into fabric or using that Girl Scout/American Indian loom,” she explained — Ms. Scott worked with textiles early in her career, weaving, quilting and making garments. By the mid-1970s, she was creating free-standing sculptures of beads, a pioneer in the now thriving realm of art that raids the territory of craft. But a major motivation for her loyalty to handcraft is sustaining a tie to forebears who were blacksmiths, woodworkers and basket makers (and sharecroppers, picking cotton and tobacco) — and, most important, to her mother, with whom she lived until her death in 2011.

Family in general and motherhood in particular are primary subjects in the main survey, starting with a 1983 quilt made by Joyce and Elizabeth Scott that offers a loving portrait of the extended clan. But many of the younger Scott’s representations of maternity are more barbed. A small 1991 figure of a woman fashioned (uncharacteristically) from black leather bends over backward — literally — to support a silvery-white beaded baby who dances on her chest; nearly lost against her dark skirt is a brown child, its tiny hands extended in an unanswered gesture. The deep scarlet, bead-crowned blown-glass figure in “Breathe,” seated cross-legged and imperially calm, has pulled a clear glass baby out of her body by its triumphantly outstretched arms. Mother regards child quizzically; it’s not clear whether rapture or heartbreak is afoot.

If Ms. Scott’s engagement with maternity is full of ambiguity, the sculptures in the series “Day After Rape” are simply, uncompromisingly harrowing. Made of dainty seed and glass beads, they show one woman hog- tied, another impaled on a barked branch. Bright red beads of blood puddle beneath exposed genitals; small white eyes are frozen wide. A couple of these sculptures employ tobacco pipes: the pipes’ bowls become buttocks; stems serve as legs. In a discussion of this series, Ms. Scott emphasized that the pipes, which had belonged to a friend’s grandfather, had been sucked long and hard. Close inspection confirms it. Indeed you can’t make out what these sculptures are about without coming closer than you feel you should — and seeing things you won’t soon forget.

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Works from Ms. Scott’s “Day After Rape” series. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

No less ferocious are sculptures addressing racism. “Rodney King’s Head Was Squashed Like a Watermelon” depicts an oversize severed head made of big black beads, collapsed like a deflated tire. The green-lipped, bloodied mouth is wrecked, the eyes knocked out of joint. Horrifically, the damage somehow only makes it more alive. In “Head Shot,” a Coke-bottle-green cast-glass fist grips a glass pistol whose barrel is thrust into a brown beaded head, its eyes crazed with fear. A tiny beaded black figure swings by one foot from a wind- tossed tree in “Catch a Nigger by His Toe,” a lethal image fine as filigree.

Sculptures addressing racism include “Rodney King’s Head Was Squashed Like a Watermelon,” from 1991. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

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These images are a far cry from the art most strongly associated with the Grounds for Sculpture. Founded by the pharmaceuticals heir and sculptor J. Seward Johnson, its graceful 42-acre sculpture garden is dominated by Johnson’s towering, hyper-realist cast-bronze figures based on Impressionist chestnuts. Amid these kitschy wonders are estimable sculptures by the likes of Kiki Smith, Elyn Zimmerman and John Newman, many produced on the premises — as were Ms. Scott’s two monumental Tubmans.

Three years ago, the Johnson family transferred the real estate and art at the site to the nonprofit entity that runs its sculpture park and 20,000 square feet of exhibition space. Mr. Schneider, then newly hired, is shepherding its transformation. Situated between Princeton and Trenton, it serves a wide public, including a range of African-American and immigrant communities.

By reaching out in advance to both the Grounds for Sculpture board members and those in the community about Ms. Scott’s work, Mr. Schneider has successfully assuaged (so far) any concerns about its most violent representations of racism and misogyny.

Ms. Scott’s “Lynched Tree” is situated high in a tree as part of the “Araminta With Rifle and Veve” tableau at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, N.J. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

Clearly Ms. Scott, whose work is too little known, was a bold choice. But her work is anything but inaccessible. For one thing, some of it is very funny, as in a tableau positioning two porcelain figurines of colonial-era gentry before a regal, glowering jet-black face looming above them, their graceful postures bespeaking total incomprehension. Irresistible, too, is the sheer beauty of so many of the sculptures, especially those recent examples involving blown-glass components (many made at the Berengo workshop on the Venetian island of Murano). The jade green “Buddha (Earth),” its chest inflated as if by an awed intake of breath, is characteristically sublime.

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“Buddha (Earth),” from 2013, is included in Ms. Scott’s “Harriet Tubman and Other Truths” show at Grounds for Sculpture. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

The Buddha appeals to Ms. Scott because “he wasn’t a god,” she said. “He worked really, really hard to evolve and have this greater enlightenment.” But the artist, who remains fiercely devoted to the Baltimore neighborhood where she grew up, refers just as often to Christianity. “I was raised in a Pentecostal Apostolic church,” she explained. “A storefront church. My godparents were the preachers. When I became obstreperous in the congregation as a child, my godfather would pick me up and preach with me on the pulpit. I did street ministry with them, playing the tambourine and singing. Now, that has a lot to do with me as a performer” — notably, as half of the combustible, hilarious Thunder Thigh revue, most active in the early 1990s — “but it has also always grounded me very much in the spirit — in the joy of it. And the truth.”

That word, featured in this exhibition’s title, is key. Ms. Scott, discussing the “Day After Rape” series, emphasized that it was a very important subject for her to take on. “Because it’s challenging?” she was asked.

She replied without hesitation, “Because it’s the truth.”

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\ WEBEXCLUSIVE IN CONVERSATION JOYCE J. SCOTT with Lowery Stokes Sims

November 27, 2018

Joyce J. Scott, Harriet As Buddha, 2017. Glass beads, plastic beads, thread, and stone. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York.

On the occasion of her exhibition, What Next and Why Not, at Peter Blum Gallery, Lowery Stokes Sims sat down with Joyce Scott to discuss her work with beads and glass, early performance art, and her deep and abiding affection for Baltimore, where she was born, raised, and continues to live.

Lowery Stokes Sims (Rail): To start, Joyce, why don’t you just talk about what attracted you to glass.

Joyce J. Scott: Well I—like everyone else who was raised in the seventies—was a hippie, and I was looking for personal translucency. I was also a weaver, which meant either the light was absorbed or bounced off the surface but wasn’t transluced—I don’t know if that is a word. So I was looking for a way to play with light differently. After I came back from graduate school in Mexico, I went for the second time to Haystack Mountain School of Craft where I worked with Native Americans and learned the Peyote Stitch, which allowed me to work as improvisational as possible.

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Rail: Because you could build on it?

Scott: It is sewing a needle and thread into a bead and you can make any shape you want. It can be stiff, it can be serpentine, it’s all up to you and how maniacal you are, and I am very maniacal.

[Laughter] It allowed me to deal with light, to deal with sculptural forms in a different way—meaning not fabric—and it was something that I could actually afford to do. I am also continuing my mother’s technique, which is sewing with needle and thread. My mother was Elizabeth Talford Scott, a nationally heralded fiber artist.

Rail: So it was the glass beads that got you transluced. How did you move into actual blown, caste, or otherwise manipulated glass? Portrait of Joyce J. Scott, pencil on paper by Phong Bui.

Scott: Well I worked with commercial glass, mayonnaise jars, and everything. I would have to submit to whatever existed. I started being a teacher at these residencies in Penland and Haystack, and I’d go into the glass studios and say, “Hey, what are you guys doing.” At Penland, my mom and I taught together. She’d sit there with one cigarette hanging out watching people twirl glass with the fire jumping. Nope! So I was looking for a way to be as verbal as possible, with as many materials as possible that would allow me to deal with translucency. Glass is wonderful because it really isn’t very toxic, and if you can have a relationship with a gaffer or glass blower, then that’s wonderful! They can burn themselves and do everything they need to do to make your ideas come into play. It’s not like working with resins and other things that not only do not have the same feel but are toxic for you.

It is also about using an ancient form. If you go to tombs you will see glass beads or perfume bottles or an amphora or something that’s made out of glass. So I am continuing this tradition, and that is the craftswoman of me. You once asked me a question about the difference between fine arts and crafts, and I think that is some kind of artificial division made up by folks who want to make more money than someone else, who wanted men’s work to be better than women’s work, painters are better than potters, etcetera. Why is it better to paint a pot instead of make the pot? I will not submit to that. The great thing about the arts is you do what you want to do, so when somebody denigrates craftwork they are stepping on my parents’ and grandparents’ feet and head and everything else because that’s what they did, and I am here because of them, so no.

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Joyce J. Scott, from the Day After Rape Series: Congo III, 2008.Seedbeads and thread, 3 3/4 × 9 × 12 1/2 inches. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York.

Rail: You know, I did a glass workshop with Urban Glass when it was on Mulberry Street. The instructor’s name was Richard Horton and he told us we were not going to burn our hands. He had these bridges he’d pour over the rods to keep them cool. We never knew gloves either—it was pretty amazing. To know that glory hole was over 3600 degrees. I have two little misshapen things I made.

Scott: It’s not easy at all. First of all you’re blowing through this really long thing and you’ve got to have a lot of breath. As a singer, I have a lot but then the guy is like “stop,” and it’s all out of you. And you know who named it a glory hole? Need I say more?

Rail: Who?

Scott: Guys! Being that close to a hot burning orifice is like…mmm.

Rail: Did you make glass when you participated in workshops in Haystack?

Scott: I tried a bit but it isn’t for me, but I did lab work. I did Pyrex, that kind of lab work, and I liked that a lot. But this blowing into a pipe and having to sit and going up to the glory hole and watching all the hair on you face disappear. It wasn’t for me, it wasn’t. And glass is very, very heavy. So you have to have people to work work with, but you can do flame work by yourself.

Rail: You’ve also worked at Pilchuck and Wheaton right?

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Scott: Wheaton was a great time for me. Wheaton is in this part of New Jersey that used to be a glass area where they made cosmetic bottles and all kinds of little things for make up, but its fallen on hard times though they still have a glass studio. I cast a bunch of guns there, and I can tell you—this was maybe eight years ago—and I thought it was 1975 again. The glass guys were living in trailers, some in housing, and they made me dinner in one of the trailers and there’s a dog sitting next to me. And I am like, “This is wild!” Because at this point I’m old and I’m eating with a dog and a bunch of guys. It was actually a great deal of fun and they did just about everything I asked them to do. They were purveyors of an ancient form, and I respect them.

Rail: What was it like at Penland in North Carolina?

Scott: Firstly, I went for a long time with my mom. My mother progressed with dementia for fourteen years and it really seemed to manifest right after her large retrospective. So another good friend named Oletha Devane and I would drive from Baltimore with my Mom, stop in North Carolina, see my father—who was ridiculously funny and just ridiculous—then we’d go over the mountains, and down to Penland. They were so nice to me. They gave us our own little house, let me drive a golf cart and run up around and yell at the llamas. It was wonderful for me because my mom was there and we taught the first class together. It was also that kind of maturation when you’re a grown up and you not only have something to give to somebody, but it’s good.

I was also doing something my mom and my father, to a different degree, had taught me. I’m telling you this because it showed me I was on the right track. Once there was a very famous person and I said, “Why don’t we swap classes so people will get to know what we do?” She came to the class; she talked about herself, and didn’t teach anything. So then I did my class and I taught for them and did all of my diagrams upside down and backwards so they could see it. When I was with my mother, Elizabeth Talford Scott, that’s when I would not be denied, and I was rapidly coming into my own as an artist and proud of it and knowing it. It’s very important for many reasons, not only as an artist but as an African American artist, as an African American woman, all those things for me were very important, to not only be good. I often say I am not interested in being one of the ones; I want to be the one. That may not happen—it will happen—but that’s what I’m working to. That’s why excellence even in the little things you do for others is very important.

Rail: So a lot of the glass here in this exhibition was done at Adriano Berengo’s Glasstress studio in Murano. I think some of your best work came from this. Why don’t you talk about that? I remember you were telling me about your experience going into this very Italian, male oriented, traditional studio, and you’re Joyce “Crazy Ass” Scott from Baltimore.

Scott: The first year was 2011, so it really wasn’t that long ago, and I am sixty something now so I was a woman. This was the first time in all my travels where I had gone by myself

Blumarts Inc. 176 Grand Street Tel + 1 212 244 6055 www.peterblumgallery.com New York, NY 10013 Fax + 1 212 244 6054 [email protected] PETER BLUM GALLERY to do a project, nobody with me, in a country where I didn’t speak the language. So I would get on the water-taxi with my little cane, and I’d say to the young men who’d drive me— because I know they love their mothers—“Prego, prego!” Then I’d walk over a little bridge to the studio. I remember the first time I walked in clad in velvet, and I went in singing. I like singing aloud, I like to sing to my gaffers a lot of time they’re like, “Alright Joyce,” and they were like, “Oh she crazy.”

I would do bead work while they were doing glass and we drew on the floor and I’d give them drawings then amend the drawings. We made some really wonderful work the first year, we really did, but I wasn’t as aware of the chemistry, so I brought beads that were not as compatible, so things would crack or pop off the surface. I was teaching at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, so I asked “where can I get antique Italian seed beads.” My students told me and I bought them. I made that face on that Buddha, there’s a big green figure with a red face. I made a bunch of faces and shapes and figures out of the right beads and this time nothing popped off. This time they were like “Ay-o!” and I was like “Yeah ay-o.” [Laughter] We laughed, and we joked, and we made these pieces together.

I asked one of my gaffers, Sylvano, who was an ex-boxer, “How do you feel about women in glass blowing.” He said “No.” I said, “You mean you don’t think ever?” He was classically Italian, so this is for men. And I said, “Well how do you feel about working with—” “Oh with you, you’re different.” Which means, “You’ll be gone in a month and I’ll never have to see you again.” But that thing where women are working, that was very hard for them. But it was uplifting and freeing for all of us to make the kind of work I’m making. I’m doing things where women are having babies or pulling babies from their vaginas or asking these Italians to make things that were more African. I’d bring them African sculptures and they’d still look like very thin, flat butt-ed angels and white girls. I was like “No.” I was playing with color this kind of stripe thing, and also this millefiori piece and making figures out of it, clear faced. They had context for it but they didn’t have an African American context for it. We really grew together.

The third year I went back because my work was in one of those satellite exhibitions for the Venice Biennale. I went to see them and they were like, “Yay, you’re here, we like the work,” because I’d added beadwork! I’ll give you an example: Adriano Berengo—I called him Berenegro—He said, “Do you know what a totem is?” I said “I’m part Native, of course I know what a totem is.” Then he pulled out a book and showed me these ugly ass Italian totem poles. Just ugly. He said, “I’ll give you the studio with gaffers on the weekend if you will do some totems.” I said okay. I got my assistant and said,“Okay, how about you look up guns and muskets and rifles because we are going to do something on sex trafficking.” We made a five-foot rifle with wood grain and everything. He would come in and say “What is this about?” because there was a woman hanging from the gun And I say “it’s about sex, it’s about being forced into selling sex.” I think in his head he was like “How are we ever going to sell this?” Then I got the MacArthur and now he’s like, “Yes.”

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Rail: I have seen you at work so many times. You are up in your studio producing prodigious amounts of work by yourself. I’m surprised you don’t have carpal tunnel or arthritis or something.

Scott: I have all those things; I just will not be defined by it.

Rail: What was it like moving into a situation where other people are executing your ideas?

Scott: It worked for me because I came from a theater background. Robert Sherman and I did performances earlier in life in the ’70s and ’80s. I did a lot of collaborative work in that genre. And the ’70s and ’80s was hippie time and everyone was doing performance in front of something they painted or draped over or made costumes out of bubble wrap. Something terrible. So being [at Berengo’s Studio] was all good. Having them understand the spirit and essence of what I was making, coming from an African American background and trying to get them to understand the importance of some of these things. Why the Buddha could be transformed into the wind or earth. That was the challenge, but once they got it they were like, “Oh,” because Catholicism has a lot of parallels with that kind of stuff.

Rail: I remember one of my favorite stories that you told. I think you were making a glass figure who would become one of the Water Mammies, one of which was acquired by the Museum of Arts and Design. But the glass workers didn’t like the feet so they were going to discard it and you told them no.

Scott: You don’t discard anything. They made this wonderful kind of saint for me, and they said they couldn’t get the feet like they wanted so it’s not going to stand so they were going to throw it out. I said, “Absolutely not,” so what I did was turn it upside down and had her inverted as water and made another figure at the top. That was one of the things we did a lot of, because they are used to making beautiful things or assembly line things, they have to look alike. They can’t be what they consider to be flaws, which I of course think are opportunities and what humans are actually about. When we got over that it was a lot of fun. I just put down beaded figures on the model, which was the metal table. We just poured melted glass on it, flip it over, pour glass on the other side and there’d be this image in the glass. They were like, “Really? That didn’t occur to us,” “I know.” And so playing with them and stretching the materials in that way was different. I’m not saying I was the first one to stretch with them, that’s not what I’m saying at all, but I am one of the few African-American women who came with this knowledge of what glass beads could do with glass and pushed them along with pushing myself.

Rail: I thought it would be interesting to talk about some of the subject matter of some of the pieces.

Scott: Okay.

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Rail: So, Joyce had a large retrospective that I co-curated with Patterson Sims. After the first meeting we had about the exhibition—this was at The Grounds for Sculpture—we decided to divide up the work; he did the survey of work and I worked with her to coordinate a new installation called Harriet’s Closet (2017). It was about imagining the private life, the interior life of Harriet Tubman. We started talking about how there would be three avatars of Harriet—one would be in packed dirt, one would be Styrofoam covered in fiberglass, and then the third one was supposed to be Styrofoam covered in fiberglass also. Then we get this midnight text, in which Joyce informed us, “I had this dream. I think I want to do Harriet as a Buddha.” We’re two weeks away from installing the show and there’s no Harriet Buddha and she tells me that she’s going to Lubbock, Texas to do a lecture and I said, “Why?”

Scott: Because they would pay me a lot of money. [Laughter]

Rail: But the cosmos intervened and she couldn’t travel because her passport had expired so she had to stay and work on Harriet. And I’m going to tell you, these are big beads, we would get pictures. I believe this sculpture was done in five days, think about that. First we got the crossed legs, then we got the torso, then the head—it was literally five days.

Scott: I told you I could do it, I don’t know why people don’t just trust me on that. What you’re not saying about the three Harriet’s—one is a fifteen-foot Harriet made out of dirt. We worked with Dirty Dan—that’s what I call him,

“Dirty Dan”— to get the right mixture of bentonite and Joyce J. Scott, Harriet As Buddha (detail), 2017. stuff because we wanted this fifteen-foot piece to stay up Glass beads, plastic beads, thread, and stone. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York. for the entire show. Well, it hasn’t come down yet. I went after it with a shovel on a cherry picker and Harriet’s like, “Do you know what I did for my life and you’re going to knock me down?” I do believe there will be somebody late at night knocking it down or spraying it with water. We covered her with beads and graffiti. You were like, “What do you mean you’re going to cover her with graffiti?” “We’re going to write all over her! The dirt, just write on it.” It worked out really well.

Rail: It did.

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Joyce J. Scott, Graffiti Harriet, 2017. Soil, clay, straw, resin gun with beads, found objects, dimensions Variable. Photo: © Ken Ek for Grounds For Sculpture.

Scott: And she had a fifteen-foot long gun made out of resin. Then the second Harriet was ten-feet and it’s now in Kansas City at Open Spaces which is a large sculpture park. She’s actually in the train station. Get it, Underground Railroad? [Laughter] And I’m thinking this is the funniest thing and people are like, “What do you mean?” Don’t you know who Harriet is, the Underground Railroad? “Really? What do you mean?” Anyway, she’s there, she’s ten-feet, she’s kind of a bronze, coppery color with mirrors, and her gun is probably around eight-feet long and she’s holding a beaded vévé or power piece that you might think of from Haiti.

The third one was supposed to be a life-sized Harriet, maybe in a nightgown so we were really seeing her, standing on pennies because remember Abraham Lincoln’s face is on it and copper is a magical, conductive metal and then I didn’t want to do it. I said, “Wait a second, Harriet is Buddha. Buddha is not a god; he’s a man who evolved. He evolved so much that he was one with truth.” If you’re going to drag hundreds of slaves through to freedom, you can’t read or write, and you’re a slave yourself, an ex-slave, but really they’re still hunting you, and you’re going to do that? And remember, that was from her youth up until she was older. She was a spy, she went to the Union army and said, “You know, if you would let me,”—this is me being Baltimore—“If you would let me go hide out, I could probably find out stuff for y’all at the same time I’d be guiding the slaves out.” She did that! So I thought, how much more Buddhic can you get? How much more evolved and elevated

Blumarts Inc. 176 Grand Street Tel + 1 212 244 6055 www.peterblumgallery.com New York, NY 10013 Fax + 1 212 244 6054 [email protected] PETER BLUM GALLERY than at the end of her life with her second husband—because with her first husband she said, “C’mon let’s run away,” and he said, “I’m not going,” and she said, “Bye,” They were older, they had a home, and they opened that home to people who had no place to stay and for ex-slaves who were ill. I don’t know how you get more evolved than that.

Joyce J. Scott, Araminta with Rifle and Vévé, 2017. Painted milled foam, found objects, milled foam rifle with blown glass and mixed media appliqués, beaded staff. Dimensions variable. Figure approx. 132 × 60 × 60 inches. Vévé approx. 60 × 42 × 1 inches. Rifle approx. 78 × 6 × 3 1/2 inches. Photo: © Ken Ek for Grounds For Sculpture.

She’s wearing a dress that makes me think of quilts, so not only does the piece refer to my mom but also quilts, which are very emblematic in the Underground Railroad. You would put one outside and it had certain symbology on it to show you whether you could come there that night or pass by. My mother made a quilt that was a topographical escape route and then we found out that people said, “Really?” but they did more research and found out what the women would do was they would quilt—and some men—the rows of crops like you’re looking at a map and figure out how to get off the plantation, like an escape route. And she’s holding a necklace made by my mother out of rocks that represent, also for me, a rosary or another kind of power and peace. I don’t like to be told I can’t do certain things like, “you’re black so you can’t do Buddha or Bobo the Clown, whatever you’re thinking, you can’t do it,” and I’m like, “Yes I can!” “No you can’t,” “Watch.” So this piece is very much about not submitting to those who should have no power over me. I don’t know who should have power over me. [Laughter]

Rail: In contrast, let’s talk about that sculpture with the white face, Buddha (Wind) (2013).

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Scott: That’s from a series of Buddhas; there’s four of those, one has not been resolved yet, one’s owned by the African American Museum in Washington and it is Summer and I think Fire, so it’s holding a figure that’s on fire in its hand and that challenge was to make those beads look like this person was actually burning and it worked. They represent the four corners of the earth, the four seasons, attributes. This one represents the wind, that’s what all those curly clouds are. I think she is midnight in fall.

Rail: How did you keep the beads that make-up the face integral with all that heat because the glass must have been very hot?

Scott: Well, it’s on synthetic thread and he has to roll it up really fast, back and forth, back and forth. And because we weren’t absolutely, completely sure about these beads, he couldn’t do another gather on top, the beads had to sit on the surface in case they popped off. They were really questioning because they had to figure out how to make something Buddha like, they don’t look at Buddhas. Maybe in Chinatown or somewhere when they go, but they don’t really see Buddhas so we looked at the ears and the head and it’s like, “Those are kind of Mickey ears, let’s not do those,” and the hairstyle and the Joyce J. Scott, Buddha (Wind), 2013. Hand-blown Murano glass processes with beads, wire, and blackness and talking to them about blackness. thread, 20 1/2 × 12 1/2 × 13 inches. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York. Rail: Beautiful. You mentioned that sculpture over there, Breathe (2014), with the baby being born out of her vagina: that’s a very powerful piece.

Scott: It’s about freedom and it’s about the amazing power between a mother and the child. That’s kind of all I know. I do know that it was challenging for them to make just for the size alone. The legs were made separately and glued on in the cold shop—they call it the cold shop because you do it when the glass is cold—making sure the legs were a certain way and there’s holes in the legs because I thought I’d do a whole bunch of beadwork like a colony inside of her. When I looked at her, because there is beadwork, there are blue patches that were beads that kind of snake around her neck, that’s all she has. So my growing up also means that I learned how to stop, too. People still don’t believe it, but it’s true.

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Joyce J. Scott, Breathe, 2014. Hand-blown Murano glass processes with beads and thread, 20 1/2 × 19 1/2 × 16 inches. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York.

Rail: I want to switch up a little bit. This is the first time your work has been seen in New York in quite some time, because I think the last time was with Richard Anderson?

Scott: No, it was at the Museum of Art and Design. The show you curated.

Rail: I’m talking about in a commercial gallery.

Scott: Yeah, it’s been a long time. I’ve been in group shows, but not a one-person show for a very long time.

Rail: I’m curious because people feel that to have a career, at least initially, you should be in New York. Then when you make your reputation you can go out to Baltimore and other places. But you were born in Baltimore, went to school in Baltimore, and still live and work there.

Scott: I showed all over the United States. I showed all over the world. I pursued a career by having multiple galleries around the country. I never believed Baltimore was the end for me, I never wanted to leave my home. Anyway, why should the art business be unlike every other business where you have franchises and you go out and you search for the work?

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Another reason I did it, I got yelled at once by my gallerist when I had multiple galleries and she said, “I don’t like being on your bandwagon.” My first thing was, “Are you making money? Because if you’re making money I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

The only way African Americans are going to see my work is if I have multiple representations in commercial galleries. They’re working at the exact same time everyone else is working, so you’re not going to go to a museum and if you have three kids—many museums charge—so you can’t go. You’re not going to see a university show; a lot of people don’t go to university shows unless they’re scholars or at the schools. You have to go to a commercial gallery that’s open on Saturday, bring everybody in for free, and the person at that gallery is supposed to be able to tell you what my work is about. I was strategic about having one in California, Chicago, Charlotte, Philadelphia for a while, Joyce J. Scott, Celadon II, 2010. Blown, fused, New York, Maryland, I had them around to make sure that painted and flame worked glass, glass beadwork, my own people would be addressed in looking at the work. thread and wire, 30 × 10 × 10 inches. Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York.

I was in lots and lots of shows, so when younger folks asked me about it I just went to—it’s very different now, this is pre-computer—I’d go to the back of all the art magazines and see which shows were happening and if they said a figurative show and they didn’t give me the material, then I would submit to it and I just showed a great deal. This is also the time when the NEA was talking about a more regional approach to the arts so there was a lot of theaters being built like DiverseWorks in Houston, Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, WPA in DC. There were a lot of alternative things happening so that artists could perform at a really high level in their own region, and that’s also something that I believed in.

Rail: Speaking of theater, performance has been a very strong aspect of your work, particularly in the ’80s. How does that all come together? Did that come from your early work where you were working with fashion and display?

Scott: Certainly, it came from years of making clothes and then you do fashion shows. I laughed about working with Robert Sherman but he, at the time, was also a ceramicist and clay artist and we did performances using wet clay and my sending sounds into him and him building. It was so ’70s, ’80s and it was fabulous. But you’re in the studio and you’re just beating the hell out of this artwork trying to make it work and you realize the piece isn’t about visual work, it’s about music or it’s about spoken word. It was also at the time that Kathy and Moe and Whoopi Goldberg and other people were doing that kind of—I’m just going to call it guerilla now for lack of a better term—but standing up straight on your

Blumarts Inc. 176 Grand Street Tel + 1 212 244 6055 www.peterblumgallery.com New York, NY 10013 Fax + 1 212 244 6054 [email protected] PETER BLUM GALLERY two feet flat doing theater and receiving accolades for it. Also, then that means having more places to perform like that. So I and Kay Lawal—she’s Kay Lawal-Muhamed now— traveled the entire United States, Canada, Scotland, Holland, England as the Thunder Thigh Revue doing work that we’d written; comedy, music. I made all of the sets and the props and it was really about feminism, racism, misogyny, you name it, but we did it in a way that people would laugh and then go, “What the?” And then I left. When we stopped working together I worked with Honey Chil’Milk and then I worked with another company and I realized the real risk was not to work with anyone. So for five years I did one-person shows, the last one was called Walk a Mile in My Drawers, and you can see that’s a long walk, because I’m fat. [Laughter]

Rail: Was that the piece called Rodney Dangerfield or Rodney Dangerous in the field?

Scott: Remember Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect.” Well I had this character who would not leave me alone called “Rodney Dangerous in the Field, the first standup slave comic. I don’t get no respect. Now, Rodney Dangerfield had a tie, his was a yoke. He’d tell all of these jokes about being a slave, “I’m going down to the fields to tells me a couple of jokes because I got me a captive audience.” [Laughter] He’d tell really terrible jokes, he became James Brown, he asked the master for freedom and the master was like, “Well then you have to tell me a joke,” and he was like, “Take my wife please! Take my wife please! And he did.” [Laughter] And then he’s like, “That’s how I got my freedom, right?” and he said, “No,” and then he got upset and then master hit me once, “Ow!” hit me twice, “Ow! Ow!” hit me three times, “Ow! Ow! Ow! And take me to the bridge y’all,” and then the master hung him from it. And then there was another one where master threw him in the water. When the master hung him from it, Woody Woodpecker came and pecked through the wood but not the rope and he said, “Woody free me,” and he said, “Why should I free you? You’s just a n****r,” which means that a woodpecker is worth more than Rodney. He kept appearing in all of my shows. In my last show, he’s deeply in love with Sally Hemmings and by this time I couldn’t remember words so I would have a wonderful book and try to make it a prop. I wrote a lot of music for Walk a Mile in My Drawers and Rodney is just talking to Sally Hemmings and she has just come back from France so she is like “Bonjour Rodney,” and he keeps acting free and he keeps telling her she’s not. So this was the kind of thing I couldn’t do with that kind of depth and let the audience know in a piece of sculpture but I could do that in performance.

Rail: But don’t you think that some of that point of view appears in the sculpture?

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Joyce J. Scott, What Next and Why Not, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, 2018. Photo: Etienne Frossard.

Scott: Absolutely. The difference is, you know it and I know other performance people know it, is taking the risk, being bare, just saying outrageous stuff, saying things that can be hurtful to others but for a reason, and it’s all very blatant and that’s not as blatant in the work, people have to surmise things. Or I can put a litany of stuff on the wall. I never read that stuff other than the first three sentences so I wouldn’t believe that anybody would read mine either. The performance, it also allowed me to become this Joyce—I know some of you are like, “Oh God,”—but to become the Joyce who knows why she’s doing the work and what she’s doing because my mom’s side of the family were craft people but they were also performers. My mother’s father played guitar and he raced horses and both sides of the family had stills and they were potters and quilt makers. Also they’d be down at the juke joint making music and talking a lot of trash and that really has coalesced in me. It’s the idea about humor being the key that opens the door to all of it, be it more fun or real sadness and pain. Don Rickles was really good at that, that’s why some of the people that we look at—Richard Pryor was really very good at that—you see that there are many levels to it and that’s what I would like to happen in the visual work because I’m only singing now. I’m not doing performances anymore, I’m telling a truth.

Rail: Is there any Baltimore in your work?

Scott: All of it’s Baltimore. I’m a round-the-way-girl from Sandtown. All of it is my memories of walking to school and being caught at the door by the principal because I had on too much jewelry or something. All of it is the lady who used to take care of me after school and we would cover cigar boxes with the comics, but her rules were that I had to

Blumarts Inc. 176 Grand Street Tel + 1 212 244 6055 www.peterblumgallery.com New York, NY 10013 Fax + 1 212 244 6054 [email protected] PETER BLUM GALLERY read all the comics and come in and tell her all the colors and everything to teach me. Yea, we made art, but there was a reason. Baltimore is quirky in the sense that people are frank and upfront, even in the most dastardly times and I think that’s very much in my artwork, too.

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By Peter Schjeldahl | November 2, 2018

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Joyce J. Scott: ‘I’d like my art to induce people to stop raping, torturing, and shooting each other’ Thomas Chatterton Williams | October 2, 2018

Thomas Chatterton Williams speaks to the Baltimore-based artist about her sharecropper heritage, the distinction between art and craft, and her frustrations with stereotyping

Joyce J. Scott has never not made art. Her mother, Elizabeth, with whom Scott worked side by side and shared a Baltimore row house for most of her life, was an extraordinary maker of quilts in her own right. Scott’s meticulous off-loom beadwork practice draws on the rigorous craftsmanship that was her birthright, as well as a dizzying array of global influences – from Native American handicraft to Thai Buddhism and Murano glassblowing techniques – amassed over decades of attentive study and travel. The end product amounts to something far greater than the sum of its disparate inputs, a multifaceted whole that is entirely shocking and new.

Scott, who won a MacArthur ‘genius grant’ in 2016, at the age of 67, challenges restrictive notions of cultural authenticity while simultaneously embracing – and in the process subverting – simplistic stereotypes about the scope of black art and life. Her work, which will be presented by Peter Blum Gallery in Art Basel Miami Beach’s Survey sector, is at once richly cosmopolitan and powerfully rooted in the distinctly black American Baltimore community she has never left. Scott’s labor- intensive sculptures and installations are frequently figurative, repurposing neutral handicraft processes as vehicles for scintillating humor and haunting ideas. ‘I’d like my art to induce people to stop raping, torturing, and shooting each other,’ she has said. In pieces such as Man Eating Watermelon (1986) and Buddha Supports Shiva Awakening the Races (1993), which operate on two levels like three-dimensional pointillist canvases – impressing the viewer on different registers from near and far – she leaves us no choice but to linger and think. Perhaps we may even improve.

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Joyce J. Scott, Pussy Melon 2, 1995. Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York City.

It seems like you were born to make art.

My mother was from South Carolina, and my dad from North Carolina. They came up during the Great Migration from the South. My mom’s side comes from a long line of craftspeople – potters, weavers, quilters. She was a very industrious woman who had a lot of different jobs. She was a cook, a nanny, a housekeeper. And she was a quilter. Nothing in our house went un-mended. My parents were sharecroppers, and though they came from very humble beginnings, my mom was very clear about the beauty she wanted in her home.

You were extraordinarily close to your mother and you even lived next door to each other in Baltimore, is that right?

No, no, we lived in the same house, babe. We had two houses, but the second one was for storage and to extend my studio.

Even better. So at what age did you understand that you were going to make art seriously?

I knew in utero. But I made the real choice when I was about 23. My undergraduate degree is in education. I knew I’d be a 700lb alcoholic if I worked in the public-school system. So I did what any

Blumarts Inc. 176 Grand Street Tel + 1 212 244 6055 www.peterblumgallery.com New York, NY 10013 Fax + 1 212 244 6054 [email protected] PETER BLUM GALLERY self-respecting kind of hippie would do. I ran off to Mexico with friends, and while there I was lucky enough to get a scholarship at the Instituto Allende. I did my master’s degree in crafts. I came back. I had one job as a drug counselor, for which I used art as my method. We painted on the walls and we made pottery and stuff. I did that until methadone was introduced. I knew that was not something I wanted to be part of, so I stopped. My mom and I decided to buy a house. We bought one for $10,000. I’ve never had a job-job since. I’ve always been self-employed.

What was your mother’s conception of art?

My mom was a storyteller. It showed in her work, but we didn’t really put it that way until I got out of graduate school. But then you think about Rauschenberg using quilts in his work, and you’re like, ‘Wait, he really is a craft fine artist.’

Joyce J. Scott, Mammie Wada IV, ca. 1978-81. Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York City.

Do you make the distinction between craftwork and fine art?

I don’t see how painting a cup is better than making the cup. The difference is a social construct that makes work created by people without an academic education worth less than the work of someone who went to art school.

Did you have to overcome resistance to the craft side of the work?

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Yes, I did. I’m also a jeweler, and folks are like, ‘It’s jewelry.’ Even though it may have taken longer to make and you use the same intellectual punch to make it. I always fought against that.

The titles of your pieces tend to be as interesting to me as the beautiful bead- and glasswork itself, see for instance Buddha Gives Basketball to the Ghetto (1991). How do you come up with the wordplay?

I was one of those girls who would save $1,015 a year and just go somewhere. One of the places I went was Thailand, where there are a whole bunch of black Buddhas with curly hair. One of the explanations for those curls is that they were small seashells. But I’m like, ‘That’s a black man.’ I thought about how the power of Buddha could be used within my community. And, of course, I thought of basketball. If you look at that piece, Buddha is holding in his hand what looks to be half of a basketball, but it’s really a prayer cup. I wanted to bring an evolved psyche to my community without it being religious, because Buddha isn’t a god. He’s an evolved human, right?

Joyce J. Scott, Sex Traffic 2, 2017. Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York City.

The work is so intricate, I was astounded. How long does it take to make something like that?

It can take me a year, because I work on more than one piece at a time. And I have to procure stuff. I had to go to Italy to make those glass Buddhas.

Where did you go in Italy?

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The island of Murano – the Berengo Studio. This was my first truly adult trip on my own. I was going to do a residency in a country where I don’t speak the language. It was very much a cultural thing, where an African-American woman from Baltimore comes to Murano, which is a small island. We had to work this thing out together, and it was really quite sweet.

How long did you stay out there?

I went three times. Twice to work for three weeks to a month. The third time, my work was in the satellite show of the Venice Biennale. No, not California, baby [Laughs.]. I was trying to be la donna. I would get on the vaporetto, and I’m walking with a cane, and I would go up to young men, and I would push my hand out and say prego. They’d help me sit down. I was like, ‘This is it.’

How did you start monetizing your work? Because it sounds like it’s very expensive to make.

I had my first real sale when I was about 16. I was selling jewelry to shops around the city. And by the time I got a scholarship to the Maryland Institute College of Art, I had a little bit of business selling jewelry. I made clothes. I’ve done theater. I always knew I would have to be self-employed. I bristled under anything that seemed to be unfair authority.

Joyce J. Scott, Harriet’s Rifle 2, 2018. Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York City.

I’m like you.

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So I started very young. But my mom was also self-employed. Even though she worked in someone’s house somewhere, she had side businesses. She would always sell dinners. Do you know what ‘arabs’ are? Not people we call Arabs. In Baltimore, we still have people who sell fruit and vegetables in horse-drawn carriages. Some people call them ‘arabbers’. In my neighborhood, we called them ‘arabs’. They still come around.

And they’re black?

Yes. My mom would buy vegetables from them, and then she would cook for the neighborhood. I always knew that I had to have a side hustle.

I love the term you use here, which calls to mind another facet of what makes your art so special – it is at once so cosmopolitan but also extraordinarily rooted in place. Baltimore infuses your identity.

I love my city. I still live in a challenged, African-American neighborhood, literally around the corner from where the Baltimore uprising was two and a half, three years ago, after the death of Freddie Gray. I’m in the middle of this. But I am not mired as much as swaddled by my community. You live with an art context here. There are murals everywhere, people sing on the street. It’s arty – it’s that, along with everything else.

Are you optimistic that art can, in fact, make people stop raping, killing, and torturing each other?

I don’t have the ego to think my personal art is that powerful. I believe there can be a critical mass, though. If I teach someone, that is social justice.

Who were the artists you admired when you were developing your own vision? Because it doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before.

A lot of my looking was at indigenous communities, be they Native American or African or Scottish. I started traveling when I was really young. I’ve been through Central and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe. I never stopped. And when I was there, I didn’t just go and sit down and look at the ocean and say, ‘I’m an American, bring me a mai tai.’ We would climb up to the top of Machu Picchu, or we’d be in a cave. Or I’d be in Africa in a bush taxi, riding and talking with people. My artwork does that, too.

Do you think people are surprised by the range of your interests and references?

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Yes. We still hold the same stereotypes about everybody. And I’m not even scared of the stereotypes. It’s not the use, it’s the abuse of the stereotype. It’s the idea that that’s all I want to do.

Joyce J. Scott, Harriet Tubman as Buddha, 2017. Courtesy of Peter Blum Gallery, New York City.

Thomas Chatterton Williams is a writer based in Paris and 2019 National Fellow at New America.

Joyce J. Scott’s work will be presented by Peter Blum Gallery in the Survey sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2018. Survey presents precise art historical projects. Participating galleries in 2018 include :Anat Ebgi, Ceysson & Bénétière, Eric Firestone Gallery, espaivisor, Galeria Jaqueline Martins,Hackett Mill, Haines Gallery, Hales Gallery, Louis Stern, Paci contemporary, Peter Blum Gallery, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Sabrina Amrani, Tibor de Nagy, Venus Over Manhattan, and Walden.

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Joyce J. Scott Employs the Beauty of Beads to Raise Issues Such as Violence and Racism: ‘My Best Voice is as an Artist’ by VICTORIA L. VALENTINE on Oct 26, 2018

IN THE HANDS of Joyce J. Scott, the possibilities of glass beads are endless. She uses beads to tell stories, raise challenging social and political issues, and celebrate her mother. A quilt artist, Elizabeth Talford Scott (1916-2011), taught her daughter to sew with beads when she was five years old. Scott’s early exposure was enduring. Over a five-decade career, she developed a unique, bead-based art practice. Many of Scott’s imaginative works are made solely with beads and thread. Others are elaborate mixed-media works combining beads with blown glass, found objects, fabric and a variety of other materials including photographs, bone, wood, and clay. She’s ventured into printmaking, installation, and performance, but primarily concentrates on multilayered bead works in the form of jewelry, wall hangings, and figurative sculpture. Her greatest recognition has come in recent years. On view at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York, “Maryland to Murano: Neckpieces and Sculptures by Joyce J. Scott” (2014-15) was organized by Lowery Stokes Sims, who was then chief curator at MAD. Scott was named a MacArthur “genius” Fellow in 2016. Her largest and most ambitious exhibition to date, “Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths,” was presented at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, N.J., earlier this year.

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The expansive survey, co-curated by Sims and Patterson Sims, featured 60 works made from 1970 to 2017. A special installation and commissioned outdoor sculptures paying tribute to Harriet Tubman were included in the show, in addition to a series of textile works made by Scott and her mother. The catalog published to accompany “Harriet Tubman and Other Truths” is the most comprehensive volume to date documenting Scott’s artwork. Peter Blum Gallery in New York is hosting Scott’s latest exhibition. About 20 of her beaded sculptures are displayed on white pedestals throughout the gallery. Wandering among the works replicates a journey through her oeuvre. The exhibition, “What Next and Why Not,” features works made since 2000. They exemplify her practice, bridging the gap between craft and contemporary sculpture.

Installation view of “Joyce J. Scott: What Next and Why Not” at Peter Blum Gallery, New York (Sept. 27-Nov. 10, 2018). Shown, in foreground, “War Woman II,” 2014. | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York. Photo by Etienne Frossard

BORN IN BALTIMORE, Scott has lived and worked in the city nearly all of her life. In 2015, Freddie Gray was killed in police custody three blocks from projects where she grew up. The uprising that broke out in the wake of Gray’s death unfolded steps from her current home, a row house where she also keeps her studio. Scott talked about the experience and her West Baltimore neighborhood in an interview with co-curator Lowery Stokes Sims that was published in the catalog for “Harriet Tubman and Other Truths.” “How did all this affect me? Well, I am an African American woman who decided to never run away from herself as a black woman, to never leave her community, and the uprising is happening right outside my door,” she said. “People are walking up and down North Avenue. The CVS pharmacy is on fire and they are using my fire hydrant to put the fire out. I see preachers in a prayer circle, right outside my living room window.” In many ways, her work reflects her hometown. She is best known for her beaded sculptural works wedding visual beauty with harsh content.

“I’d like my art to induce people to stop raping, torturing, and shooting each other. I don’t have the ability to end violence, racism, and sexism…but my art can help them look and think,” Scott said in a 2015 interview with co-curator Patterson Sims, which is quoted in the catalog. “I’d like my art to induce people to stop raping, torturing, and shooting each other.” — Joyce J. Scott

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Looking back to her earlier work, for “Rodney King’s Head Was Squashed Like a Watermelon” (1991), Scott employed all black beads to form King’s severed head and misshapen face. Green beads distinguish his lips and she used red ones for his bloody mouth and tongue. The base of “Headshot” (2008) is a green glass hand pointing a pistol in the air. The hollow interior is filled with loose bullets and a disembodied head composed of glistening brown beads is perched on the end of the handgun’s barrel. The top of the head is exposed to flesh, as though it’s been blown away by a gunshot. “Sex Traffic” (2014) features a tiny yellow-beaded figure. With its wrists tied together and bound to its knees, the figure is straddling the barrel of a sleek, glass-blown red rifle.

JOYCE J. SCOTT, “War Woman II,” 2014 (African sculpture, fused and painted mosaic glass, glass/plastic beads, wire, thread, metal keys and cast glass guns, 25 x 18 x 18 inches / 63.5 x 45.7 x 45.7 cm). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Lynching, domestic violence, and racial stereotypes are all fair game for Scott, who also invokes wit and irony in her work. “The things that give me a hard time. The things that I am interested in. The things that pressure me and that give me great release are the things that I really want to talk about. They are the reasons why I make the art a lot of times,” Scott said in a MacArthur interview. “That’s why I talk about politics and racism—the great bane, I think, of the human race. That’s why I talk about it, because it’s chewing on me all the time and my best voice is as an artist. It’s not as a preacher. I’m none of those things. I am not a politician. I’m none of those things. But I am a good artist and that allows me to speak through my art.” She has a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and earned an MFA at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (1971). In the nearly half century since, she has participated in more than two-dozen residencies, traveling all over the United States and beyond to hone her technique and master indigenous methods. Joyce J. Scott has participated in more than two-dozen residencies, traveling all over the United States and beyond to hone her technique and master indigenous methods.

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In 1976, at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, Scott learned the peyote stitch from a Native American woman. “…everything in my life changed. I was well prepared for the peyote stitch, because I could use all the other techniques I knew with this new one. It became a method of communication that combined my mom’s skills with a needle and thread with this possibility of transmitting light through glass beads I would use. And since people all over the world do beadwork, it was once again another page in that global art book,” she told Lowery Stokes Sims. More than 25 years ago, Scott began working with glass. She participated in residencies at Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle in 1992. Years later, she did back-to-back residencies at Berengo Glass Studio in Murano, Italy (2011-12). It was shortly after her mother died and she was still grieving. The artist was in South Africa, more recently. She spent time in Cape Town at Monkeybiz, which is devoted to reviving traditional African beadwork, and Ubuhle, a women’s bead art collective in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. (Work by the women is featured in a major traveling exhibition currently on view at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va.)

JOYCE J. SCOTT, “Breathe,” 2015 (hand-blown Murano glass, beads, thread, 20 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 16 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

CLOSER TO HOME, the many skills and techniques Scott has introduced to her practice throughout the years are evident in her exhibition at Peter Blum. Composed of red Murano glass, “Breathe” (2015) depicts a woman wearing cornrows, sitting cross legged as she gives birth single-handedly, pulling her baby from her womb by its arms. The baby’s beaded umbilical cord is wrapped around the mother’s neck. “Harriet Tubman as Buddha” (2017) invokes two personas that have figured prominently in Scott’s work in recent years. Standing more than three-feet tall, the elaborately beaded sculpture of Tubman portrayed as Buddha, seated in the lotus position with a halo, is on display at Peter Blum and was featured prominently in the Harriet’s Closet installation at the “Harriet Tubman and Other Truths” exhibition. Scott told the New York Times that she is drawn to the Buddha because “he wasn’t a god.” She said, “He worked really, really hard to evolve and have this greater enlightenment.” In the conversation wth Lowery Stokes Sims published in the exhibition catalog, Scott said one of the gaffers she was working with at the glass studio in Murano asked her “Why are you doing Buddha?” She said, “Because I am an artist, and everything is available to me.”

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Sims later asked the artist why she decided to focus on Tubman in the Grounds for Sculpture exhibition. Scott said the former slave and freedom fighter reminded her of her mother, whose roots are in South Carolina. (Her father, Charlie Scott, was from North Carolina and worked as a crane operator in Baltimore.) “…[Harriet Tubman] really makes me think about my mother. They were both thunderbolts. Neither of them was five feet tall. They were both dark skinned…, and they were go-getters,” Scott said. “…[Harriet Tubman] really makes me think about my mother. They were both thunderbolts.” — Joyce J. Scott

“My mom was one of those people who would have been on the Underground Railroad, dragging people out of the South. In fact, she did—she dragged herself northward, along with her entire family. And remember, this was long before the Treasury Department was talking about putting Harriet’s image on the twenty-dollar bill. So I chose Harriet Tubman because she is a great light for me, and she shows what you can be through all kinds of adversity.”

Indeed, the possibilities of beads are endless in the hands of Scott. The title for her exhibition at Peter Blum Gallery is adapted from a poetic statement by the artist, which emphasizes the creative promise she sees in the years ahead: “Heart pounding, sitting as a lump while my head keeps beating to the rhythm of ‘what next and why not.’ In my 69th year and still confounded as if it’s all new. This thing—this creativity thang—is so tasty, so nutritious, that just the thought of never imbibing in its healing elixir makes me itch. I’m in the game for real, so I’ll keep on scratching.” CT

TOP IMAGE: JOYCE J. SCOTT, Detail of “Harriet Tubman as Buddha,” 2017 (plastic and glass beads, metal, thread, yarn and rocks, 40 x 25 x 15 inches / 101.6 x 63.5 x 38.1 cm). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

The exhibition “What Next and Why Not” is on view at Peter Blum Gallery, New York, N.Y. (Sept. 27 – Nov. 10, 2018).

BOOKSHELF “Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths” documents the artist’s exhibition at Grounds for Sculpture, her largest and most comprehensive exhibition to date. The volume texts by co-curator Patterson Sims and Seph Rodney, and an interview with the artist conducted by co-curator Lowery Stokes Sims, who also contributed an essay.

JOYCE J. SCOTT, “Harriet Tubman as Buddha,” 2017 (plastic and glass beads, metal, thread, yarn and rocks, 40 x 25 x 15 inches / 101.6 x 63.5 x 38.1 cm). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

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JOYCE J. SCOTT, “Twins: Harlequin,” 2016 (hand- JOYCE J. SCOTT, “Twins: Harlequin,” 2016 (hand- blown Murano glass processes with fused glass, blown Murano glass processes with fused glass, glass beads, seed beads, and thread, 18 x 12 1/2 x glass beads, seed beads, and thread, 18 x 12 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum 7 1/4 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York Gallery, New York

Installation view of “Joyce J. Scott: What Next and Why Not” at Peter Blum Gallery, New York (Sept. 27-Nov. 10, 2018). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York. Photo by Etienne Frossard

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JOYCE J. SCOTT, “Mommy” (from the Day After JOYCE J. SCOTT, “Celadon II,” 2010 (blown, fused, Rape series), 2009 (glass jar, glass beads, thread, painted and flame worked glass, glass beadwork, 5 x 5 x 5 inches). | Courtesy the artist and Peter thread and wire, 30 x 10 x 10 inches /76.2 x 25.4 x Blum Gallery, New York 25.4 cm). | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Installation view of “Joyce J. Scott: What Next and Why Not” at Peter Blum Gallery, New York (Sept. 27-Nov. 10, 2018). Shown, at center, “Family Matters, My Husband and My Baby,” 2002. | Courtesy the artist and Peter Blum Gallery, New York. Photo by Etienne Frossard

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EVENT HORIZON: ART HAPPENINGS AROUND NEW YORK 9 Art Events to Attend in New York City This Week BY The Editors of ARTnews POSTED 09/24/18 12:59 PM

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

Joyce J. Scott, Breathe, 2014, hand-blown Murano glass, beads and thread. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PETER BLUM GALLERY, NEW YORK

Opening: Joyce J. Scott at Peter Blum Gallery “What Next and Why Not,” Joyce J. Scott’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, will showcase about 20 sculptures made since the year 2000. The artist incorporates beading, blown glass, and found objects in her artworks, which often ruminate on history, race, gender, and violence. The works on view evidence Scott’s interests in many cultural and spiritual traditions—West African Yoruba weaving and Buddhism are among the reference points. The exhibition, which follows on the heels of a Scott survey at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, earlier this year is her first New York show in 20 years. Peter Blum Gallery, 176 Grand Street, 6—8 p.m

Joyce J. Scott, Breathe, 2014, hand-blown Murano glass, beads and thread. COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PETER BLUM GALLERY, NEW YORK

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