#bossbabesATX is proud to be partnering with visual artist, community organizer, and creative entrepreneur Mercy Emelike in presenting CHATROOM, an art conversation series featuring Black women and non-binary artists. The conversations are more sitting-in-your-friend’s-living-room than panel presentation.
CHATROOM exists to facilitate warm dialogue between artists and the community with the belief that art communities thrive when there’s healthy exchange between artists and audience. The third installment in the series will be facilitated by local artist and educator Tammie Rubin and features Arielle Austin, an abstract painter based in Austin, Texas.
If you’re an artist, an art enthusiast, or just like to chat, we’d love to have your voice there!
— MEET THE FEATURED SPEAKERS —
About Arielle Austin: Arielle Austin is a abstract painter living, dreaming and creating in Austin, Texas. Arielle works primarily with acrylic, oil paint, and paper to produce abstract works on canvas while expressing the emotional scape of our transitory existence. From layered oil paintings and vibrant abstraction, Austin believes the viewer can find a part of themselves in each piece. Initially used as a tool for personal therapy and spiritual connectedness, Austin’s process-based work explores the intimate relationship between subject and viewer with layers, texture, and details. In experimenting with this process, Austin compels the viewer to take a closer look - to become intimate with the art, resembling our very own human nature and desire. To be fully seen and known. The desire that makes known the unspoken, observes the corners, wonders of technique, yearns to touch textures, dissect its layers. In addition to refining her own practice, Arielle can also be found leading abstract painting workshops in Austin, Texas.
About Tammie Rubin (facilitator): Tammie Rubin is an artist and educator whose artwork explores the gaps between the readymade and the handcrafted object, opening up dream-like spaces of unexpected associations and dislocations. Rubin has exhibited nationally, recent exhibitions include Women & Their Work, Austin, TX; the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX; Horton Gallery, San Joaquin Delta College, Stockton, CA; and George Carver Museum, Austin, TX. Rubin is a recipient of grants from Cultural Arts Division Austin, Artist Trust Grants for Artist Projects Seattle, and an Artist Project Grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Her work has been featured in online and printed publications such as Artforum, Art in America, Glasstire, Sightlines, fields, Conflict of Interest, Arts and Culture Texas, Ceramics: Art & Perception, and Ceramics Monthly. Rubin along with fellow Austin-based artists Adrian Aguilera and Betelhem Makonnen founded Black Mountain Project, a 250 sq. ft micro space that aims to activate unexpected points of encounter while expanding perceptions of identity, community, and practice. Born and raised in Chicago, Rubin currently lives in Austin, Texas where she is an Associate Professor of Ceramics & Sculpture at St. Edward’s University.
— HOW TO RSVP —
As a part of the CHATROOM series, this event is the third of three discussions held at the #BBATX Headquarters on November 18, December 2 and December 14. This series is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department and is free and open to the public.
— VENUE ACCESSIBILITY NOTES —
This event is located within Canopy. A parking lot is available and the venue is accessible by public transportation. This venue is wheelchair accessible and all activities will occur on the ground floor. ASL interpreters can be provided upon request. :) If you need accommodations, you can let us know by emailing thebabes@bossbabes.org.
— MEET THE PRODUCERS —
About #bossbabesATX: We’re a Texas-based nonprofit that amplifies and connects women and nonbinary creatives, entrepreneurs and organizers. We create space to share our crafts, catalyze multi-industry coalitions, promote intersectionality across disciplines, seek guidance and provide each other with practical and emotional resources. Anyone interested in our mission, core values, and initiatives are invited to participate—and learn more about how intersectional gender equality can improve their daily lives. We provide 1500 opportunities to women and nonbinary creatives, entrepreneurs and community organizers per year. More than 15,000+ community members also annually attend our showcases, markets and dialogues—and in the last three years, our programs generated an additional $1million for the Austin economy. So, whether you apply to participate in one of our programs, attend our workshops, conferences and dialogues, or come out to a festival or market to support the community we’re building, you’re a member of this movement. All babes, all people, are welcome. :) Learn more at bossbabes.org.
About Mercy Emelike: Mercy Emelike is passionate about the visual arts, community/economy, and business. She mostly paints, thinks about business, and brings people together to talk about art. Her artwork centers on patterns, and she believes that pattern-finding/creating smoothly spans disciplines. Mercy spends 8+ hours a day helping businesses grow and playing with data. In her remaining time, she works on her art and organizes art events. She is also the co-founder/textile surface designer of MARIELLE|EJIAMA. Find her on Instagram or Twitter: @mercyejiama.