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Feathers: Special Guest-Joyce J. Scott
Oct 12, 2015
FEATHERS: A Musical Menagerie Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe
Featuring Baltimore-based multi-media artist, Joyce J. Scott
Saturday, October 17th at 8:00pm
Free Library of Philadelphia - Central Library
1901 Vine Street, Phila., PA 19103
Tickets: $15 in advance/$20 at the door
Joyce J. Scott is a Baltimore-based multi-media artist whose work has been shown in more than 60 solo and group exhibitions. She is internationally known as a performer, quilter, jewelery maker, sculptor and bead artist. Her work has been shown in major museums across the country, including the American Craft Museum, New York; The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Orlando Art Museum, Florida; The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; The Studio Museum, Harlem New York; and the Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has received many awards including from The National Endowment of the Arts, Tiffany Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman and the American Craft Council.
In 1986, Joyce Scott and actress Kay Ewall formed The Thunder Thigh Revue. Together they engaged in matters surrounding the black female and the representation of the black female body in American society. Much of Joyce’s work is influenced by Japanese theater, European decorative arts, and the bead work of the people of Africa and American popular culture. She usually uses recent examples of injustice in the world in her artwork. She uses very strong issues of racism, violence, sexism and stereotypes in her artwork. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute, College of Art and received a master’s degree in fine arts in crafts from the Mexico Institute Allende in San Miguel.
We are honored to have multi-faceted artist, Joyce J. Scott as a special guest performer in the PJP production of FEATHERS: A Musical Menagerie Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Much like the rest of this project's creative team, she took part in the writing process, sharing musical ideas and adding lyrics to the work. We spoke with Joyce about her work as a multi-faceted artist and her involvement with the Feathers project.
PJP: What attracted you to doing a piece that dealt with Egdar Allan Poe?
Joyce Scott: Certainly, he being a hero in Baltimore had an impact. That’s always fun. Also the fact that Poe was also an anti-hero in Baltimore as well. We’re a city that is grossly troubled by drugs and everything else. It’s the hero, the anti-hero. It’s the Black Ravens, The Orioles. It’s Poe being in some sense being one of the misbegotten Negroes of his time. Seriously… Him not being accepted by the establisment… the very things they wanted him for, they didn’t like him for.
People may have really liked his ability to create, but actually not like Poe....the man. And the idea that many, many years later, he has become and icon and a progenitor of Science Fiction and Detective Stories. That’s one of the things to generated interest and that made me want to be involved in this.
…And then there’s you, Homer Jackson….The Philadelphia Jazz Project. I love that you are promoting and always trying to scratch the itch for Jazz. And I like your improvisational, Ride-or-Die approach where you would just, amalgamate all kinds of stuff and look beyond the veneer of what you can do creatively. I think that’s very important. You’re also a collaborator and that can be the best thing in the world or the worst. That can truly be difficult. So, I like that sort of riskiness.
PJP: How do you prepare your audience for your work?
Joyce Scott: I’m actually just treating myself. I have a lot of performing shortcomings. I’m not an actress-actress. I have worked with real actresses. I’ve worked with great performers. And they are just that. I’m an entertainer. I’m older now, so I don’t remember lines as well anymore and I’m not as spry. I used to jump off of the balcony onto the stage when I was younger. …Because I was foolish!!! [Laughter]
But, now, I see those challenges not as impediments, but as opportunities to find a way to work it now. Knowing that, I try to take my inability to learn some things and I figure it out. I know I’m better at remembering songs now, and I turn my lines into a song in my mind. And I don’t have the ego that I have to do everything anymore. I don’t have to sing something because I wrote it. It probably would be better done by me…[Laughter] But somebody else could do it.
…What do I have to lose? With all of the horrible faults of this country, this is a place where you can truly perform. I don’t have the aspirations to be on Broadway anymore. Although the Thunder Thighs Revue performed at the Bottomline, Caroline’s and The InGirl Festival. Now, If I’ve got something that others will enjoy, then I’ll do it, or I can help it happen it. I don’t have to do it all anymore …and that’s what brought me to this.
FEATHERS: A Musical Menagerie Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe
Featuring Baltimore-based multi-media artist, Joyce J. Scott
Saturday, October 17th at 8:00pm
Free Library of Philadelphia - Central Library
1901 Vine Street, Phila., PA 19103
Tickets: $15 in advance/$20 at the door
