Voicing Art

Jenne Glover
From the Heart Art Gallery

Increasing awareness, appreciation, and knowledge of the visual arts---people, processes, culture

In This Issue…

• Editor's Perspective: Baby Boomer Alert – Preserve Your Brain!
• Contemporary Artist: Terry deBardelaben, Doing What Matters
• The Shops at North & Charles feature artist Pontella Mason – October 18, 2008

Editor's Perspective: Baby Boomer Alert – Preserve Your Brain!

Baby Boomers we are at a vunerable point in our lives, like an old reliable car with plenty of wear and tear --- dutiful, quality maintenance is required and staying mentally sharp is key to our survival. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. is a great resource on how to nurture a healthy brain. And, apparently a healthy brain is not the norm. On a recent PBS telecast Dr. Amen cited a study that found only 90 of 30,000 people had healthy brains. Hmmm…collective dysfunction?

Ways to enhance memory and concentration include:

• healthy diet - vegetables, omega 3 fatty acids, salmon, tuna, avocados, walnuts, blueberries, fiber, green tea, oatmeal, red peppers, turkey, H20
• 7-8 hours of sleep per day
• learning new things
• vitamins, including fish oil
• exercise
• social connections
• meditation and positive thinking
• having gratitude

Somethings that harm the brain by decreasing blood flow are:

• nicotine
• alcohol
• caffeine
• inadequate sleep
• lack of exercise
• chronic stress
• head injuries
• toxic fumes

Change your Brain, Change Your Life explains how the brain affects our behavior. And, provides guidance on foods that will strengthen specifc parts of the brain and improve behavior. What’s encouraging is that the brain makes new neurons thoughout life, so we can get better.

Order Your Book Today, click here

Contemporary Artists: Terry deBardelaben, Doing What Matters

Energized by Earth,
Sharing knowledge…
Molding alliances!

Terry deBardelaben’s love for sculpting began at the bank of a near by stream where she discovered making and tasting mud pies was fun. Clay is malleable and forgiving; and as you squeeze, your energy is released into the clay. And, manipulating the soil and water had a calming and soothing affect on Terry who was caught in the midst of an educational system’s reluctance to do the right thing. Growing up in Inglewood Clifts, New Jersey in the 60’s was tumultuous. In 1954, Brown versus the Board of Education ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment. School boards were advised to proceed “with all deliberate speed” to integrate their schools, however, some communities like Inglewood Clifts were hard pressed to change.

Enraged by the school boards defiant stance to deny her daughter a quality education, Terry’s mom, Mamie York, joined forces with other outraged parents by boycotting the inferior “colored school,” suing the school board, and sending their children underground where local teachers taught them after their normal school day ended. Eventually, Terry was able to integrate an all white elementary school that was equipped for learning by providing a stimulating curriculum, up to date books, all kinds of hands-on equipment, and an educational foundation that has served her well.

Terry believes she was predisposed to do art. Her mom was an accomplished jazz vocalist and consequently Terry spent a lot of time in New York City’s jazz scene. She didn’t realize until later that these people that she knew on familiar terms were legends, like jazz great Donald Byrd and Mertin Simpson, a renowned NYC art dealer.

As far as she can remember, Terry always took ceramics and art classes at school so it was no surprise that she chose to study art at Howard University. As an undergrad and new to the city, her professor Winnie Owens-Hart became her ceramist instructor, mentor, and life coach. Terry earned a BFA in art education in 1981.

It’s natural that Terry has embraced education and the joy of giving back, because she has been blessed to have several mentors to model, guide, and encourage her to be independent and self-sufficient. Mikea Roberts, arts educator and an accomplished painter encouraged her to be a practicing artist and Professor Starmanda Bullock, a graphic artist, demonstrated that it was possible to have a thriving visual arts business.

After college, Terry created art, but her primary focus was on her young family. By the 1990’s, Terry made the transition from art educator to school administrator. However, missing the pupil-student exchange, Terry returned to teaching at the Chevy Chase Community Center and as she worked with her pupils she realized that she wanted to return to graduate school. Terry’s inspiration is form… figurative, and biomorphic forms found in nature. Her MFA thesis work was on abstract sculpture depicting the female body. Her goal was to exalt the physicality of the Black female body and dispel the notion that black women, like Sarah Baartman -- the “Hottentot Venus,” are simply big butt side show freaks; Terry wanted to create images that emphasize Black beauty, something she had not seen on exhibit.

While in graduate school Terry often dreamed in explicit detail about the work that she was going to create, but once she opened her conscious she was able to break through and just pick up the clay and let her energy flow. She’s found designing art of the female body has its challenges because the female body has been objectified and sexually exploited, but this only makes her more determined to glorify and define the female aesthetic. She received her MFA from Howard University in 2003.

Terry’s approach to creating begins with a maquette, a small three-dimensional model that helps her determine how she’ll construct the actual piece of work. Another technique she uses is to simultaneously create 5-6 pieces of a subject so she can resolve technical and conceptual issues. Each piece allows her to discover something new or helps her make it better.

Terry’s been fortunate to win several arts awards. After winning a Bette Robinson Scholar Award in 2003 she was able to supplement her income by working as a teacher’s assistant at Howard University, and by offering ceramic classes at her home to her former Chevy Chase students. In 2005, Hampton University awarded her the Joseph Gilliard Ceramics Award. And, in 2006, a faculty travel grant from St. Stephens and St. Agnes School Association of Parents and Teachers afforded her the opportunity to travel to Tuscany, Italy to study with Giovanni Cimatti, a master ceramicist. Terry cut up the plates that she made in his class into shards because it would be easier to transport back to the States. When she returned home, she mounted the shards of clay and created a series of wall tesseras. Initially, Terry’s focus on clay, but now she’s expanding and exploring other mediums, including art lighting and filmmaking. Another project on her front burner is searching nationally and internationally for a university professorship to teach ceramics and 3D concepts.

Teaching is Terry’s passion and along with working at St. Stephens and St. Agnes she also serves as an adjunct art professor at the University of the District of Columbia and at Howard University. She also volunteers as a pottery teacher at the Art Space after school program. Terry’s relationship with Ms. Owens-Hart has thrived over the years and last year they visited Ghana to do ethnographic research on the culture and traditional pottery of the women of the Kuli village who’s technique is centuries old. Terry’s developing a movie about these women potters – how they construct, fire, and sell their pots.

Terry’s challenges concern time management, staying focused, and deciding what direction she wants to pursue. She has a lot of energy and gets a lot done, but she wants to make the right choices for the right reasons. Although selling her work would be nice, she’s not concerned with the marketplace or whether her work sells. Selling is not a motivation for her to create and she doesn’t want to depend on a livelihood that’s based on whether she sells her work. Terry believes that making art to sell makes the artist beholding to the public and she doesn’t want to compromise her art or her message based on whether it’s marketable. For her, integrity equals free expression for her creative voice. And, she has donated her sculptures for auction to the Iona House, the National Urban League, and the Dance Place.

Terry’s advice for artists is to have the tenacity to keep at it and to examine why you’re doing it. She urges artists to focus on producing because you must do the work to be an artist. She suggests that you enjoy the creative process --- the cognitive and constructive components of creating, and don’t be too hard on yourself. She encourages artists to join professional associations and avoid working in isolation.

Five years from now she wants to be in the throes of a business idea that she’s been kicking around. Her dream is to provide educational tours to Ghana to learn pottery from the women in the Kuli village. She also wants to continue teaching because as Iris Dial, another mentor, told her, “the best way to thank me is to pass the wisdom on.”

Terry said when she let go of her ego her values changed. At one time she aspired for public notoriety, to be well known, but that’s not important to her anymore. What matters is helping others, keeping the pottery tradition of the Kuli village alive, and passing on the knowledge of her craft. What’s important is being an educator, sharing, and volunteering. And, giving back keeps her going.

Terry’s ceramic wall tesseras creations are currently on display in the DC Black Artists Show, Remembering Not to Forget, at Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She was recently featured in the “New Power Generation Show” at Hampton University and the Howard University Faculty Show. Terry’s a member of the Washington Sculptures Group. Some of her favorite artists are Winnie Owens-Hart, Elizabeth Catlett, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Deborah Willis, Renee Cox, Augusta Savage, and Edmonia Lewis.

You can contact Terry at terrydebardelaben@yahoo.com; 202-699-0616; or see more of her work at web.mac.com/tdebardelaben.

The Shops at North & Charles feature artist Pontella Mason – October 18, 2008

Jenne at Attitude Exact, Washington, D.C. Photo by Leon James

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