Academic Writing

Contemporary Art

1. Laylah Ali's Enigmatic Narratives
2. Essay, the work of visual artist Layla Ali.
3. Carol Duncan: Art Historian as Progressive, Social-politicist & Feminist Critic
4. Review, "The Aesthetics of Power: Essays in Critical Art History" by Carol Duncan.
5. "Review: Art on My Mind"
6. Review, cultural critic bell hooks' 1994 book.

African Continuities and Material Culture

1. Ancestry, Evolution & Memory: Central African Funerary Art and Practice and its Evolution in the United States and Cuba

This paper advances a concept of "harmonic dualism" as an integral facet of African identity in regards to funerary art and practice of the Kongo people of Central Africa and its legacy in the United States and Cuba. It examines Kongo art and tradition, how it was effected by colonial interests and the Atlantic slave trade, and how the intersection of African and European culture and religion contributed to its evolution in the Americas. It explores how Kongo culture and ideographic language find expression in Afro-colonial funerary traditions and asks what evolution of these traditions and practices do we find as part of a continuum in Diasporic art and culture in the American present?

2. Object as Storyteller: Investigations into Evidence of African Traditions in African American Material Culture

This paper investigates African cultural continuity and practices within African American culture by tracing the history and uses of a simple, 18th century pewter spoon. This artifact was recovered in a riverbank deposit from an archeological site and is part of the collection of the South Seaport Museum in New York.

*writings available upon request

The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression and Reflection.


Short Essay Featured in Expansions - Architectures of Space and Spirit: Expanding the Spatial Contract Within the White Cube


Craft and Legacy: Writing a History, Preserving a Field


The Evidence of Things Not Seen


The Baartman Diaries


Seeing Black and the Color of Representation

Writing & Reviews

Books & Chapters in Books

1. The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression and Reflection

Allworth Publishing (2022), edited by Anne H. Berry, Kareem Collie, Penina Acayo Laker, Lesley-Ann Noel, Jennifer Rittner, Kelly Walters.

2. The Evidence of Things Not Seen

- In The New New Corpse, Chicago: Green Lantern Press, 2015

3. Roundtable discussion in The Handbook of Textile Culture

Edited by Janis Jefferies, Diana Wood Conroy and Hazel Clark, London: Bloomsbury, 2015

4. The Baartman Diaries

Foreword by Carla Williams, essay by Folayemi Wilson, Chicago: Studio W Editions, 2013 (purchase here)

5. Seeing Black and the Color of Form and Domestic Bodies

In Diasporic Women’s Writings of the Black Atlantic: (En)Gendering Literature and Performance. Emilia María Durán-Almarza and Esther Álvarez-López, editors, New York: Routledge, 2013

6. 100 Assignments: The Future of the Foundation Course in Art and Design

Paris France: Paris College of Art Press (PCA), 2013

Selected Published Exhibition Essays & Reviews

1. Architectures of Space and Spirit: Expanding the Spatial Contract Within the White Cube

Short Essay From Expansions – A Response to How Will We Live Together? Expansion by Hakim Sarkis and Ala Tannir. 2021

2. Craft and Legacy: Writing a History, Preserving a Field

Essays by presenters at Haystack's 2019 Summer Conference. Monograph Series #35. 2019

3. It's All Wrong Tom

Tom Loeser: It Could Have Been Kindling, West Bend, WI: Museum of Wisconsin Art, 2015

4. “A ‘Remix’ of Diva Cool at 331/2 RPM”

International Review of African American Art, Vol. 24, No.2., 2013

5. “Seeing Black and the Color of Representation”

NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Vol. 2011, No. 29, Fall/Winter 2011

6. “The Changing Face of Craft”

International Review of African American Art, Vol. 22, No.2, 2009

7. "On Walls and the Walkers"

International Review of African American Art, Vol. 20, No.3, 2006

8. "The Maker as Evidence”

The Maker's Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990, Studio 3, The Furniture Society, October 2005

9. "The Dissolution of 'Black Art?, An Exhibition and Book,"

International Review of African American Art, Vol. 19, No.2, 2003

10. "The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994,"

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and MOMA, International Review of African American Art, Vol. 18, No.4, 2002

11. "Looking for Miles Davis: The Search to Articulate an African American Design Aesthetic”

Communication Arts, Photography Annual, 2002

*writings available upon request