MEDIA CONTACT
Wando Okongwu, wokongwu@projectrowhouses.org
Comms and Marketing Manager, 713.526.7662

Houston, Texas—Project Row Houses (PRH) invites the community to celebrate its 30th anniversary and honor its founders at The Founders Round + PRH’s A Legacy Mixtape Block Party on October 14, 2023, from 1-9pm. 

In 1993, seven visionary Black artists working in Houston embarked on a mission that would change the face of their community. James Bettison, Bert Long, Jr., Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith recognized immense potential in a block and a half of abandoned shotgun houses at the corner of Holman and Live Oak. While others saw poverty and neglect, these artists saw a canvas for positive, creative, and transformative experiences in Third Ward. 

PRH Curator and Art Director Danielle Burns Wilson created Project Row Houses: The Founders Round as a tribute to these artists and their foundational role in shaping this unique social sculpture and to shine a light on PRH’s 30-year legacy.  

Wilson shares: “The Founders Round will feature newly installed and original works of art created by some of the visionary artists and will give viewers a chance to immerse themselves and experience their creative brilliance in the row houses that started it all.” 

The round opening will be part of a larger event, Project Row Houses’ A Legacy Mixtape Block Party, where art and entertainment collide. This is a family-friendly event, featuring dedicated kids’ zones, games, and crafts. Two stages will showcase multiple DJs and guest performers trading electrifying performances to get people dancing. Guests can shop from a market highlighting a variety of local businesses and artists and buy food from a collection of food trucks.  

Through its work, PRH has cultivated independent change agents who have been empowered to support people and their ideas, equipping them with the tools and capacity to do the same for others.  

The Founders Round + Block Party is a testament to the transformative power of art and community, and the importance of celebrating the spirit of collective creative action.  

Event Details:

Porch Talks + Opening
Saturday, October 14, 2023 | 1-2 PM  

Block Party
Saturday, October 14, 2023 | 2-9 PM 

Location
2521 Holman Street, Houston, TX 77004 

On View
Saturday, October 14, 2023 – Sunday, February 18, 2024

For more information and updates about the event, please visit PRHTurns30.org. 

ABOUT THE FOUNDERS 

James Bettison was a spirited visual artist, performer, and sculptor in Houston, TX. In vibrant color, his work fused realism and the abstract, and in his life, he stood as a testament to perseverance. After moving to Houston in 1980, Bettison appeared in an amazing number of groups and numerous solo shows throughout the city. In 1991, Bettison was hit with a series of surreal and tragic occurrences. First, a fire started in his home and studio, and most of his work burned. Soon after, he contracted spinal meningitis and fell into a coma. Despite doctors doubting his recovery, Bettison miraculously regained consciousness. Eventually, Bettison felt that he was at a similar place in his work, to where he was before the coma. Throughout these life-changing events, he came together with six fellow visionary artists to begin Project Row Houses. Bettison passed away and joined the ancestral realm May 11th, 1997. We work to honor his example of community and perseverance through the collective actions of the social sculpture that is Project Row Houses.   

Bert Long, Jr. was a painter, photographer, and sculptor who worked with traditional materials and ice. His personal philosophy was to never plan and to go with the organic flow that life provided. For Long, art was a way of elevation. He took his first art class in high school, but most of what he learned about art came from spending many hours studying art books at the public library. Born and raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward, Long had a successful career as a chef before dedicating his life to art in 1979. Long was key in establishing a connected artistic community in the city, asserting Houston as a major art center in the art world. In his career, he joined with six fellow artists to start Project Row Houses. On February 1, 2013, Long passed away and joined the ancestral realm, but his work lives on as we carry out the mission, he left behind with Project Row Houses.  

Jesse Lott was a prolific artist known for his wire and wood sculptures, papier-mâché figures and collages made from found materials within an aesthetic he has named “urban frontier art”. Lott’s practice involved turning trash into treasure and combining it with the spirit of activism. Lott’s passion for the community still transcends through decades, as he even held workshops at his studio to inspire student who otherwise have not had access to art. During the 1950s, his family relocated from Simmesport, Louisiana to Texas, eventually settling in Houston’s Fifth Ward. Alongside six artists also seeking to use art as a resource, Lott’s community-oriented philosophy and his Artists in Action program helped spark the creation of Project Row Houses. 

Rick Lowe is a distinguished artist and community organizer who resides in Houston. Over the past thirty years, Lowe has worked both inside and outside of art world institutions by participating in exhibitions and developing his socially engaged art projects rooted in community building. For nearly 30 years, he put aside his own studio practice and fully submerged into the social reality of creative production that seeks to be a catalyst of creatively transforming neighborhoods and communities. Born in Eufaula, Alabama, Lowe moved to Houston, Texas in 1985. Lowe co-founded the Commerce Street Artists Warehouse SAW (1985-2010), and later the Union of Independent Artists, before joining with six fellow visionary artists to begin Project Row Houses. 

With a career spanning over four decades, Floyd Newsum‘s paintings, drawings, and prints reflect bold colors and whimsical motifs from African and African American folklore. Using artifacts from many cultures, Newsum’s work explores social and environmental issues. Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee during the 1960’s gave him a front row seat to the Civil Rights Movement, influencing and informing his motivations and worldview. In 1976, Newsum became a professor for University of Houston – Downtown, where he continues to teach today. During this time, he joined with six fellow visionary artists and together, established Project Row Houses.  

Bert Samples is an experienced and spirited painter and conservator in Houston, TX. Samples developed his own spirit-based ceremony in artmaking, invoking a heady brew of imagery inspired by dreams, myth, movies, music, and potent magic in his work. Born and raised in Houston, TX. Samples studied under legendary Houston artists and teachers James Surls, John Biggers, and Kermit Oliver, while attending TSU (Texas Southern University). Understanding the importance of uplifting community and seeking to use Art as a resource for this, Samples joined in with six fellow artists to found Project Row Houses.  

George Smith is a major visual artist and retired professor, who over the course of his significant art career has created powerful, original and immensely dignified artworks in welded steel, works on paper and other media that reflect his aesthetic orientation as well as his experience with steel construction. On one level his sculptural works communicate his spiritual ambition and synthesize three fundamental sources: the sense of scale and the intuitive look of Abstract Expressionism, the industrial geometry of Minimal Art, and the striations, expressive symbols of sacred geometry inspired by the Dogon peoples of West Africa. Smith came to Houston with his family in 1981, after being recruited to teach Sculpture at Rice University, where he taught until his retirement in 2010. In 1993, he joined six other prolific Houston Artists, and together they established Project Row Houses. 

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Houston, Texas. The Eldorado Ballroom Grand Reopening and Unveiling was one for the history books, as Project Row Houses (PRH) rededicated the iconic venue to Anna and Clarence Dupree and the historic community it serves. The Eldorado was one of the nation’s most acclaimed live venues for Black musicians and audiences, and the cultural and social center of the community. Now, it has returned to Third Ward and the Dupree’s legacy lives on. 

PRH celebrated the completion of this historic preservation project with key supporters and community partners on Thursday, March 30, 2023. Guests arrived at the newly restored Eldorado Ballroom in 40s fashion, draped down and dressed to the nines. From elegant gowns and wrist length gloves to feathered fedoras and double-breasted jackets, attendees were greeted with hors d’oeuvres and champagne as they mixed and mingled with one another. 

Mayor Turner arrived in awe to see the revived Eldorado Ballroom in all its glory; a place that has been treasured for so many years. As Turner toured the space, he shared his thoughts on what this means for the City of Houston, and more specifically, historic Third Ward. “For Project Row Houses to revitalize and bring it back to life, it’s breathing life into a place where so many people gained so much from it,” Turner stated. He went on to share that the Eldorado “is not a museum, it’s now again another place of destination.”  

Hosted by media personality Deborah Duncan, the program began with Danielle Fanfair delivering a lovely tribute titled “Eldorado In Her Own Words,” followed by a praiseworthy blessing over the newly renovated space from Reverend Marilyn White. PRH Board President Bert Brown III, and Eldorado fundraising campaign co-chairs and PRH board members Anita Smith and Hasty Johnson, who shared their remarks on the collective efforts of Eldorado supporters to reach the finish line of the project. 

PRH Executive Director Eureka Gilkey presented a heartwarming speech honoring the Duprees and her desire to “dedicate this night to Anna and Clarence Dupree, the generous visionaries who built the Eldorado. They built a place for community and connection. They built a place for revelry” She expressed her gratitude to all who made this restoration possible and excitement for the community to engage and fellowship in the space for years to come. 

Gilkey took the audience on a journey through time, asking attendees to close their eyes and think about what it would be like to enjoy a night at the Eldorado sitting next to the legendary Black musicians who graced the ballroom stage. She then presented the keys to the Eldorado Ballroom to three legendary artists who once performed at the venue; Jewel Brown, Horace Grigsby, and Lizette Cobb (in honor of her father Arnett Cobb). 

Duncan invited the Dais members to stand and grab their scissors for the ribbon cutting as the audience started the grand countdown. After the symbolic ribbon cutting, the entire Eldorado was activated, and guests were welcomed to flow throughout the space and see the revitalized building. Guests soon made their way to the elegant ballroom to enjoy a reception with wonderful performances by jazz and blues singer Jewel Brown, jazz vocalist Horace Grigsby, DJ Mookie Copeland, Houston Steppers, and DJ Flash Gordon Parks. 

Towards the end of the event, one of PRH’s co-founders, Jesse Lott was surprised with a cake for his 80th birthday. Brother Jesse, the 2022 Texas State Three-Dimensional Artist has been very instrumental in PRH’s growth as an arts and culture institution and is viewed as a mentor, teacher, and friend in the lives of many. This was a wonderful way to round out the night, as Jewel Brown sang a lovely happy birthday song to close the show. 
 
The Eldorado Ballroom building being restored means more than just showcasing a historical artifact, it means protecting this sacred space “to nurture hope, reconnect with each other and experience joy,” Gilkey shared, as she encourages others to treat it with care. PRH was founded on the principles of collective creative action and part of that initiative is to protect and preserve structures such as the Eldorado in perpetuity. “That is the essence of collective creative action and that is why PRH has become a part of the Eldorado Ballroom story.” The community celebrates as they witness the whole restoration come to fruition and the return of this historic Black space. 
 
All are invited to join PRH for a Community Open House on Thursday, April 6, 2023, from 12:00 noon -6:00 pm. This will be an unforgettable day of art and entertainment from local talent and attendees will experience the vibrant energy and rich history of the restored Eldorado Ballroom. 

PHOTOS: Eldorado Ballroom Photos 

PRESS KIT: Eldorado Ballroom Press Kit 

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Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses (PRH) is excited to announce the highly anticipated grand reopening of the Eldorado Ballroom on Thursday, March 30, 2023, from 6 pm to 9:30 pm. This historic venue holds significant cultural value and preserving its rich history is an important part of Project Row Houses’ commitment to the community.

Project Row Houses Executive Director Eureka Gilkey was thrilled to see the finishing touches being put on the ballroom as she toured the space with PRH staff. “Third Ward deserves this revival! I am excited for the community to see what has come to fruition, as we work to preserve and protect historic black spaces, black culture and history.”

Invited guests will step back in time to the 1940s and relive the glamour and elegance of Third Ward’s heyday as PRH regifts this historic gem back to the community. Encouraged to dust off their dancing shoes and come dressed to impress, attendees are in for an evening of live music and performances, glitzy catering, and glamorous cocktails.

Gilkey is thankful for the supporters of this historic venue who played key roles in our revitalization efforts. Together, we are honoring the Dupree legacy and restoring the heart and soul of Third Ward.

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MEDIA CONTACT
Wando Okongwu, wokongwu@projectrowhouses.org
Comms and Marketing Manager, 713.526.7662

Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses (PRH) announces its highly anticipated Round 55: The Drive By II, set to open on Saturday, March 11, 2023. The Drive By II will reimagine the inaugural Artists Round, The Drive By and will activate the exterior of the houses. Round 55 is curated by Danielle Burns Wilson, Curator and Art Director at Project Row Houses. She will introduce the artists, who will speak about their work from the porches of their houses starting at 3pm; the houses will then be open for viewing until 7pm. Round 55 will remain on view Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5pm through June 4, 2023. 

In commemoration of PRH’s 30^th anniversary, Wilson curated Round 55: The Drive By II as a historic reflection of our first Artists Round, created by one of our founding members Jesse Lott, staged in 1993-94, The Drive By. 

“It has been 30 years since Project Row Houses’ founding on July 5, 1993, and we are forever grateful for the seven visionary founders who built this organization with sweat equity, passion, determination, and the power and belief in Black liberation,” Wilson shares. Their vision has since manifested itself into the social sculpture you see today, and our Rounds play an “integral role in maintaining the momentum of ongoing social justice art practices.” 

During the installation of the first PRH Round, the original row houses were still undergoing restoration, which resulted in the artwork being displayed on the exterior. Individuals could slowly drive by and appreciate the art. However, many people were hesitant to do anything beyond driving by, due to social problems like drive-by shootings being widespread at the time. Hence, The Drive By, an artistic call and response to the community and what was going on in the neighborhood. Wilson selected the artists for this Round to create a balanced intergenerational connection to Third Ward. 

Wilson encourages the public to venture into the neighborhood and experience it in a new light through the lens of the artists intimately familiar with both its history and ongoing renaissance. 

The Drive By II will feature an exciting lineup of talented artists. Carefully selected to create a balanced intergenerational connection to Third Ward, the artists include Ray Carrington, Gregory Michael Carter, Cat Martinez, Danielle Fanfair, Earlie Hudnall, Israel McCloud, Irene Antonia Diane Reece, and Jesse Sifuentes. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Ray Carrington was born in Austin, Texas on June 25, 1948. His family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas when he was in the third grade. At the time, he was the middle child with four siblings. After his parents divorced, they moved to Corpus Christi, Texas and his mother remarried and had a baby girl. 

His family lived a simple life of home, school and church. As he grew, he eventually fell in love with tennis. That was a rare and beneficial experience as he was recruited by the University of Houston (UofH) and Texas Southern University (TSU) to play on their tennis teams. 

He was eventually recruited by Herbert Provost, TSU’s tennis coach. He became a star tennis player in the SWAC and grew a close fatherly bond with Coach Provost. Carrington feels that he owes so much of his success to Provost and his wife, Georgia Provost. 

Carrington is now retired from a career as a photography instructor and is married to Regina Carrington with two children and two grandchildren. 

Gregory Michael Carter is a Houston born artist and community activist. He lives and works between St. Louis, MO, and Houston’s Third Ward, which was recently declared a historic district. He attended Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia and studied Fine Art, Art History and Computer Science. Gregory is fascinated by culture, as well as history. Those tenets are two driving factors in his practice. After leaving Morehouse he traveled to 30 countries and visited more than 50 UNESCO world heritage sites. The influence of those experiences on his work cannot be understated. 

Gregory is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with drawing, printmaking, painting, collage, and photography. The community activism/social practice aspect of his practice has held many forms over the years, but most recently it has manifested itself in the form of an arts nonprofit he’s developing in St. Louis. Gregory is also the Co-founder of Thirdwardsfinest.com, an online retailer dedicated to supporting and uplifting the neighborhood he grew up in and loves so much. The brand donates half of its revenue to local nonprofits like Project Row Houses, Shape Community Center, and others. 

In 2022, Gregory’s work was on view at the San Antonio Museum of Art, as part of the Texas Biennial. Since then, he has participated in a lengthy residency in Marrakech, Morocco at the Montresso Foundation. This residency culminated in an exhibition that was part of the 154 Art fair in Marrakech, which took place in February of 2023. 

Danielle Fanfair is a writer, teacher, and director of integrated well-being and self-mastery. For over sixteen years, she has written, created curriculum, and taught and trained youth, adults, and professionals of all disciplines. Her Confusion to Clarity curriculum is a collection of interdisciplinary practices and strategies for creating psychologically safe spaces of belonging and trust. The result: individuals, communities, and companies who deepen their relationships, increase their productivity, sustain their flow states and expand their creative innovation. 

Fanfair has loved words and has enjoyed creative writing since she was a young girl. Her writing talents have evolved into ghost-writing for a discreet client list, authoring articles for magazines and periodicals, personal and professional coaching resources, creating professional development curricula, lecture and training content, interdisciplinary event production, film production and executive strategy. 

She helps individuals, groups, and organizations move from confusion to clarity, developing an understanding of how their personal story equips them to be a powerful contribution. Danielle has the gift of teaching and coaching adults to grow without utilizing guilt and shame as a motivator. 

She holds a B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from Baylor University and has experience curating and leading interdisciplinary arts experiences, vocational incubators, film production, performance coaching and professional development, and moderating arts exhibitions, healing retreats, and experiences. She’s penned articles for Arts + Culture Texas, Houstonia Magazine and published a series of workbooks called Go From Confusion to Clarity. 

She’s merged her experiences and learning, and wrote the Confusion to Clarity curriculum, a toolkit for personal and professional growth, story-sharing, dismantling oppression and compassionate understanding creating psychologically safe and inclusive environments, building long-term professional relationships, problem-solving, and communication. She works full-time as a writer and Director of Integrated Well-Being for a discreet client list that ranges from arts organizations to tech companies. 

Acclaimed photographer Earlie Hudnall, Jr. is a graduate of Texas Southern University (TSU) with a degree in art and a concentration in photography. Hudnall served as University Photographer at TSU from 1980 until his retirement in 2019. Hudnall was inspired by his mentors Dr. Thomas Freeman and Dr. John Biggers to document the communities of Third and Fourth Ward while celebrating the moments of spirituality and humanity amidst the daily lives of his subjects. 

Known for the beauty of his black and white prints, especially his portraits, the photographs of Earlie Hudnall, Jr. are included in the permanent collections of the Hampton University Museum of Art; the Amon Carter Museum; the University of Texas at Dallas; the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH); the Art Institute of Chicago; and the library of Congress as well as countless international collections. In 2019, he was honored with an eight-page spread of his images in Time Magazine edited by Paul Mobley. He was previously recognized by Time Magazine for being a visual inspiration for cinematographer James Laxton for the visual styles of the film Moonlight which received the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017. 

In 2019, Hudnall was recognized by Fotofest Houston for his contributions to the field of photography both in the Houston community and internationally. This year, retired MFAH Curator of Photography Anne Tucker commissioned Hudnall to create the formal portrait of the President of Randolph College, Dr. Brad Bateman. It was recently announced by Art League Houston that Earlie Hudnall, Jr. will be awarded the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts. 

Cat Martinez is a mixed media artist with a BFA in sculpture and is a current MFA candidate at the University of Houston. As an artist she created the Zin Memorial, a sculpture of an Ankh that utilizes crystals and stones from and for the community of Third Ward. Davila-Martinez has exhibited work in Houston at Lawndale Arts Center’s 2021 Big Show and The Station Museum Contemporary Art’s group exhibition and symposium, In the Sun. She is a recipient of the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Art’s 2021-22 Graduates Scholarship and is a lecturer for Convergence Research, a platform for interdisciplinary research, experimentation, improvisation, and performance. Davila-Martinez is also a founding member of the Black Woman’s Road Trip Collective. 

Israel McCloud is a multi-disciplinary artist whose creative track-record transcends conventional categories. A third-generation artist, his professional palette of visual art, design, performance and literary arts encompasses forty years of prolific productivity. McCloud has exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Lawndale Art Center, Meredith Long Gallery, as well as abroad in Paris, France and Amsterdam, Netherlands. He performs spoken word poetry and literary readings throughout Houston, while actively pursuing a full-time commitment to public art and creative art design services. 

“Utilize every canvas possible in a positive way to speak to the people. Say something with your life, say something with your gift.” – Israel McCloud 

Irene Antonia Diane Reece identifies as a contemporary artist and visual activist. Born and raised in Houston, Texas. She earned her BFA in Photography and Digital Media (Houston, TX) and MFA in Photography and Image-making (Paris, France). Reece’s photographic works, Black family archives, appropriated films, usage of text, and found objects create an insight into her world. The topics surrounding her work are racial identity, African diaspora, social injustice, family histories, re-memory, mental and community health. Reece’s objectives are to continue to take up space, be outspoken about the white-centric art world, and create forms of racial equity within her communities. 

Houston-based ceramic artist and muralist Jesse Sifuentes was born in Kingsville, Texas and grew up in Galveston, Texas, where he attended Ball High School. With the support of a Moody Scholarship, Sifuentes enrolled in the prestigious art program at Texas Southern University founded by nationally renowned artist and muralist Dr. John Biggers and sculptor Carroll Simms, becoming the first person in his family to attend college. Another scholarship allowed him to travel to Mexico City where he studied the work of the great muralist Diego Rivera. He retired from the Houston Independent School District after 27 years of service as an art teacher. He is currently an instructor at Texas Southern University’s Art department. 

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Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses (PRH), the internationally renowned arts and cultural organization located in Houston’s historic Third Ward, proudly launches its 30th anniversary with a pop-up celebration on Monday, February 3, 2023, from 12 to 2:30 pm. The kick-off will include lunch provided by some of Houston’s top eateries, mock-tails, and music, and preview the calendar of events that will mark this major milestone.

“From the moment our seven visionary founders arrived on Holman Street, Project Row Houses has demonstrated the power and impact of collective creative action,” explains PRH Executive Director Eureka Gilkey. “We are extremely excited to invite our neighbors and partners as we celebrate the transformational impact this work has had within our beloved Third Ward and around the world over the past three decades.”

Gilkey continues: “The founders’ gifts, determination, and dreams laid the cornerstone of what has become one of the world’s leading social sculptures, making PRH the standard-bearer of art and social practice. This is a gathering place, a safe haven, and a hub of culturally rich activity. Always, we are unapologetic in our belief that Black people—Black art, culture, and community as they have blossomed in Third Ward—matter. And we are grateful to the partnership of so many residents, neighbors, artists, and friends whose time and energy has brought us to this point.”

Neighbors and supporters are encouraged to join in the festivities on January 30th and throughout the year, which will acknowledge those who have come before that have brought PRH to this point, and to commit to working alongside each other to preserve, elevate, and celebrate this storied institution.

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Houston, Texas. On Saturday, December 2, 2022, Executive Director Eureka Gilkey announced that Project Row Houses “officially reached and exceeded the 9.7-million-dollar Capital Campaign goal to restore and renovate the historic Eldorado Ballroom.” This came as a lovely surprise for Cocktail on The Row attendees as they cheered and celebrated this huge milestone. 

Gilkey thanked “our co-chairs Anita Smith, Hasty Johnson and Chris Williams for helping us spearhead that effort and getting us across the finish line.” Our goal to keep the Duprees’ legacy alive and have the heart and soul of Third Ward restored, could not be possible without PRH supporters. 

Once the Eldorado Ballroom undergoes complete rehabilitation, its historic façade and finishes will be restored, and the ground floor will feature a café, local market, art gallery, and community gathering and meeting spaces. Upstairs, the ballroom will once again be an incredible venue for live music, dancing, and celebrating. An annex and courtyard will create additional areas for the community to come together. 

Supporters of this historic neighborhood are now a part of Eldorado’s rich history. The grand reopening is set for March 30^th and excitement rises as many anticipate a treasured gem being returned to Third Ward.  

ABOUT THE ELDORADO BALLROOM 

This world-renowned music venue has welcomed generations of Third Ward residents for dancing, celebrations, and special occasions. Founded by Anna Johnson Dupree and Clarence Dupree, some of Houston’s most influential Black entrepreneurs and philanthropists, it was gifted to Project Row Houses in 1999 for the benefit of our community. 

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Houston, Texas. On Saturday, November 12, 2022, Project Row Houses and Valerie Cassel Oliver announced Rehab El Sadek as The Dr. Dina Alsowayel and Tony Chase PRH Southern Survey Biennial Prize recipient. 

Guest Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver began the event with her curator talk and how honored she was to serve as the inaugural juror. Oliver explained her background as a curator and significant history with PRH. Afterward, the attendees walked through the art houses as Oliver prepared to announce the prize recipient. 

Oliver shared that although it was a difficult decision, the person she chose “really encapsulated all the ideas of a new south, speaking to the generosity of place and creating place.” Eureka Gilkey and Danielle Burns Wilson joined Oliver as she presented the check and announced Rehab El Sadek as the recipient of $25,000. Sadek expressed her gratitude for being selected as the prize recipient as she watched the event on Instagram live. 

To wrap up the event, Gilkey thanked Oliver for her continuous support of PRH and Wilson for her leadership and vision in bringing this Round together. Gilkey explained how monumental this moment is for PRH. This inaugural Round is the first time PRH has awarded a prize to a round artist. Round 54 will remain on view Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5 pm through Sunday, February 12, 2023.

PHOTOS: Round 54 Prize Announcement

ABOUT THE PRIZE RECIPIENT 

Rehab El Sadek (1972) is a conceptual Egyptian artist whose been exhibiting internationally for thirty years. She utilizes architectural structures, light, shadow, and memory to investigate the layered reality of the immigrant experience. And creates alternative spaces that invite viewers to question existing power dynamics and contemplate the role of individuals—especially the marginalized. 

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Houston, Texas. On December 2, 2022, Project Row Houses held its annual Cocktails on The Row holiday party. This was a beautiful night as PRH’s artists courtyard was transformed. Just in time for the holiday season, the venue was draped with Christmas lights, cocktail tables covered in lovely green velvet cloths, and white and gold lounge chairs. 

PRH’s Community Gallery had a beautiful Christmas tree surrounded with Christmas gifts that continued to grow throughout the night and will be presented to families in Third Ward at the Holiday House event on December 10, 2022. The exterior of each row house was adorned with beautiful Christmas lights, and the art houses were opened for people to walk through and see the artwork currently on view from Round 54: Southern Survey Biennial.  

The evening opened with remarks from Executive Director Eureka Gilkey as she announced that “PRH officially raised 9.7 million dollars to restore the historic Eldorado Ballroom!” This capital campaign was spearheaded by co-chairs Anita Smith, Hasty Johnson and Chris Williams, and would not be possible without PRH supporters. 

PRH founders Jesse Lott and Bert Samples were present, as well as the Board of Directors, artists, foundation executives, media and community partners, and staff. As they all were gathered in one space, it was an amazing time to fellowship and connect with like-minded professionals. Nearly 200 people were in attendance and enjoyed soothing sounds from a cellist complimented by crafted cocktails and light bites that were served throughout the night. 

This wonderful moment brought so many people together, to take part in PRH’s end-of-year celebration, and left event goers excited for the upcoming 30-year anniversary festivities for 2023! 

PHOTOS: Cocktails on The Row

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Houston, Texas. The Project Row Houses fifty-fourth Artist Round: Southern Survey Biennial prize winner will be announced at guest curator Valerie Cassel Oliver’s curator talk, on Saturday, November 12, 2022. The event starts at 2pm, and one artist will be selected for The Dr. Dina Alsowayel and Tony Chase PRH Southern Survey Biennial Prize, in the amount of $25,000.

This inaugural round is the first time PRH has had a prize awarded to a round artist. Round 54 will remain on view Wednesdays through Sundays from noon to 5pm through Sunday, February 12, 2023. 

Guest curator Valerie Cassel Oliver has been in the vanguard of bringing Black art into the museum and academy, giving it the same treatment long afforded to art rooted in the European tradition.  

Oliver shares that she is “honored to serve as the inaugural juror for what I hope will become a vital platform for artists working within the southern region that is now being acknowledged for its historical and contemporary significance. 

Oliver explained the intentionality of inviting artists in the region to submit for consideration, saying that the eight selected “mirror the diversity and robust energy of a new South. Their work has something to teach us about survival and the stubborn persistence of being, isolation and loss, and the intention of being deliberate,” Valerie states. 

Inaugural prize sponsors Dr. Dina Alsowayel and Tony Chase were eager to be involved. “Project Row Houses is one of Houston’s treasures. It is also a cultural landmark in Third Ward,” they explained, saying they are “delighted to be a part of such an awesome endeavor. 

Participating artists: Carlie Trosclair, Kandy G Lopez, Naomi Lemus, Rashayla Marie Brown (RMB), Rehab El Sadek, Sedrick E. Huckaby, Victoria Ravelo, and Julien Hyvrard. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Carlie Trosclair’s sculptural installations explore the liminal space between development and deconstruction; contemplating the living and transitional components of home. Growing up in New Orleans as the daughter of an electrician, Trosclair spent her formative years in historic residential properties at varying stages of construction and deconstruction.  She found that even when abandoned, the presence of the body still lingered. Reflectively her work reimagines the genealogy of home by highlighting structural and decorative shifts evolving over a building’s lifespan. Using latex as an architectural skin, she creates ghostlike imprints that mark an in-between space that is transient and ever changing: both structurally and in our memory. 

Kandy G Lopez was born in New Jersey and moved with her family to Miami. She received her BFA and BS from the University of South Florida concentrating in Painting and in Marketing and Management. She received her MFA with a concentration in Painting from Florida Atlantic University in 2014. She has taught at Florida Atlantic University, Daytona State College, and is now the Program Director for the Art + Design program as well as an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Media and the Arts in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences at NOVA Southeastern University. As a multimedia artist, Lopez explores constructed identities, celebrating the strength, power, confidence and swag of individuals who live in urban and often economically disadvantaged environments. As a female Afro-Caribbean figurative artist she is eager to be challenged materialistically and metaphorically when representing marginalized individuals that inspire her. Her work was created out of the necessity to learn something new about her culture. Lopez is interested in developing a nostalgic dialogue between the artwork and the viewer.  

Born in Houston, Texas to Mexican immigrants, Naomi Lemus focuses on the history of her family, the reality and struggles faced by immigrants. She utilizes materials like fibers, archival documents and found material to explore and emphasize the pain, suffering, as well as achievements she has witnessed as a first generation American. Naomi attended San Jacinto College North from 2013-2016 and received her BFA in Painting at University of Houston in 2018. She also received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, PA in 2021 and currently teaches at San Jacinto College. 

Rashayla Marie Brown (RMB) is an “undisciplinary” artist-scholar exploring how aesthetics can enact radical thought beyond mere representation. These works blend installation design, photography, performance, writing, video and filmmaking with the implementation and critique of power structures. International presentations include Embassy of Foreign Artists, Geneva; Recess, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; Rhodes College, Memphis; Tate Modern, London; and Turbine Hall, Johannesburg. 

Rehab El Sadek (1972) is a conceptual Egyptian artist whose been exhibiting internationally for thirty years. She utilizes architectural structures, light, shadow, and memory to investigate the layered reality of the immigrant experience. And creates alternative spaces that invite viewers to question existing power dynamics and contemplate the role of individuals—especially the marginalized. 

Sedrick E. Huckaby offers this statement: “I was born in Fort Worth in 1975 and I continue to live and work in the same area today. It has been an inspiration to come home to serve my community after being given the opportunity to study art at Boston University, Yale University and at museums all over the world. After learning about the global art world, I also learned another simple lesson. The art that I am most often occupied with is about the themes, people and places of my hometown. I found that I could address the issues of global importance through dealing with the same issues within my local community. So, I decided to move back home. Since returning I have married Letitia, who is also an artist, specializing in photo-based art. Our creativity is not limited to art, and we also have three creative children: Rising Sun-16, Halle Lujah-14, and Rhema Rain-6.” 

Born in Miami, Florida to Cuban exiles, Victoria Ravelo‘s practice begins at the intersection of personal, ancestral, and collective memory. Her drawings, photographs, sculptures and installations utilize abstraction and metaphor to tease apart the multi-layered histories that form a time and place. Contending with the tension between what is lost and what can only be remembered, Ravelo’s work simultaneously explores, connects, and cultivates cultural roots that modern society actively works to erase. Ravelo earned an MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in 2021, and a BFA from the University of Miami in 2015. 

Julien Hyvrard is a medium fluid documentarian and conceptual artist. Based in the Southern US since 2015, he is currently photographer and video maker for Oui Collective, the creative workshop he co-cofounded in Miami. Born and raised in France, he studied philosophy at Sorbonne University. He spent 9 transformative years in Buenos Aires, where he began experimenting with documentary form and conceptual series. At the confluence of three cultural and linguistic streams, from France to Argentina to the US, collaborative at heart, Julien’s practice is generally process-oriented, open ended, reiterative and often aporetic. It involves time-based documentation, site-specific installation and performance.

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Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses (PRH) and the University of Houston Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts (KGMCA) announce the artists participating in the 2022 Suzanne Deal Booth Fellowship: local artist Jody Wood and non-local artist Nadine Nelson. 

The Suzanne Deal Booth Fellowship is administered jointly by KGMCA and PRH and was created to invite artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers. The fellows will engage in creative collaborations that involve the Third Ward community and address issues important to them.

Nelson and Wood will receive mentorship from project administrators. Local artists, faculty members, community members and selected leaders will offer their support during this process. 

Nelson shares that it is “a delicious blessing to get to use food as a vehicle and building-block in the historic Third Ward, the most diverse black neighborhood and a microcosm of the larger Houston community which is the 20th most diverse food landscape in the country.” She is looking “forward to co-creating a space where creative, interactive, and communal dialogue can thrive and evolve while making plates and sharing tables.” 

“Project Row Houses is one of the most powerful models for sustaining socially engaged art that exists in the United States,” Wood shares. “It’s a huge honor to learn from this model as a Project Row Houses and University of Houston Suzanne Deal Booth joint fellow.” Wood goes on to express her gratitude and explains that “this fellowship award will give me the support and freedom to pursue more challenging research and connect with a brain trust of community leaders.” 

The fellows will be introduced at the opening artist talks, where they will share information on their work focus and the questions that will guide their research throughout the year. At the conclusion of their fellowships, the two will also present lectures/performances that encapsulate their year of research.

ABOUT THE FELLOWS 

Nadine Nelson 

Non-local artist Nadine Nelson is a socially engaged educator, entrepreneur, chef, artist, and activist who uses food, sustainability, wellness, and domestic arts to foster community fellowship, strengthen connections, and promote food sovereignty. Inspired by her birthplace of Toronto and her Jamaican heritage, her belief is that food is a powerful tool for social justice. She uses culturally relevant programming to address preventative health measures and empower people to use cooking to cultivate well-being. She produces community food events and installations that bring people together through sharing cuisine, storytelling, and art inspired by culture and the potency of gathering. Her creative process involves working with community members, organizers, activists, and artists to collaboratively co-create social sculpture.   
 
The kitchen table is our path for reconciliation, liberation, and sustenance of ourselves, our communities and the environment. Her work has been commissioned and exhibited in Boston with the Design Studio for Social Intervention, ArtSpace, New Haven Public Library, and John Ely House in New Haven. She has received fellowships from Yale University, Laundromat Project, and Center for Arts and Activism. Her writing has appeared in Plate Magazine,Yankee Magazine, Farmer’s Almanac, Kwanzaa Culinarians and more. She has a teaching certificate from Tufts University, has studied cooking at the Ritz Escoffier in Paris and the New School in New York, and farming at Sterling College and with Soul Fire Farm. She is an avid novice gardener and budding homesteader looking for land to start the ultimate ecologically conscious culinary art center. 

Jody Wood

Local artist Jody Wood is an artist working in mediums of social practice, video, photography, and performance. Her recent work re-imagines routines in human service agencies, aiming to shift power dynamics and resist stigmas surrounding poverty and care. Her community-based work has been supported by prestigious institutions including A Blade of Grass, Esopus Foundation, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, an ArtPlace America Initiative at McColl Center for Art + Innovation, and through residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, Yaddo, and Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been presented internationally in solo exhibitions at Skövde Art Museum and Norrtälje Kunsthalle in Sweden, and group exhibitions and screenings at Manchester School of Art, UK; Parrish Museum of Art in Water Mill, NY; and Oakland Museum of California. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Atlantic, Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, and MSNBC. She has given public talks hosted by Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland, Hunter College in NYC, University of Lisbon in Portugal, and San Jorge University in Zaragoza, Spain. She is based in Huntsville, TX and teaches at Sam Houston State University in the Art and Social Practice MFA program.

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Julien Hyvrard is a medium fluid documentarian and conceptual artist. Based in the Southern US since 2015, he is currently photographer and video maker for Oui Collective, the creative workshop he co-cofounded in Miami. Born and raised in France, he studied philosophy at Sorbonne University. He spent 9 transformative years in Buenos Aires, where he began experimenting with documentary form and conceptual series. At the confluence of three cultural and linguistic streams, from France to Argentina to the US, collaborative at heart, Julien’s practice is generally process-oriented, open ended, reiterative and often aporetic. It involves time-based documentation, site-specific installation and performance. Julien’s work has been supported by Bass Museum (Miami), Perez Art Museum (Miami), Mana Contemporary (Miami), Jean Brolly Gallery (Paris), Centre Culturel Bruegel (Brussels) and he is currently juror of the following short film festivals: Venezia Shorts (Italy), Indie Shorts Award (New York), Hollywood Shortfest (LA), and Cannes Indie Shorts Awards (France).

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After pausing in-person public programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Project Row Houses (PRH) will re-open on July 31, 2021, with the unveiling of Round 52: Gulf Coast Anthropocene, curated by Ryan N. Dennis and Dr. Willie J. Wright.

Round 52 will kick off with Porch Talks, an opportunity to hear from the artists about their individual practices and the inspiration behind their installation, from 3-4PM followed by a Community Market from 4-7PM on Saturday, July 31, 2021. The exhibition will be on view through December 5, 2021. The Art Houses, located at 2505 – 2517 Holman St., are open Wednesday – Sunday, noon – 5 p.m.

“In recent years, natural disasters have become unavoidable and unwanted collaborators in PRH’s practice of socially-engaged art,” explained PRH Executive Director Eureka Gilkey, “with increasingly frequent storms and floods disrupting our plans. We selected environmental justice as the focus for this round well before we knew that we would experience a global pandemic and catastrophic winter freeze, both of which had a disproportionately harsh and traumatic impact on Third Ward.”

“We are grateful,” Gilkey went on, “that we are finally ready to welcome people back to our site to experience art in community, and eager to learn from and with the artists and curators of Round 52 how we might address the ongoing environmental crisis through creative collective action.”

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PRH Executive Director Eureka Gilkey noted: “Black-led nonprofits have long struggled with the same wealth gap that Black individuals and families have dealt with since the end of the Civil War. PRH has done heavy lifting for the past six years to strengthen our financial position. This gift will help us maintain that accomplishment while giving us peace of mind knowing that we have a long runway should any crisis like a major flood, pandemic, or catastrophic freeze affect charitable giving in the short term.”

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“We can overcome anything except loss of life. Right now, Project Row Houses’ mission to empower people and enrich communities through engagement, art, and direct action can best be carried out by staying closed and doing everything in our power to slow the spread of coronavirus,” explained Executive Director Eureka Gilkey.

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HOUSTON – The Ford Foundation awarded $3.5 million to Project Row Houses (PRH) and named the Third Ward cultural institution one of America’s Cultural Treasures.  

Led by an initial investment of $50 million from the Ford Foundation — with leadership support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and Barbara and Amos Hostetter, and additional support from the Abrams Foundation, Alice L. Walton Foundation, and Tom and Lisa Blumenthal— the national component of the $81 million initiative will provide unrestricted operational and general support funds to an initial cohort of 20 organizations that are significant national anchors for artistic and cultural diversity in America. 

“Transformational. There is simply no other word for this gift and this initiative,” said Eureka Gilkey, PRH Executive Director.  

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Director Ingela Travers-Hayward travels to Houston’s Third Ward district for All in A Row, a film that shows the transformative power of art and what can happen when artists fight back against gentrification.

Read more on WePresent: https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/all-in-a-row/

Director – Ingela Travers-Hayward

Music Composer – Robert Ouyang Rusli

Director of Photography – Nate Simmons

Steadicam – Zach Price

1st AC – Sarah Garza

Line Producer – Nick Simmons

Editor – Grace McIntee

Color – Zachary Halberd

Conform Artist – Lou Daumas

Sound Design – Peter Stoel

Executive Producer for WeTransfer – Holly Fraser Suzanne, Tromp Phil Van Der Krogt, Danielle Boelling, Liv Siddall, Alex Kahl

Special Thanks – Sidney Garrett, Eureka Gilkey, Leslie Moody Castro

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The year-long KGMCA-PRH Fellowship invites artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers. The fellows will engage in creative collaborations that involve the Third Ward community and address issues important to them.

 Full Release

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Project Row Houses (PRH), Houston’s acclaimed art nonprofit in the Third Ward, received a $400,000 grant from The Kresge Foundation as part of a new creative placemaking initiative. The umbrella initiative is called Building and Supporting Equitable Development (BASED), which seeks to advance community development through arts and culture.

PRH’s award is a portion of an $8 million effort by Kresge’s Arts & Culture Program to position culture and creativity as drivers of more just communities, and to develop a platform for continued learning for Kresge staff and grantees around strengthening racial equity and inclusion.

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This $8 million effort is led by Kresge’s Arts & Culture Program as part of its ongoing work to position culture and creativity as drivers of more just communities.

The primary goal of BASED is to develop a platform for continued learning of both leading practitioners and Kresge staff around emerging field priorities, such as strengthening racial equity and inclusion best practices within the community development sector.

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HOUSTON – November 4, 2019 – Today, Project Row Houses (PRH) announced the election of their 2019 Board of Directors and officers. The board members and officers will support the nonprofit organization with its strategic planning and annual operations.

Newly elected members to the Board of Directors include:

• Nory Angel, Executive Director and CEO of To Educate All Children (TEACH);

• Rasheca Barrow, CRA Investments Program Manager, Vice President of BBVA USA;

• Lynn Henson, Planner Manager at the City of Houston, Planning & Development Department, Community and Regional Planning Division;

• Phillip Pyle II, Visual Artist, Graphic Designer, and Photographer;

• Anita Webber Smith, Owner of Webb Design Interiors; and

• Asmara Tekle, J.D., Professor of Law at Texas Southern University.

“We are excited to welcome new additions to the Board of Directors, as well as our re-elected officers to our Board of Directors. The addition of their talent, perspectives and experience coupled with their commitment to social practice and equitable community development will greatly benefit in supporting the mission, vision, and values of PRH,” said Eureka Gilkey, Executive Director of PRH.

Re-elected officers include: Devaron Yates (President), Nina Oakes (Vice President); Elwyn Lee (Secretary); James V. Derrick (Assistant Secretary); Andrew Speckhard (Treasurer); and Aarti Garehgrat (Assistant Treasurer).

Board member and officer headshots are available here. Courtesy of Project Row Houses.

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ABSTRACT This article provides a new perspective on collaborative art as a transformational force to strengthen community and enhance well-being. We outline a best practices-based framework to foster community-based, collaborative art such as co-created community murals. Specifically, we identify a strategic and successive process for collaborative art initiatives by integrating the academic literature on art, aesthetics, community, and consumer research together with the practices of arts organizations working to transform communities through participatory, co created art.

The article highlights the contributions of this work to academic research, public policy, and community organizing efforts and outlines questions to encourage more researchers and practitioners to investigate the dynamics of collaborative art to transform communities.

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Project Row Houses (PRH) was founded in 1993 to be the catalyst for transforming community through the celebration of art and African American history and culture. Inspired by the work of German avant-garde artist Joseph Beuys and African American painter Dr. John Biggers, a group of seven Black artists, working and living in Third Ward, purchased 22 historic shotgun-style row houses on two blocks in a disinvested neighborhood and began using the houses as spaces for thematic art interventions. These artists leveraged a broad perspective of art, stemming from Beuys’s concept of art as “social sculpture,” the idea that art is about how individuals shape the world around them. The seven founders of PRH—James Bettison, Bert Long Jr., Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith—perpetuated Beuys’s radical tenet that each individual is an artist, and art can be a continually evolving collective undertaking.

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Nataly Torres, nataly@elmorepr.com

Elmore Public Relations, 713.524.0661

Project Row Houses Unveils Round 50: Race, Health and Motherhood

Round 50 explores maternal mortality, with a focus on the health disparity that impacts women of color, specifically, Black women in the Third Ward community

HOUSTON – September 12, 2019 – Project Row Houses (PRH) will unveil its latest Artist Round, Round 50: Race, Health and Motherhood, on Saturday, October 12. Curated by PRH Curator and Programs Director Ryan N. Dennis, Round 50 explores how artists, healthcare professionals and practitioners are responding to the Black maternal mortality rate, a national problem that has local ramifications in Third Ward and other neighborhoods in Houston.

“Round 50: Race, Health and Motherhood is an opportunity for us to propel the conversation around Black maternal mortality forward. This is not a topic that we can ignore, especially when women of color in Houston’s Third Ward have one of highest rates of death and complications prior to, and following, birth,” Dennis said. “As a Black woman and expecting mother myself, I find it troubling that women of color, especially Black women, are facing these extreme health disparities, due to controllable factors. Through Round 50, we will explore the impact of Black maternal mortality and acknowledge the reality that health disparities exist while responding to these issues within our communities.”

Round 50 participating artists include Dem Black Mamas Podcast comprised of Crystal Tennille Irby, NeKisha Killings, and Thea Monyeé (South Carolina and Los Angeles-based); Brian Ellison in collaboration with Jasmine Mans (Houston-based); Alexandra Folino (NYC-based); Lindsay Gary in collaboration with Stacey Allen, Cecilie Baxter-Lofton, and Felicia Thomas (Houston-based); Healthy Women Houston (Houston-based); htx people project comprised of Bria Lauren and Morganne Nikole (Houston-based); and Elise R. Peterson (Los Angeles-based). The artists will create site-specific installations, which aim to have nuanced conversations that raise awareness, offer supportive services, participate in advocacy strategies that have an impact on Third Ward and share resources and create multiple entryways to engage with the topic that is inclusive.

Round 50 was conceived and curated in response to a 2018 project titled, “Improving Maternal Health in Harris County, A Community Plan” funded by the Houston Endowment, a private foundation that convened a steering committee of leaders from a wide range of backgrounds-including healthcare, behavioral health, social services, businesses, government and philanthropy to identify the forces behind Harris County’s high rate of maternal morbidity. The year-planning and research effort produced findings from this collaborative project showed that Houston’s Third Ward is a maternal mortality hot spot.

The healthcare industry, much like other industries in the country, are fraught with a racist, biased lens that doesn’t take into consideration socio-political and economic issues that are centered around systemic racist structures that inform how people of color are seen and the health services they receive. In addition to implicit bias, factors such as lack of transportation, access to healthy food, and safe and affordable housing have an impact on maternal mortality.

“Throughout its 26-year history, Project Row Houses has used its resources to drive and support the conversation surrounding overlooked social justice issues,” said Eureka Gilkey, Executive Director of PRH. “Black maternal mortality has been a part of the national conversation for some time; however, it was our local philanthropic partners and healthcare providers that made us aware of the issue’s impact on Third Ward mothers and their families; a risk that is consistently three to four times higher for them than their white counterparts, irrespective of income, education or marital status.”

“Maternal mortality doesn’t just happen; its roots are steeped in disparate medical care and treatment during pregnancy, labor and postpartum,” said Gilkey. “Third Ward is located approximately five miles away from the largest medical complex in the world, yet Black mothers in our community are being severely impacted by maternal mortality. With Round 50 as our platform, we are using socially engaged art to highlight actions we can take to change the fact that for Black women, Texas is the most dangerous state to have a baby.”

Guests will have the opportunity to hear from the artists about their individual practices and the inspiration behind their installation at the opening event during the Artists’ Talks, which will begin at 3 p.m. followed by the opening from 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Round 50 will be on view from Saturday, October 12, 2019 through Sunday, February 16, 2020. The Art Houses, located at 2505 – 2517 Holman St., are open Wednesday – Sunday, noon – 5 p.m.

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The beginning of August marked the end of the 2019 Summer Studio program with local college students from the University of Houston, Texas Southern University, and St. Thomas University. Working with the 8 young artists every week over the course of about two months was an absolute highlight of the summer for me. As someone who came to the arts world from an architecture and city planning background, I was pretty intimidated by the concept of leading so many students who were receiving formal training in visual arts. Instead of trying to conduct weekly art critiques, we instead focused on developing their personal narratives. After reading through their applications we decided that what everyone had in common was an urgency to tell a story about themselves and beyond themselves, the communities to which they belong. So we wanted to make sure that that urgency in their story was clearly expressed in all of their work by making sure that it was explicitly articulated for themselves first.

Accordingly, the summer began with everyone writing their own artist manifesto to present to each other to explain how and why they do the work they do. We read a series of essays from professional artists and writers about they conceive of their work and the world around them for inspiration and encouraged the students to seek out similar writings from the artists that inspire them. We wanted to tease out the intentionality of the thought process and understanding how one positions oneself in the world. In bell hooks’ essay, “Art on My Mind” she describes a conversation with her sister where they both agreed that art has no place in the life of a working-class Black family. This is a sentiment that many of the students were grappling with in their own lives.

How can art impact the lives of people who cannot afford or do not feel welcome in places where art is traditionally displayed? How does one feel comfortable with or explain being an artist to family members who struggle to understand the value of or reason for making art? How much of a responsibility does one have to make one’s work accessible? Certainly, the answers to those questions vary based on who is answering them, but the important part is for each artist to have a clear, intentional answer for themselves.

During one of the sessions where Sarah was able to be in town, she led them in another writing exercise where the goal was to workshop each other’s writing exercises by passing them in circles around the table. We wanted to make sure that they felt like a cohort of artists instead of solitary artists working in separate houses, so we tried to make sure that they had as many chances as possible to learn how each respective artist conveyed their own narratives. The more chances they had to share with one another, the more chances they had to learn from one another.

Now that the summer studio process has ended, I am so proud of each and every one of the eight students for sharing themselves and their work through this program. I think that everyone was a little intimidated by the vastness of white space when they entered their homes for the first time, but everyone rose to the occasion beautifully. The Summer Studios houses are open for viewing Wednesday – Sunday, 12-5PM through September 15th, and if you haven’t already then you should come by to see the students’ work.

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On this month’s edition of The Bigger Picture, where Houston Matters examines the bigger issues in recent films, producer Joshua Zinn looks at how the changes a city goes through over time affect local identity.

In the audio above, he talks with Cary Darling, Houston Chronicle arts and entertainment editor, and Eureka Gilkey, Executive Director of the Third Ward-based arts organization Project Row Houses.

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The Emancipation Park Conservancy in conjunction with The Black School presented a combined Juneteenth Celebration and Black Love Fest HTX. The joint event was an art and music festival promoting a cultural movement for Black love while highlighting the history and significance of the Juneteenth holiday.

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Round 49, Penumbras: Sacred Geometries, highlighted artists whose practices incorporate the ideology of sacred geometries to form structures and landscapes that allude to the body, intent and consciousness. In keeping with the round’s theme, Project Row Houses closed it out with a party Sunday. The event boasted a Latin Jazz band along with street food and drinks inspired by the Afro-Latin Diaspora and provided by Etta’s Kitchen. Openings and closing of rounds at Project Row Houses are biannual, in the spring and fall. The next opening will be in October. (Photos by Doogie Roux)

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Sarah Rafael García is a 2019 Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts – Project Row Houses (KGMCA-PRH) Fellows. The KGMCA-PRH Fellowship invites artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers to engage in creative collaborations that involve the Third Ward community. The Fellowship is a research-based program that allows people to spend time addressing complex challenges that impact communities of color.

Fellows Update is an opportunity to share the research reflections from the Fellows’ point of view. Read Sarah’s second update.

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Round 49: penumbras: sacred geometries, currently on view at Project Row Houses in Houston, highlights artists whose practices incorporate the ideology of sacred geometries to form structures that allude to the body, intent, and consciousness. The six participating artists include Yanira Collado, Leticia Contreras, Charo Oquet, Aramis O’Reilly, Onajide Shabaka, and Juana Valdes, each of whom have created site-specific installations inside the art houses located on Holman Street. The artists are responding to the history of sacred geometries presented in previous installations; to the work of Dr. John Biggers; and to the architecture and essence of spirit that exists in the walls of the art houses, the community at Project Row Houses, and within Houston’s historic Third Ward.

The following interview is a conversation between artists who have worked alongside one another and understand the commonalities of space, place, materials, and the sacredness of penumbra.

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Sacred geometry is exciting, especially when you start noticing those universal patterns in architecture, art and nature. Artists have been demonstrating these complex patterns in Project Row Houses’ “Round 49: Penumbras: Sacred Geometries,” and PRH is inviting you to the Closing Party this Sunday with live Latin jazz, Afro-Latin food and drinks provided by Zacapa Rum. 

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Later that evening, Project Row Houses will salute their latest Artist Round — Round 49: penumbras: sacred geometries (which will be closing on Sunday) — with a party featuring live music from a Latin jazz band, as well as street food and drinks inspired by the Afro-Latin diaspora.

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The word penumbra, which refers to the shadow cast during a partial eclipse, and the mathematical concept of sacred geometries, which influenced artist John Biggers, provide the artists of Round 49 at Project Row Houses with a compelling springboard.

The mojo is most palpable in Charo Oquet’s space, an explosively colorful installation where a constellation of ceramic-headed spirit figures could also be planets in a solar system with a pulsating May pole of a sun at its center, constructed with a raw wood frame, draped fabrics, pennants, vining plastic plants and the flotsam and jetsam of massed yarn blobs. You don’t see this part until you walk into the space and look toward the front window, when it zaps you with its powerful presence.

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Eureka Gilkey, executive director of Project Row Houses in Houston will give a talk titled “Collective Creative Actions: Project Row Houses at 25,” 6 p.m. Tuesday in the lower-level lecture hall at the Arkansas Arts Center in MacArthur Park, 501 E. Ninth St., Little Rock. It’s part of the Architecture and Design Network’s 2018-19 June Freeman lecture series. A 5:30 p.m. reception precedes the lecture.

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The executive director of Project Row House, which for 25 years has worked to restore community in what was once the impoverished Third Ward of Houston, will give a talk at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, at the Arkansas Arts Center.

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The notion of living on the margins of society covers a lot of ground these days.

That made it a malleable theme for the sixth annual CounterCurrent festival, which begins Tuesday and runs through April 14 at several locations across the inner city.

This year’s festival features eight new works by artists who are “creating space for themselves” from the margins of culture, their discipline or location, at an urgent time, said Karen Farber, the executive director of University of Houston’s Mitchell Center for the Arts, which stages the festival with numerous partners.

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Houston’s Third Ward is suffering from both rapid gentrification and planning fatigue. Despite being under the jurisdiction of at least seven different neighborhood and city plans, there are three and four story townhouses being built on every other block that are all wildly unaffordable to the majority of Third Ward residents. The existence of a plan, without any ability to enforce or fund the initiatives that it details, is largely just a broken promise and people notice. Every time someone comes to a struggling community and claims that they can fix all of the problems, it gets people’s hopes up just to let them down when they inevitably fail to live up to the expectations that they have set. During a community meeting last weekend, residents talked about how worried they are about the construction around them and their concerns about the groups that are coming in proposing to help.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to do ethical engagement in a community that has been under a microscope for years. It’s very easy to have good intentions and still be exploitative. It’s very easy to be an “askhole” where you demand input and engagement from people without offering anything in return.

Ethical engagement requires honesty. Honesty about what you can and cannot do. Honesty about what your goals are compared to what your community partners’ goals are. It takes an honest and active understanding of what power dynamics are at play. It takes being honest about what power you hold and exert over others, whether that power is perceived or real.

Ethical engagement requires persistence. Marginalized people who are treated more like a campaign stop than a community are exhausted. They have been poked and prodded and used as a resource to extract from rather than as intelligent human collaborators. Too often community engagement is a box to check off a list in service of a much larger project that offers no direct benefit to any of the community members. It is treated as a means to an end instead of an intentional and deliberate process.

I am so excited to have the opportunity to start working with Third Ward residents through the KGMCA-PRH Fellowship. I’m deeply passionate about connecting the stories and experiences of people to places and thinking about how spatial conditions and policies often compressed experiences to the same few blocks for a wide variety of people. The physical environment impacts us all in different ways and to an extent that we don’t often unpack. The roads we drive down, the corners where we wait for the bus, the streets that we avoid (intentionally or not), all tell a story about our experience with space and place. For me mapping is an active exercise in layering our personal realities over the frameworks of the past. It’s an active confrontation of how the city is built versus how it is actually used and experienced. Community mappings are an exercise in uplifting the stories that are omitted from the larger narrative of a city. They are also an exercise in working with folks to reevaluate the influence that the built environment has on them and how they might have more of an influence on the built environment in return. Community mappings are an act of reclaiming ones agency over a neighborhood that is changing around them. I’m excited to start working with residents on mapping the Third Ward.

The post Fellows Update: Libby Bland appeared first on Project Row Houses.

On my first day, I purposely asked the Lyft driver to drop me off in front of Project Row Houses. I felt compelled to start my first visit at the iconic shot gun houses. Maybe I was echoing other tourists too by romanticizing the history. But as I stared down the sidewalk towards the white peaks, the rain made me hesitate. Being familiar with Texas storms, my enthusiasm evolved to worries that a downpour would soak my laptop in the next five minutes. With disappointment, I forced myself to take an alternate route and walked down Division Street, which introduced me to the second-story buildings with porches. What did it divide?

It was then that I reflected on my previous visits to Houston and the Third Ward. While attending my MFA program and living in Austin from 2012 through 2015, I visited Houston once a semester. Initially, I came for the Vietnamese and Lebanese dishes. Eventually, I also visited for the free museums that displayed art by brown, black and queer folks. I sought affirmation for my decision to enter an MFA program that catered to white narratives. And Project Row Houses was one of two stops I made over such weekend trips. Never actually envisioned me here.

There, on two of the porches, I saw people conversing. One a young brown mother and her child, another a black woman under a porch talking to a black man standing in the rain. They nodded and smiled and two of the folks said hello and ignored my awkward jog and rolling baggage. The child continued without a glance, the rain continued to gain momentum, but no one seemed to care, the water was part of their life. What did they see that I didn’t?

I saw a community. Immediately, I felt like I didn’t belong. Who am I to be strolling in their yard with a purple suitcase and artist pride? I was a visitor, not a member of their community. I was the artist coming in to collect their stories and experiences. I was the visiting artist I snickered at in my city of Santa Ana, California, which fights gentrification against those within the city limits. I knew I had to be more observant, I knew I had a lot of research and reading to do. If I am going to ask questions, they would have to be new, they would have to be well-thought out. They would have to give the community a reason.

A hundred steps later, after passing a group of all black and brown folks bantering at the Gulf Gas Station, I was at the first home that would host my year-long fellowship. A shot gun house replica, similar to the images by John Biggers who I only knew in a book. That evening I got food delivered because I wasn’t quite sure where to eat in the area. I also started reading the text that would set the foundation for my project, How Racism Takes Place by George Lipsitz. Huh, a Jewish guy writing about African-American history, didn’t expect it, or maybe there’s more there? I started with the Project Row Houses chapter then read excerpts from other chapters that were referenced.

Although often people say these are called shotgun houses because a shotgun can be fired through the front door and it would go right out the backdoor without hitting a wall, it has also been traced that the phrase has been derived from the word “shogon.” In West Africa, “shogon” means “God’s House.”

I was in bed under a reading light. At the precise moment I read the proposed definition, a breeze in the room forced me to pop my head out of the book and scan from left to right. And that’s when I thought how life and death can travel in the few seconds it takes a bullet to go through a home. Imagine reading this at the same speed as the flying bullet. And what if we were to measure the fractals of each sense of time between here and there, between there and here, between slavery and freedom, between 1941 and 1945, between Black Panthers and urban developers, between tomorrow’s past and the 2030 future; each minute fraction between blinks and the spirits who called me to look beyond here and there.

Pause.

Did I lose you? Or do you see what I see?

Back to bullet speed.

Those small pieces of matter that make each second of time, those moments where white becomes brown and how an image of a shotgun evolves to God’s House; all has turned into a future where shades of skin and multiple languages are what make this space we have shaped into our image. Where color is freedom, where words like shogun, shaanti, barrio, kapitbahayan, cộng đồng and تi آل هة الب — all mean us, not them.

And there is where all of here begins…

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Our new feature on the blog, titled Fellows Update, is an opportunity to share the research reflections from the Fellows’ point of view. Before our first Fellows Update, please watch Libby and Sarah’s introductory lectures to understand what inspires them to create their art.

–  Ryan Dennis, PRH’s Curator and Programs Director   

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The American Leadership Forum (ALF) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to join and strengthen diverse leaders to serve the common good. For more than 37 years, ALF has supported a network of 1,300 Senior Fellows who strengthen and broaden the social fabric of our community. ALF was founded to create a regional network of diverse senior-level leaders across private, public and nonprofit sectors committed to building a stronger community. 

Each year, established leaders from various sectors in the community participate in a yearlong, national caliber leadership development program that allows participants to broaden their perspectives, explore differences, build relationships and engage in dialogue around some of our most challenging issues.  Senior Fellows represent a broad range of leadership positions reflecting social, ethnic, gender, geographic, political, religious and work sector diversity. Selection is based on demonstrated outstanding leadership and potential for growth, integrity, professional stature, commitment to the community beyond their profession, willingness to learn, to challenge assumptions, and to increase understanding and awareness of others. ALF curriculum builds deep, lasting and trusting relationships, fosters appreciation of differences, teaches and builds dialogue skills and creates an environment that is highly conducive to appreciative inquiry, emergent change and impactful collaboration. For more information, please visit alfhouston.org.

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Motherhood can be one of the most wonderful and fulfilling journeys a woman can embark on, but it can come with many challenges, especially when you are a single mother at a young age. At times, you feel scared and isolated – like the weight of the world is on your shoulders – and you have nowhere to turn. Such was the case when I became pregnant with my son at the age of 19. Despite this chaotic time in my life, I was determined not to allow a teenage pregnancy to define me. However, I was uncertain how to balance being a new mom, attending Texas Southern University, marching in the Ocean of Soul band, and working. I needed a strong support system. That’s when I learned about Project Row Houses’ Young Mothers Residential Program (YMRP).

YMRP empowers young single mothers and their children in achieving independent, self-sufficient lives. Since 1996, YMRP has supported hundreds of mothers and their families, some of whom have gone on to earn doctorates, law degrees and become community leaders and entrepreneurs. Through this program, PRH provides a culturally rich environment in which residents develop healthy, holistic living practices and cultivate a sense of positive energy and self-worth that will guide them in becoming empowered, self-confident, nurturing women, mothers, daughters, companions, and employees.

YMRP afforded me a strong support system, which is something that all young, single moms should have access to, but unfortunately, not enough do. I do not know what I would have done without the constant support of my program mentors and my fellow moms. We forged a special bond and a real sisterhood. We laughed together, cried together, made dinners together, and our children played together. To this day, some of my closest friends are the women I met through the program. 

Dawn Jones, a current mom in the program, echoed how special it has been for her to be supported by the other young moms in her cohort. Before YMRP, she felt like she was the only one going through certain situations, but since starting the program in January, she quickly realized that so many young moms face similar obstacles and triumphs and that the program allows them the space to regroup and celebrate together.

Through the workshops and classes that Dawn is attending, she has learned not only how to improve her parenting skills but also how to persevere as she continues to achieve her professional and personal goals. She specifically credits the Black Parenting class that she has been in for the past two months in changing her perspective on parenting. Importantly, she is practicing feeling less guilty about having to go to work and school. She understands that although she is sacrificing spending time with her son, in the end, she is doing her best to provide the safe, happy, and healthy life they deserve.

Dawn is currently pursuing a degree from Texas Southern University. She also has her own blog, is involved with the NAACP NextGEN and the Honor Society of Leadership and Success, and works as a lead field organizer.

Yvette Chapman was 26-years-old when she and her then 5-year-old daughter were in the program. She is now a teacher for gifted and talented students in Spring ISD and is a visual artist as well. She was HHBSE Teach of the Year- Houston Chapter. She completed her Masters of Education in school counseling and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Counseling Education. For her, the support and encouragement she felt while in the program still guides her parenting approach. Through the program, she learned to embrace the concept of “it takes a village to raise a child.” As single mothers, we can often feel like it is our responsibility to take care of our children on our own and it can be hard for us to ask for help. YMRP gives us a safe space to practice asking for help. Although Yvette’s daughter is now a teenager, she still utilizes the skills she learned about how to seek advice and help from others. She is not afraid to reach out to other parents and ask how they have dealt with similar situations.

In addition to the emotional support that I received from my cohort, the program also provided housing and counseling. My experience with YMRP truly changed the trajectory of my life. My son and I were nurtured in a loving community and exposed to arts and culture like never before – from the Black Parenting classes taught by Dr. Nelda Lewis to my home – my little house on Holman Street. I can still remember my mentor mom, Ms. Yvonne Morales, taking me to Target to go shopping for my house. I gained a level of knowledge about myself and my capabilities that I had not explored in the past.

Although I graduated from YMRP many years ago, the program, PRH, and the Third Ward community – the very same community that enveloped me in love, strength, and support – will always have a special place in my heart. As soon as I earned my graduate degree and moved back to Houston, I knew I wanted to be involved with the YMRP so I joined the advisory committee. From there, I was asked to be a mentor mom.

When the Director of Advancement position became open, PRH wanted to bring me on as a full-time team member. Without hesitation, I joined the organization that has changed so many lives, including my own. Through my role, I am excited to help support YMRP and touch the lives of many more young single moms and their children just like Dr. Lewis and Ms. Yvonne impacted mine.

In honor of Mother’s Day, I encourage you to consider giving a gift on behalf of YMRP and the women and children we serve. 

Sincerely, Shannette Prince

Young Mothers Residential Program Graduate

PRH Director of Advancement

The post Embracing motherhood through the support of community appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Full article by Brandon Zech

Today, Project Row Houses (PRH) and the Center for Art and Social Engagement (CASE) at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts announced the two artists selected to participate in the organizations’ 2019 fellowship program. Since 2017, when the fellowship was started with a $100,000 gift from Suzanne Deal Booth, the program has brought one local artist and one US-based artist into Houston’s Third Ward to develop collaborative projects that positively impact the community. The 2019 fellows, Texas-based Libby Bland and California-based Sarah Rafael García, will be mentored throughout their year-long fellowship by PRH’s Ryan N. Dennis, and CASE’s director, Sixto Wagan.

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Full article by Stevona Elem-Rogers

Solange Knowles was born on a day astrologists call the Cusp of Magic – the moment when Cancer and Gemini merge. It makes sense to me – you never know what to expect from Solange, but you know it will be beauty-filled, trill, and slightly enigmatic.

It’s the day after Christmas in Houston, Texas, and I’ve arrived to a panoramic view of a misty skyline. I am anxious. I find myself pacing my hotel floor. What should make our hang simple actually makes it a daunting endeavour – I call Solange a friend. But she is also, well, Solange. And I’ve been charged to write about her. She’s a genius Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter-visual artist, determined to share her origin story and human experience, specifically as a Black southern woman. I know there’s no white page that can capture her full vibrancy , but I need her to be seen.

The post Vice Media’s i-D Magazine : becoming solange appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Full article by Brittanie Shey 

“THIS PIECE has a lot to do with healing through joy and through hope,” says Charo Oquet.

The Dominican artist is standing in the middle of her installation inside 2515 Holman Street, one of the Project Row Houses buildings. The work, titled Written on Skin and Sacred Gestures, incorporates planks of wood, glass bottles filled with dyed water, large scraps of colorful fabric, and talisman-like sculptures, all climbing up a path into the middle of the room. The installation does evoke a feeling of joy, or maybe a feeling of accomplishment, as though one has scaled a large mountain.

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Nataly Torres, nataly@elmorepr.com

Elmore Public Relations, 713.524.0661

Project Row Houses and UH’s Center for Art & Social Engagement Announce 2019 Fellows

HOUSTON – Feb. 6, 2019 – Project Row Houses (PRH) and the Center for Art and Social Engagement (CASE) at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts (KGMCA) today announced the artists participating in the 2019 KGMCA-PRH Fellowship: Texas-based Libby Bland and California-based Sarah Rafael García.

The KGMCA-PRH Fellowship was created to invite artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers. The fellows will engage in creative collaborations that involve the Third Ward community and address issues important to them.

Bland and García will receive mentorship from project administrators Sixto Wagan, director of CASE, and Ryan N. Dennis, PRH’s Curator and Programs Director. Local artists, faculty members, community members and selected leaders will offer their support during this process.

“Sixto and I are pleased to welcome Libby and Sarah as our 2019 fellows,” said Dennis. “The caliber of applicants we receive yearly is an indication of the amazing work artists are pursuing nationwide, and the necessity for a fellowship that supports them in their efforts to build community through art.”

Upon completion of the fellowship’s pilot year, applications were accepted from nearly 60 local, national, and international artists and collectives. The applications were reviewed by a panel consisting of Dennis and Wagan; Bert Bertonaschi, artist and PRH Board Member; Mary Manning, Archivist, and Curator of Performing and Visuals Arts Collections, University of Houston Libraries; and Assata Richards, Executive Director, Sankofa Research Institute.

“The partnership between PRH and CASE continues to advance as we learn from the participating artists,” stated Wagan. “Working alongside our fellows is a rewarding experience and it is exciting to see the investment artists are making in community-centered creative practices. We are delighted to begin our journey with Libby and Sarah, and look forward to the insights their work will certainly bring.”

The fellows will be introduced at the opening artist talks this spring, where they will share information on their work focus and the questions that will guide their research throughout the year. At the conclusion of their fellowships, the two will also present lectures/performances that encapsulate their year of research.

ABOUT THE FELLOWS

Libby Bland

Libby Bland is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where she earned master’s degrees in architecture and city and regional planning. Her undergraduate degree is from Sarah Lawrence College where she studied narratives of place, children’s literature, and costuming. She was born and raised in Southeastern Virginia in the shadow of The Great Dismal Swamp. Her background is in oral history, arts-based community design, and the history of self-planned Black communities throughout the rural South. Previously she worked with The Community Futures Lab in Philadelphia, an oral history and arts project around gentrification in a neighborhood after public housing towers had been demolished. She also worked for the Village of Arts and Humanities, focusing on economic development and housing stability for long-time residents in North Philadelphia. She currently works full time at Texas Housers as a neighborhood and housing equity planner and analyst.

The through line of Libby’s work is trying to understand the narratives that Black people tell (and omit) about our experiences, and figuring out clear and compelling ways to connect us across the stories and lessons that have been lost to time and trauma.

Sarah Rafael Garcia

Sarah Rafael García is a writer, traveler, and arts educator. She was born in Brownsville, Texas and raised in Santa Ana, California—she considers herself “a first-generation everything,” including being an artist. Since publishing Las Niñas (Floricanto Press 2008), she founded Barrio Writers, LibroMobile and Crear Studio. In 2015, she completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Fiction and cognate in Media Studies. She is an editor for the Barrio Writers, pariahs: writing from outside the margins and Latinx Archive anthologies. In 2016, Sarah Rafael was awarded to develop the multi-media project titled SanTana’s Fairy Tales (Raspa Magazine 2017), supported in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, through an Artist-in-Residence initiative at CSUF Grand Central Art Center. In 2018, she held an artist residency at The Guesthouse, Cork, Ireland and was honored as an Emerging Artist at the 19th Annual Orange County Arts Awards. In March 2019, she will exhibit her first installation as a conceptual artist: “A Book’s Journey,” a collaborative recycled book project.

As a writer and conceptual artist, Sarah Rafael offers historical counter-narratives for her gender and culture, while integrating contemporary social justice themes and creative narrative structures of people of color without the constraints imposed by society or traditional storytelling. For the KGMCA-PRH Fellowship, she is interested in expanding her ethnographic work by researching and incorporating Houston’s Third Ward history along with its social justice and gentrification issues and further develop a multi-media, literary-arts platform.

Full Release

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Nataly Torres, nataly@elmorepr.com  

Elmore Public Relations, 713.524.0661

Project Row Houses Unveils Round 49: penumbras: sacred geometries

Artist Round explores the ideology of sacred geometries to form structures and landscapes that allude to the body, intent and consciousness

HOUSTON – Mar. 7, 2019 – Project Row Houses (PRH) will unveil its latest Artist Round, Round 49: penumbras: sacred geometries, on Saturday, March 16 at the Art Houses located at 2505 – 2517 Holman St. Round 49 is co-curated by PRH Curator and Programs Director Ryan N. Dennis and cultural practitioner william cordova. The Round explores the ideology of sacred geometries to form structures and landscapes that allude to the body, intent and consciousness.

Round 49 was curated in connection with the Latino Art Now! Conference, and the installations will bring attention to Houston’s Afro-Latino diaspora. The conference, organized by the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR) and the Smithsonian Latino Center, will take place at the University of Houston from April 4-6 and explores themes similar to those of Round 49. Round 49 Art Houses will serve as one of the venues for Latino Art Now!’s Spring of Latino Art events.

“Round 49: penumbras: sacred geometries was envisioned to uplift dialogue around Houston’s Afro-Latino diaspora,” said Dennis. “As the only exhibit concentrated on Afro-Latin culture and art, william and I knew it was a perspective that could not be left out of the conversation. Our hope is that Round 49 will elevate the multitudes of rich texture and broad perspective within Afro-Latino heritage.”

Round 49 exhibiting artists include:

• Yanira Collado’s (Dominican Republic) work is rooted in the synthesis of African fractals, slave quilts and geometric concepts. Her work produces and highlights the complexity of abstraction as a non-western narrative rooted in African tradition.

• Leticia Contreras (Afromexican) is an artist who reframes the unframed through photography, performance and site-specific installation capturing the felt essence of our presence in temporal structures and abandoned vessels.

• Aramis O’Reilly (Cuba) creates alternative landscapes that relate to color based systems of communication and the harmony of the spheres; an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies.

• Charo Oquet (Dominican Republic) is a performance artist whose installation based work draws from the intersection of sacred geometries and constellational patterns originating in Veve symbols and Taíno cosmograms.

• Onajide Shabaka (US) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes story-telling through short narrative films and expansive installations whose materials are drawn from organic matter.

• Juana Valdes (Cuba) is a research-based artist whose travels bridge geographic moments that speak on the economy of labor, aesthetics and resistance in the Caribbean.

 In conjunction with Round 49, MacArthur genius grant recipient Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born will utilize one of the Art Houses for their installation titled Sitting on a Man’s Head. Okpokwasili and Born have created a dynamic “public song,” engaging PRH’s site, local artists and the Houston community. Their installation will be activated during the CounterCurrent Festival as an immersive live experience. Performances will take place on Friday, April 12 and on Saturday, April 13. 

To support neighborhood and economic development, PRH will also host a family-friendly market from 4 to 7 p.m. that showcases a variety of goods and services from Third Ward vendors. From 2:30 to 4 p.m., guests have the opportunity to hear from the artists about their individual practices and the inspiration behind their installation during Artists’ Talks.

Full Release

Round 49 will be on view from Saturday, March 16 through Sunday, June 9, 2019. Art Houses are open Wednesday – Sunday, 12 – 5 p.m.

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Being a part of Round 47 at Project Row Houses (PRH) was a career-altering experience. It showed me how art when given the correct platform can impact the artist and the community in ways that supersede our own expectations. Being part of PRH opened up doors for me as an artist that I never knew existed. My work is rooted in the community, and I believe that art should be viewable in spaces that allow those who aren’t privy to traditional art settings to have the experience still the same. Project Row Houses is revolutionary in the way they bring art to the community by providing a non-traditional space that creates a bridge for those who would otherwise not be given the opportunity to experience art created for them. PRH has shown me that I have something worth seeing, and it has added leaps and bounds to my confidence as well as a solid foundation for my practice going forward.   

Join me in supporting PRH and their unique arts program by clicking here to become a member today. Your membership provides an invaluable service to artists like me and ensure that Houston remains at the forefront of innovative artist communities.

Thank you,

Brian Ellison
Artist

The post A Special Message from Brian Ellison, Houston-based Artist appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Over the years, as I’ve moved around the country advocating for artist support, so many colleagues hoped to find a way to support artists in their area, bring in artists from around the country, and honor their city’s history. Urban areas like the Third Ward battle gentrification; rural-area residents fail to connect in meaningful ways with the artists that move through the local residency. One organization always came up in these discussions: Project Row Houses (PRH) has inspired the cultural field and become an example of the strength of the artists’ vision. Seeing the possibilities, the founders, board, and staff inspire me to consider what it means to create community.

Earlier this year, I had the honor of giving the keynote at the Social Practice.Social Justice Symposium and joining others for an intimate look at creative practices influenced by Project Row Houses. Today, I hope you will join me in supporting this organization by clicking here to become a member. When you purchase your membership, you help Project Row Houses continue to inspire people and communities across the world.

Thank you,

Lisa Dent

The post A Special Message from Lisa Dent, Advocate for Artists appeared first on Project Row Houses.

My name is Isaiah Harper. I’m 16 years old, and I go to YES Prep High School. Earlier this year, I was one of 16 students that Project Row Houses took to Washington, D.C. to experience the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.  As soon as I went in, I felt a rush of culture that came straight to me. It was different from anything I’d ever been a part of. The museum itself and the group of kids that I went with was all just a great experience. Project Row Houses has had an incredible impact on my life. I took my first steps and had my first birthday party on-site while my mom was in the Young Mothers Residential Program. The trip to DC was another first for me, and I am thankful that the organization continues to be part of my community.

Today, I hope that you’ll join that community and become a member of PRH’s community of supporters. Members keep our community thriving by allowing Project Row Houses to continue its work with the people of Third Ward.

Thank you for your support,

Isaiah Harper

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I was a 19-year old sophomore at Texas Southern University when I became pregnant with my son, Isaiah. He was born in May 2002. I attended summer school in July and was living in the Young Mothers Residential Program (YMRP) at Project Row Houses (PRH) in October. During that time of my life, things were moving quickly, and I was determined not to allow a teenage pregnancy to define me.

My experience with YMRP changed the trajectory of my life. My son and I were nurtured in a loving community and exposed to arts and culture like never before – from the Black Parenting Classes taught by Dr. Nelda Lewis to my home – my little house on Holman. I can still remember my mentor mom, Ms. Yvonne, taking me to Target to go shopping for MY house. I gained a level of knowledge about myself and my capabilities that I had not explored in the past. I took great pride in my home and the YMRP.

The full circle moments come when Isaiah and I look back at photos of our time at PRH. He’s a sophomore in high school and his little brother a 5th grader. Once you connect to YMRP and Project Row Houses, the spirit of the founders and the ancestors whose space we share are forever a part of your being. I encourage you to consider supporting YMRP and Project Row Houses by joining the PRH family as a member. When you click here to become a member, you not only change the lives of young mothers, you are also shoring up the success of the next generation.

Thank you,

Shannette Prince
Founder, Africa On My Back

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The post Houston Matters: Project Row Houses Marks 25 Years Of ‘Collective Creative Actions’ appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Today is my birthday – and you may or may not know this about me, but I love birthdays.

They provide a chance for each of us to reflect on the past year, celebrate everything we’ve accomplished, and to look forward to the new year we’ve been blessed with.

We started out this year with a distinct focus on showcasing our 25-year history and honoring the seven visionary artists who founded Project Row Houses (PRH). I am so grateful to spend every day building on the legacy of these inspirational, innovative, and creative change agents. They had a vision that art and creativity could be an engine for social transformation in our historic and culturally rich neighborhood, and it’s an honor to continue to carry this work forward. Thank you for joining me on this extraordinary journey!

I want to personally invite you to reflect and celebrate with me. Take an intimate look back through our miraculous 25 years by purchasing your own copy of our first ever publication, Collective Creative Actions: PRH at 25, available here on our website. I’d also love for you to join us this Friday in the historic Eldorado Ballroom for our annual holiday membership reception, Cocktails in the Ballroom. You can reserve your spot today at bit.ly/prhholiday.

In solidarity and gratitude,

Eureka Gilkey

Executive Director

See You There!

Snapshots of my Personal Highlights from Our 25th Anniversary Year

Clockwise from upper left:

Img. 1 – People dancing in Holman Street at our Round 48 Opening and Block Party

Img. 2 – Black Girl Magic from the opening panel at our Social Justice.Social Practice Symposium. L – R: Pat Jordan from Kansas City; Irfana Jetha Noorani from DC; Danielle Burns Wilson in Houston; moderated by myself, Eureka Gilkey

Img. 3 – Our incomparable 25th Anniversary Gala Chairs, Roslyn Bazzelle and Derrick Mitchell

Img. 4 –the 16 high schoolers from our community we took to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, visiting the Yard at my alma mater, Howard University

Img. 5 – Yumnah Evans at CommuniTea, where we honored the early champions of our ground-breaking Young Mothers Residential Program

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Center for Art and Social Engagement and Project Row Houses have created a fellowship program that invites artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers. The fellows will engage in creative collaborations that involve the Houston’s historic Third Ward community and address issues important to them. 

The two fellows have a year-long mentorship with project administrators Sixto Wagan, director of the UH Center for Art and Social Engagement at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, and Ryan N. Dennis, PRH’s Curator and Programs Director.  Local artists, faculty members, community members and selected leaders will offer their support during this process. The Fellows will present to the public their research–to-date at the end of their fellowship.

Below are the culminating lectures from our 2018 KGMCA-PRH Fellows, Regina Agu and Eyakem Gulilat.

Regina Agu

Regina Agu’s work, titled “A Psychogeography of Emancipation Park,” is a multimedia performative lecture that draws from archival and original photographs, text, moving image, and sound. Throughout her fellowship, Agu investigated the history of mass congregation and activism in public green spaces and parks in Houston, with a particular emphasis on Emancipation Park. Her year centered on developing an understanding of the opportunities and challenges of establishing and maintaining safe, healthy, public spaces for residents of color across the city and researching a feminist history of Emancipation Park and Third Ward.

Eyakem Gulilat

Eyakem Gulilat’s work, titled “Black Place-Making and Informality,” explores Black place-making practice and uses photography as a tool for documentation as well as an interactive exchange. Throughout his fellowship, Gulilat’s research centered on these questions: How do the narratives contained in Third Ward create a sense of place, and what type of stories do these places tell us about Third Ward and the African American community? His talk and accompanying exhibition explore the ideas of informal urbanism and landscape as metaphor.

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WHAT: Project Row Houses’ 25th Anniversary Gala
WHERE: Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion and Celebration Gardens at Hermann Park

On Thursday, November 1, more than 270 of Project Row Houses’ (PRH) most dedicated supporters gathered for the organization’s 25th Anniversary Gala at the Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion and Celebration Gardens at Hermann Park.

Guests mingled as they enjoyed live music from the Texas Southern University Jazz Quartet and strolled through the art auction, bidding on showcased works from PRH’s community of artists. Soon after, guests were seated for the dinner in the Celebration Garden and were welcomed by Eureka Gilkey, PRH Executive Director. The gracious fall feast featured harvest salad, roasted salmon farro risotto, and lemon custard, specially prepared by Third Ward Chef Shakti Baum of Etta’s Kitchen, with generous support from Levy Convention Centers. PRH also presented a short video highlighting the progress made over the past 25 years with Gilkey expanding upon key moments. The dinner closed with Board Chair Devaron Yates thanking all for their continued support of PRH.

The post Local Magazine: SCENE | Project Row Houses’ 25th Anniversary Gala appeared first on Project Row Houses.

What: Project Row Houses’ 25th Anniversary Gala

Where: Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion and Celebration Gardens at Hermann Park

PC Moments: Commemorating a quarter-century mixing community development and showcasing cutting-edge and/or emerging talent, Project Row Houses toasted to its 25th anniversary with more than 270 supporters and devotees in attendance. PRH’s innovative concept — co-founded by Rick Lowe  who has been recognized with a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for birthing Row Houses — has seen the nonprofit climb from humble beginnings in the Third Ward to the front of Houston’s art scene, while garnering respect nationally and across the pond. (For more about PRH’s 25-year ascent, read PaperCity‘s exclusive profiles with three women who steer it now, here.)

The post PaperCity: Houston’s Famed Project Row Houses Celebrate a Major Milestone appeared first on Project Row Houses.

The Torch is Passed

Meet three women who are propelling Project Row Houses forward. Our Q&A with executive director Eureka Gilkey, curator and programs director Ryan N. Dennis, and 2018 UH CASE + PRH Fellow Regina Agu follows, a PaperCity exclusive.

The post PaperCity: Houston’s Most Successful Community Experiment — the Real Story of Project Row Houses And the Three Wonder Women Charged With Keeping the Magic Going appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Full Story | TrePhonos Story at 22:40

On Tuesday’s Houston Matters: More than 63,000 in-person ballots were cast in Harris County on Monday, a reportedly record-setting turnout for the first day of early voting in the midterm election. With mail-in ballots, 115,601 votes have been cast in Harris County so far. A local political scientist weighs in on voter turnout so far.

Also this hour: This year’s flu vaccine should be about 20 percent effective, according to tests from Rice University bioengineer Dr. Michael Deem, who joins us to discuss how the vaccine works and who should get it.

And we learn about an art project that’s bringing pay phones back.

The post Houston Matters: Full Show: Early Voting, and Flu Vaccine Effectiveness (Oct. 23, 2018) appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Center for Art and Social Engagement and Project Row Houses have created a fellowship program that invites artists and cultural practitioners to the Third Ward to work alongside urban planners, educators and policy makers. The fellows will engage in creative collaborations that involve the Houston’s historic Third Ward community and address issues important to them. 

The two fellows will have a year-long mentorship with project administrators Sixto Wagan, director of the UH Center for Art and Social Engagement at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, and Ryan N. Dennis, PRH’s Curator and Programs Director.  Local artists, faculty members, community members and selected leaders will offer their support during this process. The Fellows will present to the public their research–to-date at the end of their fellowship.  

Benefits of the program include: 

• a stipend of $15,000,

• $5,000 project/research budget 

• a community Brain Trust of local artists, community members, and faculty to advise and ground the project in a local discourse, and

• for non-Houston Fellows local housing at Project Row Houses with $1,000 in travel support

In return, the fellows are asked to engage our communities – Third Ward, university, artistic, and myriad other – in a process that involves:

• A public presentation of previous work and Fellowship guiding questions at the beginning of the Fellowship, 

• Present a public talk/project at the end of residency 

• Co-organizing a Community Conversation with PRH Curator and Programs Director and CASE Director 

• Monthly meetings with the program directors

Please submit all materials by November 15, 2018. 

Planned notification of fellowship recipients will occur by December 13.

Please address any questions or points of clarification to:

• Sixto Wagan, Director of the Center for Art and Social Engagement, swagan@uh.edu; 713.743.4281 

• Ryan Dennis, Curator and Programs Director at Project Row Houses, rdennis@projectrowhouses.org, 713.526-7662

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by Houston Public Media

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Feeling stressed about 24/7 technology or worried about getting hooked on drugs? Stop by artist Lisa Harris’s “House of Practice” installation at Project Row Houses to unplug from social media, chill out with some calming colors, and learn how to “just say no” to Big Pharma.

Harris is one of seven artists participating in Round 48: “Beyond Social Practice” at the shotgun-style Art Houses on Holman. An artist from New Orleans, jackie sumell, hopes to call attention to the fact that 80 percent of incarcerated females are mothers by inviting visitors to plant seedlings and share pictures of that plant’s transformation with those mothers through a prisoner-support app.

The post Houston Press: Project Row Houses Brings Night Bakery, Pics For Prison Moms and Chill House appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Nataly Torres, nataly@elmorepr.com  

Elmore Public Relations, 713.524.0661

Project Row Houses Presents Round 48: Beyond Social Practice

Latest round investigates the storied connection between artists and activism within contemporary art

HOUSTON – Oct. 01, 2018 – Project Row Houses (PRH) will unveil Round 48: Beyond Social Practice on Saturday, October 13 at the Art Houses located at 2505 – 2517 Holman St. The latest Round brings together a group of artists deeply engaged in collaborative practices that speak to social issues related to identity, politics, and activism. In conjunction with the opening, PRH will host a family-friendly block party that spans its Third Ward site.

“Beyond Social Practice comes at a pivotal moment for our organization as we mark 25 years of engagement in the Historic Third Ward community,” said Eureka Gilkey, Executive Director of PRH. “The foundation of our organization is built on encouraging artists to extend their practice outside the studio into the social context. Round 48 will build upon our efforts to engage neighbors, artists, and enterprises in collective creative action and evidence new ways of bringing people together.”

Participating artists and collectives include Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Armina Mussa, Tia-Simone Gardner, Lisa Harris, Dawn Weleski, jackie sumell and The Design Studio for Social Intervention. The seven renowned artists and collectives from across the U.S. are socially-engaged artists whose work shapes and frames socio-political issues while demonstrating their ties to various social justice movements and strategies.

• Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Brooklyn, NY): Fazlalizadeh’s installation “The Personal as Political” creates a space for people to talk candidly about their experiences being black, women, and/or queer. Their personal stories will then be used to create political art that disrupts the common narrative and forces a new perspective on identity and activism.

• Armina Mussa (Los Angeles, CA): Mussa’s installation “Fragility—Death” uses various mediums such as sculpture, video, durational performance, and performance documentation to allude to the practices of repressive and violent environments.

• Tia-Simone Gardner (Houston, TX): Gardner’s “The Black Power Station” is a digital audiobook archive and mobile sound installation that highlights authors of African descent whose works were published before 1923, but have fallen out of print.

• Lisa Harris (Houston, TX): Harris’ “House of Practice” is a holistic recreation center that creates a sacred space and a healing environment through the use of cool colors, calming and orderly interiors, mirrors, furniture, literature and a practitioner. The installation offers organic practices, materials, and information as alternatives to overindulgence in pharmaceutical consumption and digital recreation.

• Dawn Weleski (Pittsburgh, PA): Weleski’s “Noon at Night” is a pay-what-you-can bakery serving international baked goods, while connecting customers in real-time to other cafés and patrons around the world. “Noon at Night” opens when the sun sets and doesn’t close until sunset the next day, allowing customers in Houston to converse via video conferencing with customers in cafés half a world away where their hour is noon. 

• jackie sumell (New Orleans, LA): sumell’s “gRow House” will fill the space with flowers chosen by incarcerated mothers from prisons across the U.S. The installation, which recognizes that 80% of incarcerated women and girls are mothers, invites visitors to plant the seedlings chosen by the women, document their transformation, and share the images with the moms through a prisoner-support app called Flikshop.

• The Design Studio for Social Intervention (Boston, MA): The Design Studio for Social Intervention will create a “Social Emergency Response Center” with the intention of taking social emergencies that we presently face to help individuals pivot out of despair, rage, and hopelessness into collective, creative, and radical action. The House will be programmed as a space for activists, artists, and Third Ward residents to gather and activate in ways that feel useful and inspiring.

“Round 48: Beyond Social Practice builds on the thought-provoking and engaging dialogue from our recent Social Practice.Social Justice symposium, which focused on the creative actions around preservation and social practices in communities,” said Ryan N. Dennis, Curator and Programs Director of PRH. “The term ‘social practice’ is often broad and vaguely defined and we found it imperative to further fuel the conversation on how it’s defined, who defines it, and what it means for artists, collectives, and institutions. Round 48 explores the organic efforts that move beyond the name and elevate the spirit of socially-engaged art through their actions.”

For the opening on October 13, PRH will offer Artists’ Talks from noon to 2 p.m. as well as a block party, which continues the tradition of the community gathering to commemorate a new Round of installations. The Artists Talks will offer attendees the opportunity to hear from the artists about their individual practices and the inspiration behind their installation. The block party runs from noon to 7 p.m., and occupies the PRH site.

At the block party, guests can celebrate the Round 48 opening through a series of live performances from local artists Eimaral Sol, The Afroknotts, Marcus Ardoin and Da Zydeco Legendz, Marium Echo, Tim Woods, and Undergravity; family-friendly games and activities, including ZooMobile from the Houston Zoo; free Yoga with Letty classes; food and shopping for goods from local entrepreneurs. PRH’s block parties have a long and rich history for celebrating art and African-American history and culture.

There will be a health fair on-site with vendors speaking about and offering services on areas such as sickle cell, adult and childhood diabetes, HIV, spinal and mental health, and the need for minorities to donate blood. Legacy Community Health will be providing screenings for diabetes, blood pressure, BMI, pregnancy, HIV and syphilis, as well as giving educational presentations.

Full Release

Round 48: Beyond Social Practice on display: Saturday, October 13, 2018 – Sunday, February 17, 2019
Open Wednesday – Sunday, 12 – 5 p.m.

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Social Practice.Social Justice

Presented by Project Row Houses (PRH), “Social Practice.Social Justice” is a day-long symposium bringing together artists, activists and thought leaders to Houston’s Third Ward. The symposium begins Friday evening with a special dinner with panelists and PRH staff hosted by Project Row Houses. It continues with Day 2 on Saturday morning with a panel discussion on neighborhood development and the strategies used in communities impacted by disinvestment. This session will be followed by a keynote address from Lisa Dent, thought leader and advocate for cultural workers, living artists and shape-shifters. The afternoon session will conclude the symposium, with a panel centered on utilizing creativity, imagination and engagement.  

All videos by Rex Hudson

Neighborhood Development and the Preservation of a Community

Morning Panel, moderated by Eureka Gilkey, Executive Director, PRH
10:00 – 11:30 a.m.

This panel brings together individuals who are pathing a way forward for conscious neighborhood development and work actively to preserve historic buildings in neighborhoods that have been disinvested in. 

Panelists:

• Irfana Jetha Noorani, 11th Street Bridge Project, Washington DC

• Pat Jordan, Gem Cultural and Education Center, Kansas City

• Danielle Burns Wilson, The African American Library at the Gregory School 

The Romance of Community

Lisa Dent will present current research on philanthropic and cultural organizations, placing the support of artistic work within a socioeconomic context. Introduction by Tamika Evans, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Project Row Houses.

Beyond Social Practice

Afternoon Panel, moderated by Gia Hamilton, Cultural Producer

The panelists will present their individual practices and discuss the broad, often vague definition of “social practice” as well as their observed impact of art and creativity on the community.

Panelists:

• Shani Peters, New York-based Artist

• Nathaniel Donnett, Houston-based Artist

• Jen Delos Reyes, Chicago-based Artist & Cultural worker

The post Social Practice.Social Justice Symposium 2018 appeared first on Project Row Houses.

The pay phone has become a kind of urban artifact. Virtually a whole generation has never even used one. But in Houston’s Third Ward, a group of artists with support from Project Row Houses has collaborated to install three decommissioned payphones that have been turned into audio time capsules, which contain snippets of spoken history, music, and ambient field recordings captured at significant locations in the neighborhood. No coins needed, just pick up the receiver and follow the instuctions. The solar-powered phones — collectively called TréPhonos — have been installed indefinitely, and they’re located at Wolf’s Pawnshop on Emancipation Avenue; at Crumbville Tx., at Elgin and Emancipation, and at Shape Community Center on Live Oak.

This segment aired as part of the program Arts InSight, on Friday, September 14, 8:30pm, on Houston Public Media – TV 8.

The post Arts InSight: WATCH: Pay Phones Re-Appear As Third-Ward Time Capsules appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Round 48 Opening & Block Party 

Project Row Houses
2521 Holman Street 
October 13, 2018 
Noon – 7:00 pm 

In conjunction with the opening of Round 48: Beyond Social Practice and in celebration of PRH’s 25th Anniversary, we have partnered with Color Wheel Culture to host a Block Party that spans our site from the art houses to the artist studios at Delia’s Lounge and beyond! Join us on October 13, 2018 from Noon to 7:00pm for one of the biggest events in PRH history! Registration for vendors includes 7 hours of activity and access to the PRH site and exposure to a cross-pollinated audience of Houston creatives. 

Vendor Registration 

• Artist / Non-Food Vendor: $65*

• Food Vendor: $85**

• Food Truck: $100**

*Registration includes a $25 non food vendor and $40 food vendor City Concession Fee for a closed street event. 
**All food vendors need a Temporary Food Permit or Food Truck Medallion from CoH Health Department to enter the event.

Vendor Guidelines

Please check-in with the VENDOR COORDINATOR, prior to setting up to receive booth space assignment.

• Set-up time: 9:00 am to 11:45 am. Vendors should be set-up and ready to sell by 12:00pm.

• Payment must be received to guarantee a space. NO onsite vendor registration.

• Booth space is approximately 10’ x 10’. Tents must be no bigger than 10’x10’ Pop-up Tent.

• Vendors must provide ALL that you need to vend. (change, pop-up tent, tables, chairs, lighting, displays, office supplies, flyers, etc.)

• Tables, chairs, and other equipment must fit within the 10′ x 10′ booth space.

• Electricity is not available.

• Breakdown completion time: 9 pm

• Project Row Houses is not responsible for merchandise or other belongings left behind.

• Food vendors are required to get and provide a Temporary Food Permit and follow City of Houston Health Dept regulations seewww.houstontx.gov/health/Food/Temp_Permit_Package_06272011.pdf

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In part 9 of Redlining & White Noise, Charles Rotramel and Gregg Taylor are on location at Project Row Houses in Houston to talk with Eureka Gilkey about Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. Eureka Gilkey is the Executive Director of Project Row Houses, an innovative organization in the Third Ward, which combines art, community development, and historic cultural representation to offer creative solutions for building economic vibrancy for this redlined neighborhood.

For more information on Project Row Houses, visit projectrowhouses.org

The post reClaimed Podcast: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap with Eureka Gilkey appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Embedded in Houston’s Third Ward lies Project Row Houses, a group of shotgun houses that includes converted Summer Studios for seven local art students and emerging artists.

This summer, Elizabeth Denton (Duncan ‘18) took on the task of transforming her assigned house into a complete studio and further refining the art skills she developed during her time as a Visual and Dramatic Arts major. Her art, substantial and beautiful, beckons viewers for a closer look when juxtaposed with the repurposed house.

The post The Rice Thresher: VADA alumnus transforms house into art studio appeared first on Project Row Houses.

THINK BACK TO THE LAST TIME YOU USED A PAY PHONE. The once-ubiquitous structures have been supplanted by cell phones, but a few remaining booths in the Third Ward will soon find new life as art objects, thanks to Project Row Houses.

Three phone booths, sprinkled across North Third Ward, will feature the voices and sounds of The Tre. The booths have been hacked electronically, and transformed into sculptures through painting and metalwork. Now callers can press buttons 1-9 to hear recordings, or press the star button, zero, or pound sign to record and hear messages from other callers, plus the project’s statement of purpose. The phones create a new kind of connection.

The post Houstonia: Pay Phones Are About to Make a Third Ward Comeback appeared first on Project Row Houses.

The show: Summer Studios 2018
The venue: Project Row Houses
The city: Houston
The date: August 11, 2018
Photographs by Maya Joubert

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Project Row Houses Announces Social Practice.Social Justice Symposium

Renowned artists, activists and thought leaders gather in Houston’s Third Ward for one-day symposium

HOUSTON – Aug. 22, 2018 – Project Row Houses (PRH) announces its Social Practice.Social Justice symposium, which will be held on Saturday, September 8 in the Historic Eldorado Ballroom. The day-long symposium, which features panel discussions and a keynote address, brings renowned, socially-engaged artists, activists and thought leaders from across the U.S. to Houston’s Third Ward to share their insights on the role of art and creativity in the social and political landscape. 

“25 years ago, our founders strived to be a catalyst for social transformation in the Third Ward community through the celebration of art and African American history and culture,” said Eureka Gilkey, executive director of PRH. “While our work has become a model for art and social engagement in communities throughout the world, we remain committed to the cultural enrichment and historic preservation of the Third Ward. This symposium brings artists, activists and thought leaders to our community in order to expand the dialogue around our work and look at new opportunities for direct action through collective creativity.” 

The symposium will begin with a morning panel discussion entitled “Neighborhood Development and the Preservation of a Community,” moderated by Gilkey, which brings together individuals who are paving a way forward for conscious neighborhood development and who work actively to preserve historic buildings in disinvested neighborhoods. Panelists include Irfana Jetha Noorani, deputy director of the 11th Street Bridge Project in Washington D.C.; Pat Jordan, president of the Gem Cultural and Education Center in Kansas City; and Danielle Burns Wilson, curator and manager of The African American Library at the Gregory School in Houston.

“Through the Symposium, we aim to create a thought-provoking and engaging dialogue around the intersection of art, community engagement and neighborhood development,” said Ryan N. Dennis, curator and programs director of PRH. “We believe our keynote speaker and panelists will highlight creative actions around preservation and social practice in communities, and in turn, we can share how PRH spurs direct action through art and engagement in the Third Ward.” 

Lisa Dent, thought leader and advocate for cultural workers and living artists, will deliver the keynote address, “The Romance of Community,” on Saturday afternoon. She will present current research on philanthropic and cultural organizations, placing the support of artistic work in a socio-economic context.

The symposium will conclude with a conversation centered on the broad, often vague definition of “social practice,” entitled “Beyond Social Practice.” Moderated by Gia Hamilton, cultural producer, panelists multi-disciplinary artist Shani Peters of New York; visual contemporary artist Nathaniel Donnett of Houston; and creative laborer, educator, writer and radical community arts organizer Jen Delos Reyes of Chicago will present their individual practices and their observed impact of art and creativity on the community.

The event is open to all, with ticket prices at $10 for students, $25 for PRH members and $35 for all other guests. Attendees can register in advance at the PRH website. To learn more about the PRH symposium, please visit: http://bit.ly/prhsym18.  

Release (PDF)

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Pay phones have largely gone extinct, a relic of a time when we didn’t have the world glued to our hands 24 hours a day. An art project on Houston’s east end is bringing pay phones back on the block for a new educational purpose.

Project Row Houses‘ new “The TréPhonos” installation from art engineer Matt Fries, sculptor Julian Luna, and photographer and social sculpture artist Jeanette Degollado will see the placement of three pay phones along Emancipation Avenue, each with a special artistic twist. The goal of the project is to highlight the culture of Houston’s Third Ward.

One pay phone (“TréMixTape”) will play music recorded by local musicians from the neighborhood. A second phone (“TréSonic”) will feature ambient noise and sounds with an option for those that interact with the installation to leave messages for one another. The third phone (“TréPhonos Sankofa”) will be a collaborative project with area creatives and residents telling stories about the history of the neighborhood. All the phones will be solar-powered to boot.

The post Houston Chronicle: Why you’re going to see pay phones along Emancipation Avenue in Houston appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Psst. Have you heard? In a modern twist on an old telephone game, three magical pay phones with mysterious properties have popped up in Houston’s Third Ward.

The magic isn’t that they’re free, though that part is cool. Walk up to one phone, press the handset to ear, push a button and voila: the unmistakable sound of a Third Ward rapper. Dubbed El Mix-Tape, this phone not only functions as a jukebox — with recordings by Brandon Willis, Jewetta Boney, T Lee, Blessed Child 100, Global Gospel’s Stacey, Jalen Baker, Roderick Felder and J Free — but also allows the user to make a recording.

“The innards have been reprogrammed. Pop in an SD card and change the recordings,” says Jeanette Degollado, one of the collaborators on this Project Row Houses public art installation. “One through nine is a different track or recording. The pound is record, the zero is playback. One can record their voice, rap music or speak over field recordings. The star is the colophon that thanks the sponsors and partners.”

The post Houston Press: Have You Heard? Something Magical is Happening in the Third Ward This Fall appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Project Row Houses

Twenty-five years ago, seven African American artists bought a block and a half of rundown shotgun houses in the Third Ward, restored them, and turned them into a work of living art called Project Row Houses. Today some serve as artist studios or exhibition spaces, while others are home to single mothers; the nonprofit has expanded, getting into social work while offering free art classes and a host of other programs. The original block of homes, now considered a “social sculpture,” is featured in a permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. This month PRH will take a group of Third Ward children to D.C. to see it. “Your neighborhood may not have all the resources of a River Oaks or a West U, but your neighborhood is important,” executive director Eureka Gilkey likes to tell them. “And here it is in this national museum not even a block from the White House.”

The post Houstonia: 22 Nonprofits Worthy of Your Time, Money, or Both appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Summer Studios Opening & Community Market 

Summer Studios 2018 Opening & Community Market
August 11, 2018 | 4 – 7 pm
Project Row Houses
2521 Holman Street 

Booth Fees
Non-profit | Free
Artist or Non-Food Vendor | $40
Food Vendor | $50

In conjunction with our Summer Studios opening, PRH and Free Market Square will host a community market. FMS, held the 3rd Saturday of each month, adds to the vibrancy and empowerment of Third Ward by bringing local vendors, performers and children’s activities to the neighborhood. The vision of Free Market Square is to reignite the legacy of Emancipation Avenue’s thriving Black business district through a free and family-friendly event curated in a space that encourages community, economic development, and growth.

Free Market Square

Free Market Square
every 3rd Saturday
10am-6pm
2301 Elgin Street 77004

Vendor Fees
*Limited time discount
Booth |  $35  
Food Truck | $65

Free Market Square is a community marketplace in the heart of Third Ward that highlights its culture, entrepreneurship and artistic performance throughout the year.  Free Market Square aims to reignite the historic legacy of our community and add to the strength, vibrancy, and self-determination of the Historic Third Ward.  Our market is free and family-friendly hosting local vendors, arts interactive for children and adults, and live performances by established and up-and-coming performers in music and dance. This market is focused on the sale of local farmers produce, food/drinks, designer products, original goods that are handmade, customized, fair-trade, and vintage resellers.

The post Vendor Opportunity: August Markets appeared first on Project Row Houses.

WHEN BRIAN ELLISON MOVED FROM TULSA TO HOUSTON EIGHT YEARS AGO, he was in search of a community that felt like home—until he got to the Third Ward. That’s where he found a welcoming community where strangers wave at each other, neighbors know one another, and business owners in establishments like NuWaters Co-Op and Crumbville remember their customers. All of this reminded Ellison of what he had back in Oklahoma, and he said he wanted to show the beauty he experienced in the neighborhood. So, he directed A Day in the Tr3.

His seven-minute film follows a young man named Dominique Elam through the gentrifying Third Ward while capturing scenes of everyday beauty like elders playing dominoes on the porch, a woman dancing in church, and the ubiquitous rubble that piled up after Harvey. He shot the film as part of his artist residency program at Project Row Houses, the storied Third Ward organization that’s used its smattering of row homes as a neighborhood center for museum-quality galleries, affordable housing, a small-business incubator, and more for 25 years.

The post Houstonia: Project Row Houses Trains Its Lens on the Third Ward appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Artist installations, interactive historic tours and cooking lessons engage Third Ward community

HOUSTON – July 11, 2018 – Project Row Houses continues supporting local artists through the Strategic Art Plan with current summer initiatives. Funded by Houston Endowment, the Strategic Art Plan works to collaborate with organizations based in the Third Ward and individuals active in the community to present public art engagement opportunities for the public.

“Our summer initiatives through the Strategic Art Plan highlight the voices and perspectives of those in the Third Ward community. As our home, it is important Project Row Houses cultivates independent change agents in the community through engagement, art and direct action.” said Eureka Gilkey, executive director of Project Row Houses.

Project Row Houses occupies a significant footprint in Houston’s Historic Third Ward. Launched in advance of Juneteenth 2017, the Strategic Art Plan works directly with other Third Ward organizations to support the well-being and wealth building of residents in the community. The arts offerings are an essential component of the nationally recognized community ecosystem which exists in Houston’s Third Ward. Project Row Houses has proven that encouraging art is an essential component of a sustainable, healthy neighborhood.

“The current Strategic Art Plan initiatives showcase the history of the Third Ward, while uplifting residents and providing an opportunity for neighbors to participate in activities which address the needs of their community,” said Ryan Dennis, curator and programs director of Project Row Houses. “We will continue to water our roots in the Third Ward as we add new programming and shine light on those in our neighborhood.”

Current Strategic Art Plan projects and initiatives include:

Yoga with Letty
Artist: Leticia Contreras
Dates: July 7, 21; August 18, 25
Location: 3409 Emancipation Ave.
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Yoga with Letty is a series of free yoga classes led by artist and creative practitioner Leticia Contreras. The light-hearted beginner lessons introduces the community to vinyasa flow, a style of yoga which involves synchronizing breath with a continuous flow of poses. Through this, participants learn how to quiet the mind and bring ease to the body during these tumultuous times while connecting with others.

Free Market Square
Organizer: Cedric Douglas
Dates: Every 3rd Saturday
Location: 2301 Elgin St.
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Free Market Square is a community marketplace in the heart of Third Ward that highlights its culture, entrepreneurship and artistic performance throughout the year. The market aims to reignite the historic legacy of our community and add to the strength, vibrancy and self-determination of the Historic Third Ward.  

Dear Mama
Artist: Ashura Bayyan
Dates: June 8 – August 12
Location: Martin Luther King Community Center, 2270 Sampson Street
Time: Noon – 6:00 p.m.

Following the 2nd annual Mothers’ Day art festival on June 5, the Dear Mama exhibition opened to the public on June 8 at Project Row Houses, Community Gallery. A combination of photography, painting and performance, all works are in dedication to mothers everywhere.

Third Ward Fresh
Organizers: Nathan Keibler and Marilyn Maples
Dates: June 9, 16; July 14, 21; August 11, 18
Location and time varies

Third Ward Fresh aims to address the lack of access to fresh produce in the Third Ward through a series of cooking lessons and community plotting/painting sessions in partnership with “One Seed, One Block.” Activities will be held at Free Market Square and other locations in Northern Third Ward.

Emancipation Avenue Bus Stop Tours
Artist: Naomi Mitchell Carrier
Dates: July 14, 21, 28; August 4, 11, 18, 25
Location: Eldorado Building, 2310 Elgin St.
Time: 4:00 and 6:00 p.m.

The Bus Stop Tours share a complete history of African-American Texans through storytelling at six stops along Emancipation Avenue. At each incremental period in history, each stop shares stories from significant events through reenactment. To register, please visit https://bit.ly/2N1MWXW.  

Beautiful, Still
Artist: Colby Deal
Location: Eldorado Building, 2310 Elgin St.
Time: 24 hours

Unveiled on June 19, the photographic project captures and creates a rendition of the Third Ward community and its landscape. The image will be on view at the Eldorado Building and smaller vignettes will be placed around the Third Ward for public interaction.

All Strategic Art Plan initiatives are free to the general public. For more information on current and upcoming programs, please visit https://projectrowhouses.org/strategic-art-plan/.

# # #

Contact: Jennie Roberts, Elmore Public Relations, 713-524-0661, jennie@elmorepr.com

PDF Version

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We are excited to share that due in part to a generous donation made by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and visual artist Solange Knowles, Project Row Houses has met its fundraising goal to send 12 Third Ward students to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. We are very grateful to Solange for her generosity as this gift will help support what will be a transformative experience for our Third Ward youth.

The post Solange Supports Sending Students to DC appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Made Possible In Part by Donation from Solange Knowles, Project Row Houses Meets Fundraising Goal to Send 12 Third Ward Youth to Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

HOUSTON, TX, JULY 2, 2018 – Today, Project Row Houses (PRH) announced that due to a special donation made by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and visual artist Solange Knowles, the organization has met its fundraising goal and will be sponsoring a group of 12 high school students from Houston’s Third Ward to travel to Washington, D.C. Led by PRH, the group will take part in a special tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

Project Row Houses, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people and enriching communities through engagement, art and direct action, is special to Solange who is a native to Houston, TX and grew up performing at the organization’s block parties. By partnering on this latest initiative, 12 minority youth from the organization’s affordable housing residence and the surrounding community will get the opportunity to travel and immerse themselves in African American history. 

“We are honored to have our work and the work of Floyd Newsum commemorated at this historic institution and are very grateful to Solange for her generous support of what will be a transformative experience for our Third Ward youth,” said Project Row Houses Executive Director Eureka Gilkey. “Seeing their community represented at this level will provide the students with a more profound understanding of themselves, their history, and their culture.” 

While touring the NMAAHC, the youth will view a permanent display on Project Row Houses as well as work by PRH founding artist Floyd Newsum, who is featured both in exhibition and in the museum’s art collection. The students will also have the opportunity to meet with staff for special discussions on the development of the museum and its important role in our nation’s history. Newly opened in 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum dedicated to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture.

Apart from the museum, the youth will enjoy sight-seeing and visiting other iconic sites, including the 11th Street Bridge Project and the National Portrait Gallery. 

Now in its 25th year, PRH was a thought experiment conceived by an extraordinary group of artists who have been active in the Houston community, especially the Third Ward, for decades. The trip to Washington, D.C. is a part of PRH’s year-long celebration for this milestone anniversary. 

###

About Solange

Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and visual artist Solange Knowles has used her platform to advocate for representation while providing constructive and empowering political messages. With her album, A Seat at the Table, Solange has invoked themes of identity, empowerment, grief and healing. Her performance art shows at the Guggenheim Museum, the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, coupled with her art installation at London’s Tate Modern museum and recent interdisciplinary video and dance performance piece, Metatronia, which premiered at the Hammer Museum, have culminated into a career defying convention.

In 2016, Solange’s album A Seat at The Table debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. The record’s success led to her performing at the White House for President Obama and her Orion’s Rise performance series that included sold out shows at legendary venues such as Radio City Music Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Sydney Opera House.

Solange has been honored with Glamour’s Woman of the Year Award, Billboard’s Impact Award, and named Harvard University’s 2018 Artist of the Year for her work in music and art. She was also honored by The New School as a pioneering figure in fashion at the 70th Annual Parsons Benefit.

ABOUT PROJECT ROW HOUSES (PRH)

PRH is a community platform that enriches lives through art with an emphasis on cultural identity and its impact on the urban landscape. It engages neighbors, artists, and enterprises in collective creative action to help materialize sustainable opportunities in marginalized communities.

PRH occupies a significant footprint in Houston’s Historic Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American neighborhoods. The site encompasses five city blocks and houses 39 structures that serve as home base to a variety of community enriching initiatives, art programs, and neighborhood development activities. PRH programs touch the lives of under resourced neighbors, young single mothers with the ambition of a better life for themselves and their children, small enterprises with the drive to take their businesses to the next level, and artists interested in using their talents to understand and enrich the lives of others. Although PRH’s African-American roots are planted deeply in Third Ward, the work of PRH extends far beyond the borders of a neighborhood in transition. The PRH model for art and social engagement applies not only to Houston, but also to diverse communities around the world.

Project Row Houses Media Contacts:
Jennie Roberts, jennie@elmorepr.com

Nataly Torres, nataly@elmorepr.com

Elmore Public Relations, 713.524.0661

Solange Media Contacts:
Sunshine Sachs
Tiffany Shipp / Janna Pea / Maggie Faircloth
skpress@sunshinesachs.com
212.691.2800

Solange US Label Media Contact:
Sarah Mary Cunningham / Columbia Records
sarahmary.cunningham@sonymusic.com
212-833-7178

The post Made Possible In Part by Donation from Solange Knowles, Project Row Houses Meets Fundraising Goal to Send 12 Third Ward Youth to Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture  appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Screenings
Personal Problems
(Directed by Bill Gunn, USA, 1980, 165 min. with intermission)
*Introduced by Dr. Alvia J. Wardlaw, MFAH Honorary Trustee and Director of the University Art Museum at Texas Southern University
Friday, July 13, at 7 p.m.
A true discovery, this ensemble piece explores black middle-class lives with candor and emotional intensity. The groundbreaking two-part series, originally made for television, stars Walter Cotton, Vertamae Grosvenor, Jim Wright, and Sam Waymon, with music by Carman Moore, and cinematography by Robert Polidori. Released theatrically for the first time in 2018, the film was called “a rediscovered milestone in independent black cinema” by Bomb Magazine.

Crooklyn
(Directed by Spike Lee, USA, 1994, 115 min.)
*Introduced by Ryan N. Dennis, Curator and Programs Director of Project Row Houses
Saturday, July 14, at 7 p.m.
Spike Lee’s funny seventh feature, inspired by his own upbringing, is about a teacher (Alfre Woodard), her stubborn jazz musician husband (Delroy Lindo), and their five children living in a close-knit Brooklyn neighborhood. Life’s inevitable challenges are lifted up by an exceptional soundtrack by Terence Blanchard, with songs from Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, the Stylistics, Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, and the Jackson 5.

Short Films
The weekend closes with a selection of new and classic short films followed by a discussion with filmmakers Brian Ellison and Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr. moderated by Amarie Gipson, Mellon Curatorial Fellow and Eszter Simor, Curatorial Fellow.
Sunday, July 15, at 5 p.m.

black enuf*
(Directed by Carrie Hawks, USA, 2017, 23 min.)
Creatively weaving together family stories, interviews, and a variety of illustrative styles, this animated autobiography explores the filmmaker’s identity as a queer person of color.

Born With It
*Presented by filmmaker Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr.
(Directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr., USA, 2015, 15 min., in English and Japanese with English subtitles)
A half-Japanese, half-black boy intends to prove to his new Japanese classmates that dark skin is not a disease.

A Day in the Tr3
*Presented by filmmaker Brian Ellison
(Directed by Brian Ellison, USA, 2017, 7 min.)
This film follows a young man through his Third Ward neighborhood which is rapidly changing due to gentrification. Even in the midst of the changes, he experiences the day to day beauty that hides in plain sight and embraces all that his community continues to offer.

Location
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Caroline Wiess Law Building / Brown Auditorium Theater
1001 Bissonnet Street

Admission
Admission is $10 for the general public and $8 for MFAH members, PRH members, students with ID, and senior adults. Visit www.mfah.org/films to purchase advance tickets.
Film Buffs is the Museum’s membership group for movie lovers. Visit www.mfah.org/filmbuffs or call 713.639.7861 for more information.

Funding The MFAH film department is supported by Tenaris; the Vaughn Foundation; Franci Neely; Nina and Michael Zilkha; American Turkish Association-Houston; Lynn S. Wyatt; James V. Derrick; ILEX Foundation; and L’Alliance Française de Houston.

Media Contact
Sarah Hobson, publicist
713.800.5345 / shobson@mfah.org

PDF Version

The post Family, Community, and Shorts: A Project Row Houses / MFAH Collaboration appeared first on Project Row Houses.

CALENDAR RELEASE

Project Row Houses Journeys to Washington, D.C. for Special Tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Part of the PRH 25th Anniversary Celebration, tour takes attendees to the nation’s capital for four days of special discussions, sight-seeing 

WHAT:
Project Row Houses (PRH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people and enriching communities through engagement, art and direct action, will be leading a special tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. from August 2–5, 2018.

The museum’s collection includes a permanent display on Project Row Houses as well as work by founding artist Floyd Newsum. While at the museum, attendees will meet with staff for special discussions on the development of the museum and its important role in the national conversation. Newly opened in 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum dedicated to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture.

While visiting the nation’s capital, attendees will enjoy sight-seeing and visit other iconic sites, including the 11th Street Bridge Project and the National Portrait Gallery.

Now in its 25th year, PRH was a thought experiment conceived by an extraordinary group of artists who have been active in the Houston community, especially the Third Ward, for decades. The trip to Washington, D.C. is a part of PRH’s year-long celebration for this milestone anniversary.

To learn more about the remainder of the special events and activities planned, please visit: https://projectrowhouses.org/press-releases/project-row-houses-celebrates-its-25th-anniversary

WHERE:              
Washington D.C.

WHEN:                
Thursday, August 2 – Sunday, August 5, 2018

TICKETS:              
$1,500. Registration includes airfare, meals, and hotel accommodations.  

To register, please visit: https://bit.ly/2IYJNdM

###

ABOUT PROJECT ROW HOUSES (PRH)

PRH is a community platform that enriches lives through art with an emphasis on cultural identity and its impact on the urban landscape. It engages neighbors, artists, and enterprises in collective creative action to help materialize sustainable opportunities in marginalized communities.

PRH occupies a significant footprint in Houston’s Historic Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American neighborhoods. The site encompasses five city blocks and houses 39 structures that serve as home base to a variety of community enriching initiatives, art programs, and neighborhood development activities. PRH programs touch the lives of under resourced neighbors, young single mothers with the ambition of a better life for themselves and their children, small enterprises with the drive to take their businesses to the next level, and artists interested in using their talents to understand and enrich the lives of others. Although PRH’s African-American roots are planted deeply in Third Ward, the work of PRH extends far beyond the borders of a neighborhood in transition. The PRH model for art and social engagement applies not only to Houston, but also to diverse communities around the world.

The post Project Row Houses Journeys to Washington, D.C. for Special Tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Project Row Houses in Houston is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and part of that year-round celebration includes PRH’s trip to Washington D.C. in August to host a tour of the nation’s capital and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened two years ago. PRH is inviting to public to sign up for an all-inclusive tour package.

The post Glasstire: Plan a Trip! Project Row Houses to Lead Smithsonian Tour in D.C. This Summer appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Free Market Square
every 3rd Saturday
10am-6pm
2301 Elgin Street 77004

Free Market Square is a community marketplace in the heart of Third Ward that highlights its culture, entrepreneurship and artistic performance throughout the year.  Free Market Square aims to reignite the historic legacy of our community and add to the strength, vibrancy, and self-determination of the Historic Third Ward.  Our market is free and family-friendly hosting local vendors, arts interactive for children and adults, and live performances by established and up-and-coming performers in music and dance. This market is focused on the sale of local farmers produce, food/drinks, designer products, original goods that are handmade, customized, fair-trade, and vintage resellers.

Vendor Fees

Limited time discount

Booth |  $35  
Food Truck | $65
Booth July & August | $50
Food Truck July & August | $100

*Registration closes the Friday before the market at 5pm. 

Vendor Guidelines

Please check-in with the VENDOR COORDINATOR, prior to setting up to receive booth space assignment.

1. Set-up time: 8:00 to 9:45 am. Vendors should be set-up and ready to sell by 10:00 am.

2. Payment must be received to guarantee a space. Vendors who have not pre-paid can check on space availability on the day of the Market.

3. Booth space is approximately 10’ x 10’. Tents must be no bigger than 10’x10’ Pop-up Tent.

4. Vendors must provide ALL that you need to vend. (change, pop-up tent, tables, chairs, lighting, displays, office supplies, flyers, etc.)

5. Tables, chairs, and other equipment must fit within the 10′ x 10′ booth space.

6. Electricity is not available.

7. Breakdown completion time: 5 pm

8. FMS is not responsible for merchandise or other belongings left behind.

9. Food vendors are required to get and provide a Temporary Food Permit and follow City of Houston Health Dept regulations see
   ‎www.houstontx.gov/health/Food/Temp_Permit_Package_06272011.pdf

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PRH Visits DC + Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture! 

August 2-5, 2018

Ticket | $1500

Journey with PRH to Washington, D.C. for a special tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, which houses a permanent display on Project Row Houses as well as work by founding artist Floyd Newsum. The group will meet with museum staff for special discussions on the development of the museum and its important role in our nation’s history.

We will also visit other iconic sites in the capital, including the 11th Street Bridge Project and the National Portrait Gallery. Please join us as we celebrate PRH’s 25th Anniversary and our unique footprint in America’s cultural landscape! Registration includes airfare, meals, and hotel. 

Sponsor a Student + send them to DC!

Update: We have reached our goal! THANK YOU to everyone who donated! 

PRH is dedicated to igniting important dialogues for groups and individuals. We help people see themselves and others differently, evidencing new ways to bring people together. 

We are raising $10,000 to take 10 lucky high school students from our community to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Your support lets them see themselves, their history, and their culture represented in this historic institution. Please consider donating today!

The post Culture, History, and PRH in Washington, DC appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Houston’s Project Row Houses (PRH) is offering bus tours of public art created by the founding artists of PRH. The tour will also feature discussions with artists Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith.

The post Glasstire: PRH to Lead Public Art Tours appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Project Row Houses (PRH), 2521 Holman St., is hosting a series of Founders Bus Tours on Saturdays through June 23 as part of its year-long 25th anniversary celebration. The tour, led by Ryan N. Dennis, Curator and Programs Director, and Jeanette Degollado, Public Art Coordinator, will take participants on a journey to view works that build upon the backdrop of iconic sites across Houston. Stops include the University of Houston-Downtown,the Station Museum of Contemporary Art.

The post Village News: Project Row Houses Hosting Founders Bus Tours appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Meet Bert Samples at the DeLuxe Theater on Our Next Bus Tour

Saturday, June 16 | Noon – 3 pm
Depart from PRH | 2521 Holman
$30 Guests | $20 Members

Thank you so much to everyone who joined our last bus tour and participated in the discussion with Alex Tu of the Station Museum. There are only TWO bus tours left, so be sure to purchase your tickets now!

Our tour this week features a talk with Bert Samples at the DeLuxe Theater in Houston’s Fifth Ward. The theater is home to Samples’ monumental mural Malcolm Marco Malcolm Marco.

Samples will be in conversation with a representative from the theater and speaking on his practice of dreamscaping.
Samples refers to his practice this way because he believes in cultivating a garden rich in elements proven to be substantive symbols for cognitive ideas to grow on. After the viewer’s perception of his work has been altered, Samples manifests commonalities or touchstones through capillary forces to illuminate a universal truth. These truths become sanctuaries the audience can explore in safe harbor.

We’ve organized these tours to celebrate our 25th Anniversary! Join us as we celebrate the art of our founders, who have proven time and again that art can be a catalyst for empowerment and change.

Next week is our LAST bus tour! If you haven’t been able to join us yet this month, don’t miss your final opportunity to tour the city with PRH!!

June 23 | Floyd Newsum discusses his paintings at UH Downtown

The post Meet Bert Samples at the DeLuxe Theater! appeared first on Project Row Houses.

The post Founders Bus Tours appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Our Next Bus Tour Highlights Founder George Smith at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art

Saturday, June 9 | Noon – 3 pm
Depart from PRH | 2521 Holman
$30 Guests | $20 Members  

Our first tour was fantastic! Thank you to everyone who joined us and had kind words to share! Learning from Jesse Lott was an incredible experience, and we’re so excited for next tour highlighting George Smith. Join PRH Curator Ryan Dennis as we explore public works by the founding artists of Project Row Houses!

As mentioned, this week’s tour highlights founder George Smith, a wonderful painter and sculptor who has works installed across the city of Houston. Smith’s sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Studio Museum of Harlem. This tour will feature an extended stop at the Station Museum, where participants will be in discussion with curator Alex Tu as he shares his experiences with Smith and his work. 

These tours were organized as part of our 25th Anniversary celebration! We would love for you to be part of this beautiful moment in our history by joining us on Saturday. Purchase your tickets today! 

Can’t make it this weekend? There are two tours left on June 16, and 23!  The tours will feature the same stops, but each weekend highlights a different founding artist. 

June 16 | Bert Samples talks on his mural at DeLuxe Theater
June 23 | Floyd Newsum discusses his paintings at UH Downtown 

The post See Hidden Gems of Houston on Our Next Bus Tour! appeared first on Project Row Houses.

For 25 years, Project Row Houses has made it a mission to make art that is not only beautiful, but empowering, and presenting it as both vital to the community and something that brings a greater quality of life to a space. The artists of Project Row Houses have worked to ensure that the culture and history of the organization’s Third Ward home remain a guiding force as the community continues to change.

To celebrate, Project Row Houses is offering a month of Saturday bus tours to showcase some of the works that define the organization’s history and mission, with stops throughout the city.

“It’s so exciting,” says Ryan Dennis, Project Row Houses’ curator and programs director. “We’re doing a three-hour tour, and we’ll stop eat each art site for about 10 minutes and talk about what makes it unique, and why it matters to Houston.”

The post CultureMap: New tour offers a wheel good look at Houston’s iconic public art appeared first on Project Row Houses.

In the heart of the Third Ward, and deep set into a community, is a set of row houses acting as a creative circulatory system for its neighbors and the city of Houston. The style of houses originated in West Africa and eventually found its way to the US following the slave trade. The row houses are still seen today in local regions such as New Orleans and Houston. Clustered close together, and often times in disrepair, they’re often found in regions of poverty and segregation. But where most people saw buildings in disrepair, a group of visionary African-American artists saw the potential of them as a place of positive, creative and transformative experiences.

The post Free Press Houston: Project Row Houses Celebrates 25 Years With Public Art-Filled Summer appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Free Market Square
every 3rd Saturday
10am-6pm
2301 Elgin Street 77004

Free Market Square is a community marketplace in the heart of Third Ward that highlights its culture, entrepreneurship and artistic performance throughout the year. Free Market Square aims to reignite the historic legacy of our community and add to the strength, vibrancy, and self-determination of the Historic Third Ward. Our market is free and family-friendly hosting local vendors, arts interactive for children and adults, and live performances by established and up-and-coming performers in music and dance. This market is focused on the sale of local farmers produce, food/drinks, designer products, original goods that are handmade, customized, fair-trade, and vintage resellers.

Vendor Fees

Limited time discount

Booth | $35
Food Truck | $65
Booth June, July, August | $75
Food Truck June, July, August | $150

*Registration closes the Friday before the market at 5pm.

Vendor Guidelines

Please check-in with the VENDOR COORDINATOR, prior to setting up to receive booth space assignment.

1. Set-up time: 8:00 to 9:45 am. Vendors should be set-up and ready to sell by 10:00 am.

2. Payment must be received to guarantee a space. Vendors who have not pre-paid can check on space availability on the day of the Market.

3. Booth space is approximately 10’ x 10’. Tents must be no bigger than 10’x10’ Pop-up Tent.

4. Vendors must provide ALL that you need to vend. (change, pop-up tent, tables, chairs, lighting, displays, office supplies, flyers, etc.)

5. Tables, chairs, and other equipment must fit within the 10′ x 10′ booth space.

6. Electricity is not available.

7. Breakdown completion time: 5 pm

8. FMS is not responsible for merchandise or other belongings left behind.

9. Food vendors are required to get and provide a Temporary Food Permit and follow City of Houston Health Dept regulations see
   ‎www.houstontx.gov/health/Food/Temp_Permit_Package_06272011.pdf

The post Vendor Opportunity: June 16 | Free Market Square appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Project Row Houses Hosting Founders Bus Tours on Saturdays, June 2 – 23

Part of the PRH 25th Anniversary Celebration, bus tour offers an inside look at several public art works created by PRH founders

Project Row Houses (PRH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people and enriching communities through engagement, art and direct action, is hosting a series of Founders Bus Tours on Saturdays, June 2 – 23 as part of its year-long 25th anniversary celebration.

The tour, led by Ryan N. Dennis, Curator and Programs Director, and Jeanette Degollado, Public Art Coordinator, will take participants on a journey to view works that build upon the backdrop of iconic sites across Houston. Stops include the University of Houston-Downtown, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Hermann Park and more.

Joining the tour are some of the legendary founding artists themselves, including Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples and George Smith. Attendees will have the opportunity to explore and reflect on the founding artists’ rich artistic practices through a compelling discussion.

Now in its 25th year, PRH was a thought experiment conceived by an extraordinary group of artists who have been active in the Houston community, especially the Third Ward, for decades. The bus tours are a part of PRH’s year-long celebration for this milestone anniversary.

To learn more about the remainder of the special events and activities planned, please visit: https://projectrowhouses.org/press-releases/project-row-houses-celebrates-its- 25th-anniversary

WHERE:
Project Row Houses
2521 Holman St.
Houston, TX 77004

WHEN:
Saturdays, June 2, 9, 16 & 23, 2018
Arrive by 11:45 a.m.
Tour from 12 – 3 p.m.

TICKETS: Member tickets are $20 and guest tickets are $30. To purchase your tickets, please visit: https://projectrowhouses.org/news/founders-bus-tours-this-june

###

ABOUT PROJECT ROW HOUSES (PRH)

PRH is a community platform that enriches lives through art with an emphasis on cultural identity and its impact on the urban landscape. It engages neighbors, artists, and enterprises in collective creative action to help materialize sustainable opportunities in marginalized communities.

PRH occupies a significant footprint in Houston’s Historic Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African- American neighborhoods. The site encompasses five city blocks and houses 39 structures that serve as home base to a variety of community enriching initiatives, art programs, and neighborhood development activities. PRH programs touch the lives of under resourced neighbors, young single mothers with the ambition of a better life for themselves and their children, small enterprises with the drive to take their businesses to the next level, and artists interested in using their talents to understand and enrich the lives of others. Although PRH’s African-American roots are planted deeply in Third Ward, the work of PRH extends far beyond the borders of a neighborhood in transition. The PRH model for art and social engagement applies not only to Houston, but also to diverse communities around the world.

PDF

The post Project Row Houses Hosting Founders Bus Tours on Saturdays, June 2 – 23 appeared first on Project Row Houses.

To everybody else it was just a row of rundown shotgun houses at the corner of Holman and Dowling (now Emancipation) in the heart of Houston’s African American community. But for seven visionary artists, they saw real potential where others only saw poverty.

And the idea for what would become Project Row Houses was born from the dreams of Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, Bert Samples, Floyd Newsum, George Smith, James Bettison and Bert Long, Jr. Twenty-five years later PRH covers five city blocks in Houston’s historic Third Ward, houses 39 structures and has become a difference-maker for art and artists in Houston.

The post Houston Press: Project Row Houses Celebrates 25 Years With a Tour of Iconic Public Art appeared first on Project Row Houses.

When Joidan Felix went off to college in 2014, she had a plan: She wanted to become an accountant. A knack for numbers had helped Felix ace her accounting classes in the business magnet program at Houston’s Westside High School. That led to an internship in Halliburton’s tax department her senior year. “It just came naturally,” she said. “I think it’s what I’m meant to do.”

But she struggled to adjust when she moved to Wichita Falls, an almost six-hour drive from her home and family, to attend Midwestern State University. Felix was failing her accounting class, even with a tutor. A first-generation college student, she was also having a hard time getting her financial aid squared away. And in the winter of her sophomore year, she unexpectedly got pregnant. When she told the father, he abruptly cut off contact with her. Angry, scared and ashamed, she dropped out of school and took a job at a shoe store. She was homesick and lonely, and didn’t tell her family or friends about the baby until she was seven months pregnant. “Expectations were so high, it was so much pressure,” she said. “I just didn’t know how to come out and say, ‘Hey, I’m pregnant.’”

Felix moved back home with her mother in southwest Houston in July 2016 and gave birth to her son, Jair, that September. She couldn’t afford her own place, so for the next three years she stayed with her mom, taking the bus to her job at a call center. Her salary barely covered the cost of childcare. A few months ago, her mother announced she was moving to Katy, leaving Felix, who doesn’t have a car, without a way to get to work. Felix realized she needed help.

The post Texas Observer: The Sisterhood appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Project Row Houses celebrated its 25th Anniversary with Communi-Tea, an event highlighting its Young Mothers Residential Program (YMRP). The event commemorated the legacy of lives positively impacted by YMRP over the years. People came donning everything from hats and sandals to sundresses and kente while enjoying fun, fellowship and uplifting words from YMRP members and alumni. Attendees included PRH founder Rick Lowe and supporters of all levels, like Andrew Speckhard, Devaron and Tiffani Yates, Eureka Gilkey, Ryan Dennis, Munirah Olabisi, Marc Newsome, Stephanie Jackson, Zeinab Bakhiet, Josie Pickens, Breonna Goode and many more.

The post Defender: Project Row Houses CommuniTea appeared first on Project Row Houses.

1. Support the Project Row Houses – Founded in 1993, this inspiring community-based arts and culture organization transformed a group of shotgun houses into art studios. Today, the organization continues to showcase some truly incredible local artworks while preserving, revitalizing, and empowering one of the oldest African American neighborhoods in the city. The space is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5pm. Tours of the Project Row Houses site are available with docents every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday at 1pm and 3pm. Click here for directions.

The post 365 Houston: 5 Must Do Things in the Third Ward appeared first on Project Row Houses.

Free Market Square
every 3rd Saturday
10am-6pm
2301 Elgin Street 77004

Free Market Square is a community marketplace in the heart of Third Ward that highlights its culture, entrepreneurship and artistic performance throughout the year.  Free Market Square aims to reignite the historic legacy of our community and add to the strength, vibrancy, and self-determination of the Historic Third Ward.  Our market is free and family-friendly hosting local vendors, arts interactive for children and adults, and live performances by established and up-and-coming performers in music and dance. This market is focused on the sale of local farmers produce, food/drinks, designer products, original goods that are handmade, customized, fair-trade, and vintage resellers.

Vendor Fees

Limited time discount

Booth |  $35  
Food Truck | $65
Booth May, June, July, August | $100
Food Truck May, June, July, August | $200

*Registration closes the Friday before the market at 5pm. 

Vendor Guidelines

Please check-in with the VENDOR COORDINATOR, prior to setting up to receive booth space assignment.

1. Set-up time: 8:00 to 9:45 am. Vendors should be set-up and ready to sell by 10:00 am.

2. Payment must be received to guarantee a space. Vendors who have not pre-paid can check on space availability on the day of the Market.

3. Booth space is approximately 10’ x 10’. Tents must be no bigger than 10’x10’ Pop-up Tent.

4. Vendors must provide ALL that you need to vend. (change, pop-up tent, tables, chairs, lighting, displays, office supplies, flyers, etc.)

5. Tables, chairs, and other equipment must fit within the 10′ x 10′ booth space.

6. Electricity is not available.

7. Breakdown completion time: 7 pm

8. FMS is not responsible for merchandise or other belongings left behind.

9. Food vendors are required to get and provide a Temporary Food Permit and follow City of Houston Health Dept regulations see
   ‎www.houstontx.gov/health/Food/Temp_Permit_Package_06272011.pdf

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The Billboard Campaign

In Partnership with HCP for FotoFest Houston 2018

Viewing Period
March 10 – April 22, 2018

Opening + Conversation
March 10, 11-1pm

For Freedoms is an artist-run initiative, founded in 2015 by artists Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas to mobilize the arts infrastructure of the United States toward broader civic participation using the tools of political campaigns, activism, and advertising. The Billboard Campaign(2016– ) is an ongoing series of artist-produced billboard installations in public spaces and in art spaces. Co-opting the billboard format—a tool of political advertising—these works invite the viewer to engage critically both with the messages they present and with the medium of political advertising itself.

This billboard was produced in conjunction with the For Freedoms-organized town hall discussion The Artifice of Drawn Borders. It includes an image from a series of photographs by Eric Gottesman. This series, Jordan Is Not A Country, explores the manufactured phenomenon of nationalism in the Middle East. In a desert landscape stands a porous fence with holes, bent supports, and gaps, symbolic of the fragile veneer of nationalistic structures anywhere, and recalling concerns about immigration and citizenship here in the United States.

The words at the top of the image—“Where do we go from here?”—might evoke multiple associations: the words of the migrant confronting such divisive structures; the thoughts of many people today, who wonder about the current status of where we are as a nation; and Paul Gauguin’s inscription on his painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897–98), in the MFA’s collection.

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Neighborhood Fantasies: Evan Coleman + Jesse Lott

Curated by Kathleen Coleman in conjunction with Fotofest 2018

PRH Community Gallery
2521 Holman Street

Viewing Period
March 10 – April 22, 2018

Opening
March 10, 4-6pm

Neighborhood Fantasies integrates the spirit of an emerging art photographer Evan Coleman with the work of PRH founding artist Jesse Lott. Join us March 10 from 4-6pm as we open this exhibition, presented in conjunction with Fotofest 2018.

The Houston urban landscape is an eclectic image of symbolic eras in time. The photographer Evan Coleman has captured the images of homes, office buildings, flora, fauna, roads, and houses; front yards where a person rides in a car or walks down a major street and a back road, familiar depictions portrayed in photo montages such as: a trailer, hamburger joints, resale businesses or party events are included. There are familiar images in the collages–a water hose, a variety of mangos, giant watermelons floating across the sky to create everyday dreams as we ride along. Let us not forget the porcelain cats resting in the window of a house, in a day dream; a central, focal image throughout the exhibition. The fantasy photo of a windowsill of cats is inviting Jesse Lott, who inserted a dog to peer at them through the window.

Jesse Lott has made blind cuts, and separated them by color, thus creating the opportunity to assemble a puzzle which has never been solved. This concept in brief can be thought of as documentation of the reality reconstructed as a fantasy supplemented with the original subject matter. Recontextualization places the images into a new perspective, meaning changes within the point of view of the artist applied, which inspires the public to visualize and imagine the symbols or the object commonly viewed in our daily lives. In the collages, a bounce house is cut up and fruit from a stand is placed to add color with common objects to form depth and structure such as concrete.

The countless forms of architecture from one neighborhood to another incorporate Houston’s diversity at its finest, in addition to revealing gentrification from one street to another. Repetitive objects are common features in the artwork in Neighborhood Fantasies therefore a perception is a sense of belonging in the heart of the city through art and collective experiences. The concept is evolving to produce involvement within the community to enlighten themselves within their own area. The artist team will continue to conceive fantasy from random reality.

Neighborhood Fantasies is curated by Kathleen Coleman. Thank you to our sponsors Melanie Lawson, John Guess, A Rocket Moving and Storage, Womack Development, and Mayberry Homes. 

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