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 30th 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.
