Art with a Heart
Hampshire. While there, she and her mom, Claire, and another Kimball Jenkins artist created a traveling anti-bullying art exhibit entitled “Do You Know Who I Am?” Featured in various libraries, the exhibit allowed kids to tell their stories and share their unique identities through presentations. Amaranthia also shared a personal essay with teachers at her public middle school to raise awareness of bullying and discrimination among the student body. In part as a result of that bullying, Amaranthia was forced to leave school and take the rest of her classes online. Later, she was diagnosed with C-PTSD, racial trauma, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. During this time, she, Claire, and the other artist working with them transformed “Do You Know Who I Am?” into “I’m Proud of Who I Am,” showcased art pieces Amaranthia created, and sold them to raise cash for kids going through crises. “I’m Proud of Who I Am” held its last show in summer 2016. Unfortunately, due to concerns from some school administrators, her project was censored a bit. She wished she could have said more about her experience as a Black girl living in a white community. A LEGACY OF STRUGGLE AND INSPIRATION Claire Gittens-Jones’ art and writing have also been informed by personal and cultural legacies of trauma. She grew up in Barbados, where she and her mother and younger brother endured domestic violence. “I promised myself that I would go to college and become a well-known writer to help my mother find her freedom. But I dropped out of high school at 15 because of the violence and thought everything was lost, including my dream,” she says. However, she made her way off the island, took classes, earned a GED, and got a scholarship to Mount Holyoke College as a Frances Perkins Scholar. Named for the first female U.S. Secretary of Labor, the program is designed to help older women whose educations were interrupted go back to college. “My mission to help women like my mother and myself reawakened there. I began my journey to create Sista Creatives Rising by writing, producing, and directing a semi- autobiographical play based on my life story.” While at Mount Holyoke, Claire designed an individual major that involved a research trip to Senegal’s Goree Island, where enslaved people were shipped to the Americas.
Sista Creatives Rising, A Mother-Daughter Initiative Fostering Creativity and Equitability in the Art World
PHOTO CREDIT SISTA CREATIVES RISING WRITTEN BY CRISTINA DEPTULA
S ista Creatives Rising is a new organization empowering and creating space for women and gender- nonconforming artists of color, especially artists who are neurodiverse, chronically ill, or disabled. The founders, mother-daughter duo Claire and Amaranthia Gittens- Jones, bring a wealth of insight and experience to the table. Artist Amaranthia Gittens-Jones grew up participating in workshops at Kimball Jenkins, an art-focused community center in Concord, New
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