For the months of September and October, 2009, The Baobab Cultural Center, 728 University Ave., Rochester, will display the works of members of Creative Hue. Creative Hue: A HUE Perspective opens Friday, September 4, from 6 to 9 PM, for a "First Friday" reception for the artists. To be displayed are two and three dimensional works, including paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, and mixed media work.

Creative Hue is the Rochester Chapter of the National Conference of Artists (NCA), which was established in 1959 and is proudly one of the oldest and most active organizations of African American Artists in the United States. Established in 1999, Creative Hue is committed to preserving and promoting African American culture through the arts. The Chapter sponsors workshops, exhibitions and activities for youth. Its members serve the Rochester community as consultants, jurors, curators, artists-in-residence, teachers of art, museum staff, gallery owners and participants in collaborative projects and commissioned works. Dr. Betty J. Henderson was the founding president of the Chapter. The current president is Terry Chaka.

Creative Hue believes art is for everyone, and that it is all around us. The benefits of the arts to our community need to be acknowledged. Involvement in the arts provides a healthy outlet for self expression, helps to build character, and allows us to celebrate ourselves and tell our own story.

Creative Hue is composed of visual artists from various disciplines. It includes artists of the northwestern New York region, extending from Syracuse in the east to Buffalo in the west and continues south. Membership is extended to art educators, art historians, students, museum and gallery personnel, as well as collectors and art enthusiasts that share the vision.

About the Artists:

Athesia Benjaminis a full-time instructor at Monroe Community College where she teaches a variety of art courses, including Painting, Figure Drawing, and Art History. She is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology where she earned her BFA, Masters in the Science of Teaching, and a Masters of Fine Arts degree.

Ms. Benjamin has received many important local commissions, from the Austin Steward Commemorative Paintings on permanent display in the Clarion Hotel, to the vivid and compelling portrait of Harriet Tubman, on permanent display in the office of attorney Van White.

Says Benjamin of her work: Undoubtedly, the common thread that runs through this work is self-portraiture. I’ve attempted to redefine my function as subject matter and painter simultaneously, and redefine the meaning of self-portraiture for myself and the viewer. In place of my likeness, I create characters behind which I can hide as I take on new identities. My presence in such paintings is analogous to "x" in a math equation, where "x" is the unknown, but could be many things.

Terry Chaka, a Rochester, N.Y. native, is a visual and performing artist and interior designer. She received her formal education in art education at the State University College at Buffalo. She has exhibited her works in Rochester, Buffalo, and Los Angeles. She became involved in theater performance and production in Buffalo community theater during the 1970s and established a strong arts program, including acting, dance, and visual art for a YMCA teens. In the early 1980s she managed a gift shop in Los Angeles for an interior designer.

Ms. Chaka taught parenting programs in the Rochester City School District for more than ten years. She saw a need for cultural awareness and self-esteem building for families and in 1986 co-founded Kitabu Kingdom, Rochester’s first African-American bookstore. The bookstore also sold art, provided custom framing services, and offered educational workshops for area school districts and other organizations.

As an interior designer, Ms. Chaka has designed residential and business interiors and participated in the 2008 Rochester Philharmonic (RPO) Designer Showcase. She is currently Executive Director, where she is also co-curator of the gallery, and serves as community liaison for cultural education at the Baobab Cultural Center. Chaka is the current president of Creative Hue.

Sherry Davis is a mother of two young adults and is recently retired as a 30-year employee at General Motors. Davis has been drawing since she was a young girl, and has recently developed a heavy interest in watercolor art. Since retirement, I have found plenty of time to dedicate to my artwork,” she says. “I have taken advantage of watercolor and drawing classes offered by Brighton High School. Taking these classes has helped me develop my painting techniques and meet people with my same interests.”

The first recognition Davis received as an artist was when she was featured in the Artist Spotlight column of the Democrat and Chronicle in 2006. As a student at Brighton High School, she was invited to show a few pieces of art at the Brighton Town Hall Arts Festival for two years in a row. The networking opportunities provided by these experiences led to her connecting with Creative Hue. This year, she also exhibited her work in Shawn Dunwoody’s Studio on Elton Street, and at The Baobab. Her goal is to one day have her own exhibit.

My inspiration for my art comes from photographs and from the beauty of nature that surrounds us daily. My children really are my biggest supporters and inspire me to paint from the heart, and to just “go for it”, even if I’m feeling uneasy.

A social activist, Valeria Cray-Dihaan believes that art can uplift people. A sculptor, artist and educator, she works in the mediums of ceramics, copper, aluminum, steel, iron, acetate, jute, textiles, Plexiglas and wood.

Says the artist: Working with triangles and rectangles gives me the ability to create tension. I look at my work as being rhythms and movements with lines growing within themselves as they speak out. Exploring a variety of shapes and sizes allows me to experience new challenges.

Cray-Dihaan is the only African American female modern artist with a sculpture in the permanent collection of Buffalo’s Albright Knox Art Gallery (Adam and Eve). Her experience in creating public art includes spearheading the tile painting for the tile mural quilt installation inside the Apollo Theatre on Jefferson Avenue in that city.

Plans for the construction of the Merriweather Library on Jefferson Avenue include the creating of a design for a building’s exterior doors. The artist was commissioned to design them incorporating African themes. She selected Ghanian Gye Name symbols for the front and rear doors, which were installed in 2006. In 1995, Cray-Dihaan organized a group of women, mainly customers and friends, and formed 50 Women With A Vision, a non-profit community group which sponsored an annual Jefferson Avenue Arts Festival, which for ten years celebrated visual and performing arts.

Cray-Dihaan’s formal art education includes degrees from Pratt Institute and the University at Buffalo. She has shown her work locally at various spaces and galleries. “My work represents the soul of me, as an artist,” she says.

Shawn Dunwoody has been painting murals for 11 years, and has received grants from the Arts & Cultural Council and the City of Rochester for his public works. His clients range from the University of Rochester, where the artist created a mural for the Alzheimer’s Lab, to private commissions, to Rochester City commissions of outdoor public works, in which he often involves youth. Dunwoody pulls his inspiration for his art from his life experiences and people -- personalities. He prefers when the planning process is a collaboration of community involvement. It’s important to him that the public works “speak to the neighborhood,” and that they reflect the concerns of the people, while promoting a sense of pride in the individuals in the area.

Richmond Futch, Jr. started painting as a young boy. As a student, an RCSD teacher recognized his untapped talent and entered him into a special art program, which provided one year of private study at the Rochester Museum of Art. He continued on to attend evening art classes at East High, and later at SUNY Geneseo. However, he remains mostly self-taught. Richmond is co-founder of Restoration Art Guild, a faith-based arts ministry. He has become known in the Christian world as a Worship Painter. As an ordained minister, Richmond flows in the prophetic through his work.

In 2006, A.R.T.S., Artistically Revealing The Spirit was started – a ministry that promotes the recovery of the imagination and creativity. This ministry allows you to practice and learn that art is a basic form of prophecy. Even though A.R.T.S. is a Christian-based ministry, it maintains the ability to bridge the church and the community at large to serve as a catalyst in the process of social and emotional well-being. Every first Tuesday of the month, the A.R.T.S. ministry offers a prophetic worship-painting workshop at A.R.T.S. Gallery at Aviv.

Richmond has conducted seminars on the effectiveness of healing through the arts. He has also been featured in several articles in the Democrat and Chronicle. His work is known throughout the U.S.

Says the Artist: Art from the heart and through the hands of an artist forges a channel between the internal and the external world, opening possibilities for movement towards richer, healthier and more satisfying living. God has an open door of opportunity and discovery; all we have to do is listen to what the spirit is saying. The door is open!

Frances Hare - Dancer/Fiber Artist: I am originally from Buffalo, New York, where I danced and taught for Kariamu and Company (1970‐1981). In 1981 I decided to make the leap to dance with Garth Fagan Dance, which at that time was called “The Bucket”. I took a class and gave Garth my resume. The company liked me and from there I continued developing and evolving my craft to unimagined levels. Participation in the company allowed me to travel to countries that I never expected to visit.

In 1987, after six years of dancing with Garth Fagan, I made the decision to leave the company to pursue my artistic endeavors as an art quilt designer. With my new self‐ confidence, I was able to participate in a travelling quilt show with The Women of Color Quilt Network. In two and a half years the show had taken my quilts to the New York American Craft Museum, Florida Hahn Museum, and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Although my career has begun heading in a new direction, I am never too far from dance. In 1990 I started teaching African Caribbean Dance in Colleen Hendricks’ Dance Studio, where the seed of the African Caribbean Dance Ensemble was planted. This is a group of non‐dancers who take on this class experience for exercise, spiritual enlightenment, stress release, or just plain fun. Their diverse experiences bring individual interpretation to each movement and allow me the flexibility to choreograph creatively for the group. Since then I have added to my repertoire Ballroom Dance, Latin Dance, Belly Dance and other folk dances. This has allowed me to become a more diverse independent sub‐contractor of dance for such organizations as RCSD Artist in Residence Program, Aesthetic Education Institute, Young Audiences of Rochester, Kuumba Consultants, and Tango Café Dance Studio.

Faruk Kaiyum earned an MFA in metalsmithing at Rochester Institute of Technology and a BA in general design from the State University College at Buffalo. He has over 33 years of experience as a jeweler. As owner, designer and operator of Kaiyum Gallery in Village Gate, he specializes in custom jewelry design and fabrication. Recently, Faruk was featured in an About Town magazine profile. Faruk Kaiyum has taught at the Memorial Art Gallery’s Creative Workshop since 2006. He is a patient instructor who believes in careful craftsmanship, safety first, and design that matches the person who made (or will wear) a piece of jewelry.

Dunstan Luke first realized he would be an artist as a child in Jamaica. His first paintings were done on brown paper bags in his own back yard studio. After moving to Rochester with his family, his passion for painting continued. His subject matter includes figurative landscapes, portraits, and scenes, done mainly in oil, and occasionally in pastel, charcoal, or acrylic. Luke is a self-taught artist who has studied human anatomy and biology to improve his rendering of his favorite subject – people. He is particularly interested in giving expression and personality to his subjects, paying close attention to their facial expressions to convey their emotions on the canvas.

Lorraine Mull teaches elementary school art in the Rochester City School District. She has been teaching for 10 years. She received her degree in Art Studio/Education form Nazareth College in Rochester, New York. Her media of choice are drawing and relief printing. She is the youngest of 14 children and attended Rochester City schools.

Says the artist: I enjoy art, music, and most forms of creative expression. Creativity is a person's unique way delivering what is inside. I believe art is universal and as ancient as time. Art is healing, spiritual and endless. We all feel something from art. We are moved and taken to a different place, or a different time and perspective through the arts. Art has no boundaries. No one is excluded from the enjoyment art can produced. It is for everyone to admire, to appreciate. We all can find art that we like and value and want to possess.

I truly believe that teaching is a noble profession. Having the opportunity to touch so many lives with knowledge and learning is magical to me. The transformation of a child as she/he learns and matures is remarkable. Having a positive influence on the next generation of artists, leaders and those who dare to believe that "yes they can" is captivating. Art is one way to nourish the soul of a child and aid in the search for self. I believe when an individual has a secure sense of self, the whole world can benefit from the gifts and creativity that individual has to offer. So I will teach on.

Cheryl and Don Olney live and work in Rochester. Their studio – Louise’s Daughter – is named for Cheryl’s mom, Louise – who would be very pleased!

The ex-social worker and ex-toymaker, both self-taught artists, married for over 23 years, combine their histories and observations as they create their warm, wonderful, spirited work. They find inspiration in family and friends, as well as their gratitude for each day. Their figurative work is respectful and sensitive. It touches the heart and soul, and is full of people that “we all know.”

Their whimsical “other stuff”, including card holders, earring holders, paintings, hearts, flowers, pins, and other things, also takes on the same energetic personalities.

The Olneys regard their relationship and their work as serendipitous, and proof that there is still good karma out there. The key is to recognize, accept, rejoice in, and contribute to that positive force.

We work to make art, peace, joy, amends, and to live like we mean it.