When Najee Dorsey talks about Black Art in America, he talks not in the singular but in terms of “Us,” “We” and “Our.” “Our greatest strength is our flexibility, our agility,” the 45-year-old Arkansas native says of his critically, culturally and commercially booming business. “If we were a corporation, it would take too much time to cut through all the bureaucracy. If we’re more agile...
When he was approached with the request to write a poem about his hometown, Isiah Harper responded that he was an essayist, not a poet. No matter, as the Northside High School English and drama teacher put into eloquent prose a unified narrative to describe Columbus. The final piece in the city-wide mural project envisioned and paid for by the Together 2017 initiative, Harper’s poem “My River...
Written by Brad Barnes with The Dew Abides Najee Dorsey has enjoyed a successful career as a mixed media artist whose works are deeply rooted in African-American Southern culture. Recently, his art entered a new period, one that incorporates found materials into clay sculpture. Though Najee began sculpting in the early 1990s, assemblage became his focal point in December 2015, and he has...