'Round the way girl': Baltimore-based artist opening new exhibit
By Lisa Robinson
BALTIMORE —
A Baltimore native is preparing for her brand new exhibit featuring decades of work.
Joyce Scott, 75, earned her Bachelor's Degree from Maryland Institute College of Art. Next week, her exhibit will open at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Titled "Walk a Mile in my Dreams," it will feature nearly 140 works from the 1970s to the present, ranging from sculptures and jewelry to textiles, including artwear garments, performance compilations, prints and mixed-media installations.
"At this moment in career of making and being and taking up so much of our imagination, we thought it was time to give her her retrospective. What you see here is the story of someone's life unfolding over chapters," BMA director Asma Naeem said. One piece featured is Scott's new large-scale commission called "Threads That Unite My Seat to Knowledge."
"There's a yurt in there, a building that has my beadwork and my mother's work. There's a sculpture and wall hangings. It's just jamboree," Scott said. She learned much of what she does from her mother, Elizabeth Talford Scott, who is also an artist. Her mother is also the subject of a solo exhibition at the museum.
"What did we do for women's history? We existed. We persevered. We understood that there's a role we could play. I didn't do it for fame, my mom didn't do it for fame, we did it because we knew if we could set an example, no matter how humble, someone else could say, 'I could do that,'" Scott said.
She calls herself a "'round the way girl" from Sandtown. That's what she hopes you see in her work. "I want them to be invigorated. I want them to be joyous. I want them to see the possibilities of life, and sometimes, art can do it," she said. The exhibit opens on March 24.