Joyce J. Scott: Messages

For over fifty-one years the artist has devoted her aesthetic practice to waking up the world, expanding beadwork’s boundaries, with powerful in-your-face social commentary. While addressing society’s ills, her visual and performance conversations on cultural stereotypes and racial injustices elucidate her vibrant, brilliant works of art.

The publication Messages features Joyce J. Scott’s dynamic images with scholarly essays from experts in their field as well as museum curators’ comments. Each individual provides deeper insights into the influences and extraordinary work of Joyce J. Scott, astutely capturing the essence and spirit of this icon of contemporary art.

Joyce J. Scott was born in Baltimore (US) in 1948. She studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, the Instituto Allende, San Miguel Allende in Guanajuato (MX), and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (US). Scott has garnered numerous accolades for her significant contributions to the realm of visual arts, including a McArthur Fellowship (2016) and three honorary doctorates.

Visualized mathematical tales sneaking into my creative force, sneaking is correct. Magic is defined as a divination. Do I always desire the bully pulpit of isms, taking breaks to luxuriate in beauty as respite? No, but it comes calling, because I am a citizen of the right now world, utilizing my best voice, this mojo. Head and Heart and Fingers, all conspire to present a question and possible answer thru pointillism, inherent hue, and texture. I know this is Hippy-Speak and I bandy tomes of the past. I am this contemporary Joyce, so blessed by decades of never wavering, of staying the course. Partly because I was starving for more, so hungry for another bite of innovation. Falling in ditches were lessons, not mistakes because they filled my plate.
/ Joyce J. Scott, Love’s Incantations, 2022