Ashley Bryan / Paula Wilson: Take the World into Your Arms

Ashley Bryan (1923–2022) was a celebrated teacher, author, and artist who recited poetry and created drawings, paintings, meticulous woodcuts, stained-glass windows, and puppets salvaged from materials found on Little Cranberry Island, Maine. Throughout his long life, Bryan committed himself to filling the void of Black representation by creating children’s books about the African and African American experience. He traveled extensively, including many visits to Kenya and South Africa, where he supported educational and infrastructure projects. The child of Antiguan parents, Bryan grew up in the Bronx during the Depression and excelled at art from an early age. He was an art student at Cooper Union when he was drafted into the Army at the outset of World War II. After his military service, he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and studied philosophy at Columbia University on the GI Bill; later he returned to Europe and spent several years in France and Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship studying poetry and making art. Bryan subsequently became a professor of art at Dartmouth College and received numerous awards and honors, including several Coretta Scott King Awards and ten honorary degrees.

Paula Wilson (born 1975) is a mixed-media artist who enlists an extensive range of techniques to create hybrid works. Using sculpture, collage, painting, installation, and printmaking methods such as silkscreen, lithography, and woodblock, Wilson explores perceptions of light, form, and the body in space. Born in Chicago, Wilson received her BFA from Washington University in 1998 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2005. She has served as a visiting artist at several art schools and her growing exhibition opportunities include a two-person project with artist Nicola López at the Albuquerque Museum, this Colby Museum project, and the solo show, Paula Wilson: Toward the Sky’s Back Door, at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, opening July 15, 2023. In 2007 she moved from Brooklyn to Carrizozo, New Mexico, where she lives with her woodworking partner and collaborator, Mike Lagg. In 2015 Wilson and Lagg, along with Warren and Joan Malkerson, cofounded Carrizozo AIR, a residency program designed to provide space and time to a range of creative practitioners. In 2010 Wilson and Lagg also cofounded the arts organization MoMAZoZo, which hosts weekly art activities and children’s workshops.