The month of February is Black History Month, an annual celebration of the contributions and achievements of Black members of our communities. Celebrate this month’s heritage with us by learning more about the lives and work of Black designers, artists, performers and photographers in Houston.
Chris Kennedy
Chris was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, but has been living in Houston for the last 2 years. He is currently a UX Designer at GoFundMe, where he drives the visual design experience based upon user data, research, best practices and consumer needs for a given capability and persona. Outside of crafting experiences you can usually find him out and about with a camera in his hand, watching or listening to true crime documentaries and podcasts, trying to stay active, or talking about Star Wars.
What does being part of the BIPOC community mean to you?
To be black is to be connected to and have an awareness of a broader deep rooted community, culture and value system. It involves embracing those values and contributing to and enhancing the community and the culture.
How does your heritage impact your creative work?
It helps me communicate and bring another perspective. I think about diversity throughout all of my work and how I can make a user experience as inclusive as possible. This includes making sure that underrepresented users are considered from the beginning.
What are the proudest accomplishments of your career?
In my current role I’m on a team that sets the standards for all of the designs and interactions. I think it’s pretty cool knowing that other designers and also users are using pieces of things that I’ve researched.
How has your creative practice evolved over the past 12 months?
Most recently I have put a higher emphasis on accessibility and making sure that my work is inclusive. It’s a much needed additional challenge to tackle to set higher standards than what we currently have.
Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration from pretty much every product that I interact with. Whether that is a self checkout station at a store, an intro from a tv show, or the dish brush I use everyday. I’m constantly thinking about usability.
Phillip Pyle, II
Billy Mounchan (@billymou) is a digital content producer who specializes in creating and producing various forms of digital content for online platforms. Billy is mainly skilled in videography and photography using a variety of digital tools and software to create engaging and interactive content. Billy’s journey in producing content began in his backyard filming basketball videos with his friends inspired by Nike basketball commercials.Throughout Billy’s career, He has worked with a variety of clients, from professional athletes to brands and businesses. He enjoys collaborating with other creative minds to produce innovative and effective content that meets the needs of his clients and their audiences.
Phillip Pyle, II is the Graphic Designer and Retail Manager at CAMH. He is also a visual artist, photographer, and agitator based in Houston, Texas. Pyle’s primary interests are race, humor, advertising, sports, and popular culture.
What does being part of the BIPOC community mean to you?
There is immense satisfaction in knowing I represent a community of such dynamic individuals and creativity.
How does your heritage impact your creative work?
Each opportunity is an attempt at showing the ancestors how much I appreciate the tremendous effort they put in. “If you don’t value your history, it’s not worth doing.” – Anthony Bruno
What are the proudest accomplishments of your career?
Being selected as Artist in Residence by the City of Houston, the 2021 Texas Biennial, and designing for the CAMH.
How has your creative practice evolved over the past 12 months?
Patience has been the main lesson. Learning to let information really resonate before going full speed.
How have your personal and/or professional goals shifted over the past 12 months?
My goals have remained on course. I am a year away from completing my MFA in Photography/Digital Media at University of Houston and we will see what’s in store after that.
How does Houston’s diversity add value to the creative community and/or city as a whole?
Diversity is simply the influx of varied ideas and perspectives. Something that is very important.
What BIPOC artists, writers, or other creatives do you admire? And why?
Fred Wilson, Kenya Evans, Jabari Anderson, Jamal Cyrus, Robert Pruitt, Felandus Thames, Gregory Michael Carter, Cauleen Smith, Nathaniel Donnett, Ryan Dennis, Mitchell Reece, Jawwaad Taylor, Brian Ellison, Mich Stevenson, Anthony Suber, Tay Butler, Matt Manalo, Garrett Griffin, Mark Francis, Marc Furi, Bria Lauren, Ronald Jones, Jasmine Zelaya, Marcelese Cooper, April Frazier, Alexis Pye, Jamie Robertson, Elena Gross. This list could and should keep going but I admire all the creativity and passion each of these people have for their practice.
How can design or your creative field be more supportive and inclusive of underrepresented people, especially BIPOC creatives?
The best way is to seek out and hire people of color and most importantly pay them handsomely!
Where do you find inspiration?
In history and how incredibly awful and wonderful it can be.
What’s next on the horizon?
More work.
Headshot by Lawrence Elizabeth Knox courtesy of Weingarten Art Group and Houston Endowment
Marc Furi
Marc Newsome aka Marc Furi is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist currently drawing inspiration from his neighborhood – the Third Ward area of Houston, TX. His art is influenced by the emotional toll of the rapid socio economic changes due to the area’s gentrification. He has engaged in public art practices including the I Love 3rd Ward House at Project Row Houses, the Trephonos Audio Phone Project, and the city funded Mini Murals project. His current art installation ‘Third Ward Gentrified Edition’ is a 10 foot monopoly board satire at Station Museum of Contemporary Art. Much of his art uses the monopoly board satire because he feels the popular game is a life sized emotional translation of what it feels like to live in a gentrified area.
What does being part of the BIPOC community mean to you?
I feel that being a member of the melanated people born and raised in the United States has provided me a collectively unique circumstance of experiences and perspectives. Being members of the BIPOC community means we function within a system which historically and systemically was not created for us. This in turn creates the need for us to be collective in our approach for inclusion without diluting our needs within our individual cultures, ethnicities, and orientations.
How does your heritage impact your creative work?
My heritage can be grounded in my neighborhood of Third Ward. There is a strong Louisiana creole undercurrent which arises in it’s food offerings and church fundraising events. An example is St. Mary’s Catholic Church which offers the Gumbo Cook Offs each year. It brings people together for fellowship, zydeco music, and creole food. There is comradely and nostalgia. My alma mater, Texas Southern University is also a place of collective memories for me with fellowship at the annual homecomings and it’s University Museum. The area is intertwined within me. The sights, sounds, and the people all inspire my creative practice. The most recent inspiration has been the rapid socioeconomic changes to the neighborhood due to gentrification have altered much of the heritage of the area. So I feel the documentations of the Third Ward is important in an aesthetic way. So I feel it’s part of my mission to record videos, take photos, and creating public art when the opportunities arise.
What are the proudest accomplishments of your career?
The I Love 3rd Ward project is my proudest career accomplishment. It has allowed me to connect with the community on the biggest scale. I was (am) able to utilize all my creative skills be they filmmaking, graphic design, photography, storytelling, installation, augmented reality, etc. But the most gratifying aspect of it all was the many people who would walk up to me randomly and say ‘thank you’. That was the most fulfilling.
How has your creative practice evolved over the past 12 months?
Through being in the UH MFA program I have incorporated more experimental film and sound art in my art practice. I am currently focusing on using sound and moving pictures to encourage emotion from the engagers of my work in abstract ways. Individually a sound, a moving visual, and a song can be 3 different stories. But all combined can create a new emotional story.
How have your personal and/or professional goals shifted over the past 12 months?
Lately I’ve been more focused on the legal side of my art, specifically copyrighting and trademarking all my material before sharing to the public. I think it’s very important for artists to do so these days. It’s like, we love for folks to see our work but at the same time people can utilize our styles and financially benefit themselves with no acknowledgement to the original artist. That has happened to me a couple of times in recent years. I think artists should be prepared to understand contracts and how to formulate their own. We should also understand our worth in negotiating with galleries and art institutions if we choose to go that route with our careers. As I move forward with expanding the content I create I am definitely spending the expenses for preemptive legal preparation.
How does Houston’s diversity add value to the creative community and/or city as a whole?
Because I’m a naturally curious person, for me, Houston is a buffet of people’s stories from all over the world. I think it’s a great experience to go to different art shows by BIPOC artists of different ethnicities and see what inspires their work. And speaking of buffet, creativity also flows into the many aspects of inventive food fusion experiences via food trucks and dining locations. Music and performance art also benefits from Houston’s diverse creative community as the mixture of creative styles produces new and inventive works. All of this benefits Houston as a whole in that it creates a unique footprint different from any other major city.
What BIPOC artists, writers, or other creatives do you admire? And why?
I’m a big fan of the works of Trenton Doyle Hancock and his wife JooYoung Choi. Both are magnificent artists. I’m inspired by how they use youthful characters inspired by action figure toys, the style of Saturday Morning Cartoons and expand them into whole universes. They inspired my art installation work.
Photographer Earlie Hudnall is an old friend of mine who has great historic photos of Houston. I love his composition eye as well as his ability to capture organic moments with people. Another street photographer I’m a huge fan of is NY legend, Jamel Shabazz. His geometric group shots of people in New York from the 80s to the present are stellar.
Lately I have been inspired by the vintage propaganda and movie poster styles of Jan Tschichold, Armin Hofmann and Lester Beal from the earlier 20th century. I enjoy their use of bold, simple yet impactful composition, color, and unconventional font arrangement.
How can design or your creative field be more supportive and inclusive of underrepresented people, especially BIPOC creatives?
I feel that most of the BIPOC creatives I know need access and opportunity. The talent is there. I would generally say grants and funding would be the top need. In addition, guidance and encouragement are needed for those artists who aren’t familiar with how to benefit financially and support their art as a career. There are some great community offerings through Houston Arts Alliance, FreshArts and Project Row Houses. I personally encourage creatives unfamiliar with the tools and opportunities available to apply to these services. I’ve even walked artists through the process of grant applications and some actually won grants!
Where do you find inspiration?
Much of my inspiration comes from my neighborhood of Houston’s Third Ward area. The scenes, the local businesses I patronize, the old buildings still around, the history are all a part of me. Lately I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from grad school. The Master of Fine Arts Program at UH has been quite enlightening for me. I’ve been exposed to so much art I would never have considered before. I’m also inspired by my great collective of friends I’ve met through life with our conversations, hopes and dreams. The Black art scene is really booming in Houston and I definitely find inspiration in being a part of that community.
What’s next on the horizon?
I’m currently developing some furniture pieces with a focus on coffee table designs. I’ll also be continuing in the filmmaking world and hopefully produce my first narrative feature film within the next 2 years.
Michelle C. Ferrell
Michelle is a third generation Houstonian raised in the East End and Garden Villas communities. Currently, she is the senior in-house designer for a local credit union, focused on visual design and content strategy. She is also a community organizer, illustrator, and gardener.
What does being part of the BIPOC community mean to you?
It means to be a part of a vibrant community that endures and thrives despite the odds.
How does your heritage impact your creative work?
It influences my design direction, as I consider how to make my designs more inclusive from photography to color palettes. It is important to consider diversity and inclusion especially in the financial industry.
What are the proudest accomplishments of your career?
Being recognized for my community activism by the City of Houston, which was not at all expected in 2019. Currently, I’m proud of my efforts toward making my credit union’s in-house product designs more accessible and building out a comprehensive design system component by component.
How has your creative practice evolved over the past 12 months?
On the product design end, I’ve been learning new tools and methodologies to create more inclusive designs focusing on visual accessibility. As more people are online we should try our best to be aware and follow WCAG standards. A newer addition to my practice is making myself more aware of cognitive biases and how we all have them.
How have your personal and/or professional goals shifted over the past 12 months?
During my personal time, I have been shifting toward spending more time on illustrations and craft projects, such as painting and embroidery. On a more professional end, I have been doing research on design ethics via artificial intelligence and cognitive biases. I’m trying to find a balance between my split creative endeavors.
How does Houston’s diversity add value to the creative community and/or city as a whole?
It adds value by fostering opportunity which has grown into a thriving creative community here.
What BIPOC artists, writers, or other creatives do you admire? And why?
Regine M. Gilbert, Kevin G. Bethune, Yoshitaka Amano, Satoshi Kon, Itabari Njeri, Octavia E. Butler, Witi Ihimaera, Charles George Esperanza, Yesenia Moises, Eric Velasquez, Ann Lowe, Haruki Murakami, Dapper Dan, N.K. Jemisin… is a varied list of a few folks I admire, finding either inspiration, instruction, and/or community from those listed.
How can design or your creative field be more supportive and inclusive of underrepresented people, especially BIPOC creatives?
By not only hiring, but retaining creatives and paying them their fair due.
Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration from nature, new experiences, and being engaged in my environments. Going on walks, gardening, or having a riveting conversation are all occasions for inspiration.
What’s next on the horizon?
Becoming an expat. Lots of paperwork. Creatively… I have some ideas brewing.
