CRAFTING BLACKNESS

Of Birds, Snakes & Ancestors

Of Birds, Snakes & Ancestors: Black Art Healing

Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts Sandra Blaine Gallery
August 17 – November 13, 2026

Curators:

Aundra McCoy, Tennessee Master Textile Artist and Quilter, Orange Mound, Memphis

Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay, Director, Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University

For gallery information, visit: https://arrowmont.org/galleries/

This exhibition foregrounds the significance of Black creative practices in healing, well-being, and health. The materiality of ‘cure’ is embodied in various forms and avenues that Black craft artists have sought as tools to heal illness and support physical and mental well-being. Generational trauma, born out of systemic racism in the United States, has historically curtailed access to health care, education, and the promotion of well-being. Struggles to endure have precipitated alternative and innovative means to provide access to healing through creative means. Gardens and herbs were crucial resources in the evolution of folk cures, inherited from collective memories of distant lands and from practices brought violently from Africa via the Middle Passage. Inheritors of formerly enslaved peoples with no access to healthcare have gravitated to the spiritual and creative practices of care in addressing these issues, passed down from ancestors. Art and craft-making allow healing through the manifestation of reinvigorating energies and opening pathways to healing that has been otherwise obscured. The Tennessee artists featured in this exhibition have distinct backgrounds that employ craft in various iterations in the pursuit of well-being and healing.

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