Dr. Sharon A. Simeon
Sharon A. Simeon is from Chicago, Illinois. She moved to Flint with her three daughters after many years of searching for and finding her birth mother who lives in Flint. Sharon has an Associates in General Studies from Mott Community College; Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan-Flint; Master in the Art of Teaching from Marygrove College; Master of Arts in Teaching from Saginaw Valley State University; and a Doctor of Education from Wayne State University. Sharon is a retired general and special education teacher, and Teacher Consultant from Flint Community Schools and Powers Catholic High School. Sharon has been a student at the Flint Institute of Arts Museum + Art School (FIA) since the 1990's. Sharon and her husband consider the FIA their second home because they love taking art classes at the school and attending the many events. Sharon is a Trustee of the museum and serves on several committees. ARTIST STATEMENT FOR FUSED GLASS PLATTER AND FUSED BLOWN GLASS PITCHER I have always been drawn to the beauty and versatility of glass. Glass can be manipulated to take many forms when heated to varying degrees. My goal for these pieces was for the glass to take on the characteristics of cloth, namely Kente Cloth, which originated in Ghana. Kente cloth and glass have the shared properties of many colors. I am of mixed ethnicity. Part of my DNA is from several of the countries from West Africa, one being Ghana. Since the residency program was sponsored by Michigan State University - African American Studies Department, I thought it appropriate to explore this technique to give homage to my ancestors. I had originally planned on only making the platter, however, my teacher, Mike Mentz, from the FIA Glass Department, suggested I also make a blown glass vessel. I took his advice. The process of making both pieces was very labor intensive. Mike and his team of glass blowers brought the water pitcher to life after I had created the fused glass with the Kente Cloth design. The name U-koko-koo 1S from the Akan Language meaning Precious Child. Several of the SOLHOT 60+ ladies who witnessed the piece being blown stated it was like witnessing the birth of a child, hence the name. ARTIST STATEMENT FOR HAND BUILT COIL CERAMIC BOWL This ceramic coil bowl is intentionally decorated with old mixed African Trade Beads and Cowry Shells. The bowl showcases the beauty of the beads and shells along with recalling the horrific history these types of beads and shells played in the Slave Trade. ARTIST STATEMENT FOR OIL PAINTING ON WOODEN PANEL The majestic and regal look of my oldest daughter in the feather headdress captivated me when she first sent me the photograph. This is my attempt to recreate the photograph in flesh and sepia tones verses the vibrant colors in the original photograph.
Rhonda Willingham
My first love of art was drawing. However today, my artwork has evolved into mixed media. My art is a mixture of colors and textures often celebrating the beauty of Black women. My work creates a gumbo for the soul. A tasty blend of Sass and Soul. It excites and ignites!
Valorie J. Horton
Valorie J. Horton discovered her love for art at an early age. “I cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn’t creating some form of art,” she recalls. As a child, she sketched constantly, and by the later years of elementary school, she had begun designing and sewing her own clothing. In 1995, Valorie began working with clay—a medium that resonated deeply with her. “I believe that this is where I’m supposed to be for now,” she says. She continues to find both challenge and purpose in her ceramic work. While honing her craft, Valorie also nurtures the next generation of artists, teaching youth through The Chosen Few Arts Council. She has had two solo exhibitions at the Flint Institute of Arts, in January 2015 and January 2017. Her work has also been featured at the Greater Flint Arts Council and the National Conference of Artists in Detroit, Michigan. Valorie remains deeply active in the Flint community, serving on numerous boards and committees, always combining her passion for the arts with her commitment to service.
Yvette Robinson
Yvette Robinson, MFA, MA, BFA is a visionary, retired seasoned educator and public policy analyst. She finds regular opportunities to share personal experiences, good and bad, when an occasion warrants positive encouragement. She is inspired to create art from impactful current event happenings in and around the world, and she often uses everyday familiar items to compliment and embellish her subject matter. Yvette says, “I do not limit myself, because life does not limit me.” She enjoys creating art in media zones like acrylic paint, plaster, woodworking, textiles, loom weaving, fused glass, stained glass, photography, resin, colored pencil drawings and more. She is self-taught in harmonica, ukulele, drums, keyboards, bongos and tambourine, to name a few; she can sang ya’ll!
Ernestine Bains
I am an artist, a self-taught artist who dabbles in all manner of original one of a kind textile creations. Yes, all types of textile creations, including, cloth doll making, knitting of all sorts, quilt making, crocheting, and machine sewn traditional African and American clothing. I have been creating my masterpieces for more than 55 years. I first learned to sew from my mother, and I grasped knitting by reading books and knitting with nut pickers rather than knitting needles. Through the years I developed a keen eye for creative designs as I perfected my skills, by doing. I enjoy passing the knowledge I have gained to a new generation. My granddaughter is the key to continuing my legacy and spreading my gift! Art is the way I see things. I spent summers with my uncle who was a master carpenter and a teacher at Tennessee State University. He encouraged artistic expression and when I would come home, my parents did the same. By 19 I would be turning the store they owned into my studio and working on my paintings there. My first works were apart of a collection of pieces, I titled Obsessive Moon Design. I got sick with cancer at 14, and spent a lot of time inside. So when I could go out, I’d look up, and everything was moving. The trees, the clouds, the sky… all moving. It fascinated me. Intrigued me. Called to me. Nature. Animals, are where I focus my work currently. They intrigue me. I see the spirit in them and enjoying capturing it on the canvas.
Verna Shook-Dunn
Verna Shook-Dunn is a lifelong Flint resident and local artist. She was educated through Flint Public schools, Flint Institute of arts, Mott Community College, and the University of Michigan. She has been creating and sharing her works of art for over 40 years throughout the city. She is a member of Greater Flint Arts Council, Flint Institute of Arts, and formally ANUL(artist network for urban liberation). Her life was forever changed, on her 8th birthday by a paint by numbers set, her parents gave her. “The colors in the kit were limited, but by blending and mixing the colors, painting outside the margins and enlarging the composition, I was breaking the rules!” Her art then became a form of escape a few years later when she was diagnosed with cancer at a young age. She used her art to channel her pain and reform it to strength and healing. Heretofore, her life’s dream has been to become an unlimited, and unlawful artist. She hopes to break the hypothetical box and rebuild a scope of her own fantasy that is shown in reality. Artist Statement: Art is the way I see things. I spent summers with my uncle who was a master carpenter and a teacher at Tennessee State University. He encouraged artistic expression and when I would come home, my parents did the same. By 19 I would be turning the store they owned into my studio and working on my paintings there. My first works were apart of a collection of pieces, I titled Obsessive Moon Design. I got sick with cancer at 14, and spent a lot of time inside. So when I could go out, I’d look up, and everything was moving. The trees, the clouds, the sky… all moving. It fascinated me. Intrigued me. Called to me. Nature. Animals, are where I focus my work currently. They intrigue me. I see the spirit in them and enjoying capturing it on the canvas.
Marcia Yvonne Watkins
Marcia Yvonne Watkins is a visual artist and an art educator who lives in Flint Michigan. Her artistic abilities were recognized at an young age in Hamilton Ohio. Preparation for her life as an artist and an art instructor includes a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Fine Art in Ceramics from Michigan State University. Marcia’s art teaching career began in Flint, Michigan when she accepted her first teaching assignment at Beecher High School in 1977. Her college teaching experience began at Michigan State University when she was awarded a half-time graduate assistantship. Her professional college teaching continued when she accepted the King, Chavez, Parks Visiting Professor position at the University of Michigan-Flint in 1990. The Visiting Professor position was extended to a full-time position as an Assistant Professor of Art. A few years later, Marcia Watkins was promoted with tenure to Associate Professor of Art at UM-Flint. She taught a wide range of art courses which included Ceramics, Sculpture, Mixed Media, Collage, Life Drawing as well as a survey course in African and African American Art History. She was instrumental in helping create a new art department at UM-Flint. A notable career highlight took place In 1999 when Marcia was the recipient of the UM-Flint Student Government Council Distinguished Professor Award. Regional Galleries, Private Collections, Michigan State University, UM-Flint, Buckham Fine Art Gallery, Greater Flint Arts Council, The Flint Institute of Art, Hurley Hospital, Grace Emanuel Baptist Church and the Ruth Mott Foundation have exhibited, commissioned, supported or own her artwork. The most notable artwork to date for me is the 15’ x 25’ Low relief sculpture on the façade of Grace Emmanuel Baptist Church in Flint Michigan. The title of this sculpture is “Worship and Praise.”
Judy Bowman
Judy Bowman is a mixed-media collage artist who was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Her art practice centers on exalting America’s Black culture that move beyond institutional racism and disparaged perspectives of the Black experience. Considering herself a visual griot, she pays tribute to personal memories from of her coming-of-age in Detroit’s Eastside and Black Bottom neighborhoods. Bowman’s work appears in the permanent Institutional Collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Historical Museum, Mack Alive, Detroit, MI, the R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, LA, the Flint Institute of Arts, the Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC. She held her first solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit 2022. She is a 2021 Kresge Fellow for visual Arts and a 2022 Alain Locke Recognition Awardee.
Gwendolyn Taylor
Gwendolyn M. Taylor, Ph.D., MSW is a “retired”, seasoned education policy and organization development analyst, and mental health practitioner. Her continuing practice centers creativity as a core component of healthy aging, well-being and learning across the lifespan. Dr. Taylor is the Executive Director and Program Design & Innovation, Community Engagement Consultant for SOLHOT 60+. SOLHOT 60+ (Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths) is a collaborative imitative of Michigan State University (East Lansing MI), Department of African American & African Studies and community partners, including the Flint Institute of Arts (FIA) Museum + Art School, Flint, MI. SOLHOT 60+ places on a continuum and advances complex, layered issues of aging, creativity/artmaking for women of African descent, age 60 and beyond. Gwen is a dedicated and passionate advocate for removing barriers, creating opportunity and developing viable pathways for supporting Black women creatives.
Jacqueline Childress-Watkins
In 2021, the University of Michigan Hospital sparked Jacqueline’s childhood heart’s passion for creativity again, by aiding her healing from breast cancer-via Art Therapy. Jacqueline’s health challenges are behind her, however, her wellness journey continues, by educating herself through classes at the Flint Institute of Art School. And having the honor of being a part of the creative synergy and love from her tribe of, Saving Our Lives Having Our Truth (SOLHOT 60 +) Sista’s. Currently, Jacqueline is experimenting with mixed media and collage, by incorporating her drawings, paintings, personal photos, handmade paper, dyed cloths; along with found images and used materials into her pieces.
Dedria Humphries Barker
Dedria Humphries Barker is an emerging artist working in collage, and colored pencil on paper. She created the series, Blue People (2020), Blue People Africa (2024) and Blue People Sippin’ (2025). Her work has been supported by the City of East Lansing (Michigan) Arts Council, and published by Lansing City Pulse newspaper. She has shown at her work at the East Lansing Public Library, and the Flint Institute of Art School Gallery. Her artist residencies include SOLHOT 60+ Flint Institute of Arts; Can Serratt International Artist Residency, Barcelona, Spain; and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A native of Detroit, she graduated from Wayne State University twice and was professor of English at Lansing Community College. Her literary work includes authorship of Mother of Orphans: The True and Curious Story of Irish Alice, a Colored Man’s Widow (New York: 2Leaf Press, 2020).
