Sawubona: Health and Wellbeing

Cheryl Derricotte, Dewey Crumpler, Marvin K. White, MDiv
Panel : Sat. August 27, 2022, 2-4 PM Pacific Time
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (Screening room)

Our convening “Sawubona: Health and Wellbeing” will be a platform for Black San Francisco Bay creatives to connect and work together--professionally, politically, and socially.

We will bring Black creatives together virtually for conversation and workshops about thriving through healthy living, maintaining wellness, and establishing wellbeing in an anti-Black world. We see our convening as the first step toward building capacity, developing resources, and strengthening skills and abilities that will create the conditions for Black and Brown artists to thrive. Our panelists will talk about using healing practices, grounding practices, and meditation that give them the strength to thrive as Black artists.

We believe that positive healthy social relationships is at the core of our convening’s call--Sawubona--which is a Zulu greeting conveying the complex ideas “We see you and we can’t exist without you.” The convening will be a way for us to foster interdependence among Black creatives in a safe space where we can speak about our vulnerabilities and the risks that we encounter as “the only one” in predominantly white spaces and culture industry contexts. As we draw nearer to 2042--the year that BIPOC will become the majority in the US--we have experienced greater verbal, physical, and psychological attacks. Black people are exhausted by these racist threats and the way others want us to live. Our framework for the convening is “reevaluation counseling,” in which people who are listened to can start the journey toward healing and feeling safe where we live, work, or spend our leisure time.

“Sawubona” will take place at YBCA; we are exploring the prospect of having participation via Zoom as well. Participants will sign up on Eventbrite; the number of participants will be limited to 40 people. (If there are cancellations, names will be drawn from a wait list.) Recordings of the convening’s main presentations will be uploaded on the Three Point Nine Art Collective’s website.

Bay Area poet, activist, and thought leader Marvin K. White will facilitate the two-hour Saturday afternoon convening. The convening will consist of two (2) 25-minute presentations, each of which will be followed by fifteen minutes of Q&A and discussion. In between presentations, there will be a ten-minute bio break. During this two-hour block, we also want to build in participant activities (including networking).

Our confirmed presenters:

Cheryl Derricotte is an artist, arts administrator, and thought leader. Her professional development geared presentation will offer topics on how to craft narratives about one’s work in order to apply and get grants and residencies.
Dewey Crumpler is a San Francisco-born artist, educator, and thought leader. His presentation will address the subject of making a way in the art industry in the Bay Area and beyond.

Sawubona Participant Bios

Marvin K. White, MDiv, is currently the Full-Time Minister of Celebration at the historic Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, CA. He is a graduate of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA and the inaugural Public Theologian in Residence ('17-'18) at First Church Berkeley. Marvin is an ordained deacon at City of Refuge UCC. He was co-facilitator of the "Faith Leaders Round Table" at The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and was a recent recipient (’17-’18) of the YBCA Fellowship, “What Does Equity Look Like?”, a program that brought together creative citizens from across the Bay Area - artists and everyday people alike - to engage in a yearlong process of inquiry, dialogue, and project generation. He is the author of four collections of poetry published by RedBone Press He is the co-editor of If We Have to Take Tomorrow: HIV, Black Men & Same Sex Desire.

Cheryl Derricotte is a visual artist, and her favorite mediums are glass and paper. Originally from Washington, DC, she lives and makes art in San Francisco, CA. Her art has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Business Times. She was awarded the commission to develop a monument to Harriet Tubman at the new Gateway at Millbrae Station; it is believed to be the first sculptural tribute to the abolitionist in glass. In 2022, Cheryl was named Inaugural BIPOC Artist-in-Residence at the Corning Museum of Glass Studio. Additional honors include the Windgate Craft Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center and the Antenna/Paper Machine Residency New Orleans. Her work is in the permanent collections of the deYoung Museum, the Oakland Museum, and the National Association of Homebuilders.

Dewey Crumpler is an Associate Professor of painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. His current work examines issues of globalization/ cultural co-modification through the integration of digital imagery, video and traditional painting techniques. Dewey’s works are available in the permanent collections of the Bank of America Collection at Harvey B. Gantt Center, California African American Museum, Triton Museum of Art Los Angeles and the Oakland Museum Of California. Crumpler received the Flintridge Foundation Award, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, as well as The Fleishhacker Foundation Fellowship Eureka Award. Currently represented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery, he has had shown his work in the solo exhibitions Painting Is an Act of Spiritual Aggression at the Derek Ellery Gallery in NY (2022), Crossings at the Richmond (CA) Art Center (2022), and The Complete Hoodie Works, 1993 to the Present at Cushion Works Gallery in San Francisco (2021).

The Three Point Nine Art Collective is an association of African American artists, curators, and art writers who live in San Francisco. Formed in 2010, the Collective took its name from a report in The San Francisco Bay View, an African-American weekly newspaper that predicted that the city’s black population would decrease dramatically—to three point nine percent (3.9%) of the total population. While the number of Black San Franciscans has not fallen to this level, there is a black migration out of San Francisco, driven by wave after wave of gentrification, stubborn social inequities, and the under-resourcing of minority communities. The Collective has adopted the predicted population statistic as an act of resistance and a commitment to the ideals and narratives of a diverse San Francisco. The Collective creates and claims spaces to display its members’ artwork; nurtures emergent artists and develop educational programs for students; and writes about and curates exhibitions meant to generate productive dialogues. The Collective’s members are Ramekon O’Arwisters, S. Renée Jones, Ron Moultrie Saunders, and Jacqueline Francis.