Today we’d like to introduce you to Duwenavue Johnson.
Hi Duwenavue, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
American BIPOC artist with ancestry from the north and south of the United States for the last 400 years. Equally divided race, religion, and culture while recognizing and coming to terms with manifest destiny, migratory freedoms, and misplacements while creating a better world while engaging with the pathways that brought us all here.
Always searching for how to be and grow with empathy, diversity, and community values through positive art practices. Known as an accomplished hand embroiderer and contemporary artist while not limiting myself to any medium. Influenced by world travels, drawing from colors, environmental patterns, and textures. Focused on incorporating many styles of painting and textile work from my formal education guidance and cultural influence. As a teacher and needle arts professional, time is spent focused on precision and the details found in the art of Heraldry.
From understanding symbolic founding values, design creation, stitching, and lecturing on the value of craftsmanship. Painting and printmaking are my natural expressions and how the world is reflected. My painting focuses on dialogue using watercolor, gouache mediums, and handmade stencils to allow for texture and color depth on silk fabric and paper. Focused on how to maintain an eco-component and practices that lead to slow art movements allowing for the stewardship of space.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Currently considering my state of being and where we as a culture are going while working through concepts viewed as a China cabinet falling to the ground. Things falling apart focuses on retrievable pieces of fragments sorted and collected. Every item that is picked up, touched, or moved has, contains seeded memory. Sorting through shards and fragments, deciding what to keep, and letting go. Shards and fragments are put back together to take on another life and character. Permeating strength, anger, and beauty.
I regularly see the modern world through this sort of lens while coming to terms that we are all living in a time of uncertainty and that finding ways to create balance in one’s life is paramount. Creation and balance for me come from an intense emotional state involving uncomfortable, non-cooperative responses to perceptions and resilience while searching for joy and beauty.
Contemplating the past and future has become a goal to try to understand. Feeling deep that the world and my struggle to be naturally entwined like a heartbeat, while finding ways to share, communicate and inspire others to follow what grows and brings confidence is paramount to creating a bright future for us all.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Awarded the prestigious job of presidential hand embroidery in 2015, I became a national treasure under a Betsy Ross Legacy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Traditional arts education diplomas, and mastery certificates in the fine art of needlework are acknowledged by various cultural institutions.
Apprenticeship training and contracted work for more than 12 years started with mural arts under a royal Thai mural project at Wat Tri Thotsathep under Chakrabhand Posayakrit Bangkok, Thailand, and progressed with hand embroidery at Ecole Lesage Paris, France. Educated in San Francisco, London, Paris, Bangkok, New Delhi, and Seoul. Government art projects in Malmo, Sweden, and Philadelphia, USA. Executive Board Secretary for San Francisco School of Needlework and Design (SFSNAD) with ongoing curatorial projects, lectures, and exhibitions.
Ongoing lectures, teaching, and exhibitions are currently being shown at the Philadelphia Masonic Temple, Library, and Museum. My art is shown in the US and internationally through the artist-run gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA), The Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA), In the BOK building at ARTXSTITCH Atelier, Philadelphia.
How do you define success?
Success starts with believing in yourself, following your intuition, and focusing your attention straight ahead until you reach your goal. once a goal is met you continue to set new goals that feed your soul and community, creating the ecosystem you want to live in and be part of.
There are no mistakes, just problems one hasn’t solved. Moving forward, having a heart is a tough journey but, in the end, it’s yours.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.artxstitch.com
- Instagram: @sante_artxstitch.art
- Facebook: @duwenavue
- Linkedin: duwenavue johnson
