Virtual | An Evening with Barbara Earl Thomas

6pm PT / 7pm MT / 8pm CT / 9pm ET

ArtTable’s Northwest Chapter invites members and guests to celebrate the holidays by spending a virtual evening with esteemed artist Barbara Earl Thomas. She will be joined in conversation by Nina Bozicnik, Curator at the Henry Art Gallery, discussing the current exhibition, Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas.

This special event promises to be a fun, informative, and intimate evening for ArtTable members and friends. Time will be set aside for questions from the audience. The evening will be peppered with chances to win exciting prizes through a raffle, and of course there will be a chance to connect with each other during some lively chat roulette.

Program:
– 6:00-6:10pm: Welcome + Thanks
– 6:10-6:40pm: Live conversation with Barbara Earl Thomas and Nina Bozicnik
– 6:40-6:50pm: Q&A
– 6:50-6:55pm: Introduction of new Chapter Leaders
– 6:55-7:05pm: Breakout rooms
– 7:05-7:15pm: Raffle

Raffle items include:

• A chance to make a reservation at TOMO Seattle for 2 + a bottle of wine.
  Reservations at this new restaurant sell out each month in minutes – but this item is the opportunity to make a reservation outside of their online reservation system for a date of your choice. Dinner will cost the winner $78/person, but TOMO will generously include special VIP gratis extras (bubbles, snacks, dessert). A bottle of wine (or non-alcoholic drinks) will be included with dinner (up to $75)
• Midnight Bloom glass stud earrings by Kait Rhoads ($115)
• A set of champagne coupes by Decicio Glass (created by Greg Clark) & a bottle of champagne.
• An Individual-level Membership to the Henry ($45)
• The forthcoming catalog from the Seattle Art Museum: Barbara Earl Thomas: The Geography of Innocence (donated by Lucia | Marquand)
• Young, Gifted & Black: A New Generation of Artists: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art (Art Catalog)
• Four Generations: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art (Art Catalog)

More raffle items to be announced!

Admission (includes one raffle ticket)

• ArtTable Members – $10
• Non-Members – $15

Additional raffle tickets:

• 1 ticket – $15
• 4 tickets – $60
• 8 tickets – $120

Not a member? Join today for reduced admission on most programs!

Can’t make the program at this time? Register anyway to receive a recording after!

Accessibility: Please note that this program will offer live closed captioning. If you require additional accommodations, please email programs@arttable.org.

About the speakers

Nina Bozicnik is Curator at the Henry Art Gallery, where she has organized exhibitions including most recently Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas (2021); Will Rawls: Everlasting Stranger (2021); Bambitchell: Bugs & Beasts Before the Law (2021), Carrie Yamaoka: recto/verso (2019), & Between Bodies (2018-19). She has also organized presentations & projects for the museum with artists including Demian DinéYazhi´ (2018), Chris E. Vargas & the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art (2016-17), & Michelle Handelman (2015), among others. Prior to the Henry, Bozicnik held curatorial positions at the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire; deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; and the Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, Massachusetts.

Barbara Earl Thomas earned her BA and MFA from the University of Washington. She has been the recipient of the Howard S. Wright Award, Stranger Genius Award, Mayor’s Arts Award, and Hauberg Fellowship. Thomas has completed residencies at the Pilchuck School of Glass, Stanwood; Museum of Glass, Tacoma; and Goathead Press, Tieton. She has held solo exhibitions at the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science; Seattle Art Museum; Bainbridge Island Art Museum; and Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham. Thomas has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Bellevue Arts Museum; Northwest African American Museum, Seattle; and Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art. Her work is included in the public collections of the Portland Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, and Tacoma Art Museum. She is represented by the Claire Oliver Gallery in New York.

About the exhibition

Packaged Black brings together the work of artists Derrick Adams (b. 1970, Baltimore, MD) and Barbara Earl Thomas (b. 1948, Seattle, WA) in a collaborative, multi-media installation developed from their shared dialogue about representation, Black identity, and practices of cultural resistance. This exhibition is a synthesis of a multi-year, intergenerational, and cross-country exchange between New York-based Adams and Seattle-based Thomas that began after the two artists exhibited work alongside each other in a group show at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2017. For this exhibition, Thomas draws upon the role of media and fairytales in shaping social expectations and her own conception of self. She is presenting all new work, including an immersive installation conceived as a ‘transformation room’ and a series of new cut-paper portraits of friends and colleagues that riff on the concept of the royal court.

Thank you to ArtTable’s Northwest Chapter Leaders Jessica Landau, Judith Rinehart, and Gina Broze for organizing this program.

Image: Barbara Earl Thomas. Installation view of Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas, 2021, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. Photo: Jueqian Fang, courtesy of the Henry Art Gallery