Gingersnap

Up close view of Susan's Boyfriend Loves Her Afro It's quite an over dramatic notion- the way women obsess about beauty- whether it's makeup, body image, and age. It has gotten to the point of shallow ridiculousness due to media ploy. Yet hair roots are another story entirely nowadays, especially African Americans fighting a raging battle between staying naturally beautiful or getting the sleek, kink stripping perm. Keep in mind, men never have to obsess with image as much as women do. They're allowed to keep their hair in any way, in any style while women resort to spending tons on weaves, relaxers, perms, and extensions to appear "attractive" and in turn, cruelly punishing natural sisters for not following suit. Based on true accounts of a turbulent upbringing (was given the ugly nickname "Carpet" in school), the tragedy of African American women despising free style wearers and going as far as publicly criticizing and embarrassing them...

With April being National Poetry Month, Parish picked a convenient time to come to The Neon Movies. An astounding, vibrant piece of finely weaved storytelling and thoughtfully spoken artistry, this independent film centers on Brooklyn high school teen, Alike (pronounced ah-lik-e) an exceptionally good student and aspiring poet from a hard working middle class family. In her underground world, the shy girl hangs out with bold, outspoken, Laura, who has already proudly come out and lives with her sister. Alike, however, is much too afraid of such honesty and chooses to entrap herself with dual identities- switching from hood gear to chic fashion, she is trying to do right by parents, Arthur and Audrey, but it's her little sister, Sharonda that begins suspecting the truth first. Filled with hilarity, wit, and compassion, viewers follow Alike’s course of adolescence as she tries unsuccessfully talking to women, tests out her first strap on with Laurie’s aide, writes poetr...

The Yellow Trolley Chronicles Set in fictional Montgomery, Ohio, The Good Girl is about shy artist, dreamer, library aide, devout church goer, and avid bus rider, Josephine Huffman, a young, African American woman destined to go places. With low self esteem, a horrible upbringing, and addictive thirst for living vicariously in romance novels, her world takes a downward spin just as she’s on the brink of discovering her true worth and enjoying a sweet, blossoming companionship with Mick, a trolley bus driver who sees something special in her. The Bad Seed has Josephine taking art to places she always dreamed of. Finally attending art school in a new city and learning refreshing aspects about her beloved subject, she finds herself torn and isolated from peers and faculty while struggling to find creative identity. With studies not being difficult enough, commitment to an abusive, tumultuous relationship has her tasting darker sides of life, but a fiercely determined heart...

Pretty glad that I spent a breezy afternoon to see the last showing of Mona Achache's "The Hedgehog" at the Neon Movies. A most delightful viewing treasure! Two seemingly different female protagonists center this French indie feature- Paloma, an intelligent, very gifted eleven-year-old planning suicide before her next birthday and there's Renée Michel, the fifty-year-old apartment super who when not cleaning up the mess of her aristocratic tenants devours chocolates and reads an illustrious world of classical books alongside a lazy fat cat. Feeling like the richly shallow life is as boring as a water filled goldfish bowl, Paloma's chaos includes an annoyed father who sweeps a secret cigarette habit under the rug, a neurotic mother who cries so often its pathetic, and a wickedly snobbish sister, Columbe while Ms. Michel enjoys solitary pleasure. Both women are seeking refuge- Paloma makes it her business to hide anywhere in the apartment, filming every bit ...

It was such an honor to be cordially invited to attend the 19th Annual Reaching For Ethnic Awareness and Cultural Heritage Across Dayton (REACH) Conference at Sinclair Community College on Friday February 24, 2012 and to see friends- Willis "Bing" Davis, Betty Bolton, Leesa Haapapuro, James Pate, Kevin Harris, and others in one room while simultaneously meeting new people! A collaboration between Sinclair Community College, Ebonia Gallery, and the Dayton Visual Arts Center (DVAC), REACH is a day long event promoting "learning in the arts and humanities by creating an atmosphere that will build respect, knowledge, appreciation, and understanding for the area's culturally diverse populations." From 8AM to 4PM, this post entails eight hours of rich, implanted seeds that'll likely bear fruit to share..... Beautiful display right? After a lovely continental breakfast to fuel the body, REACH's proceedings got started by co-coordinators Tess ...

The second part of the ongoing REACH artist series at Sinclair Community College, James Pate's "Attack" charcoal drawing series is an exploration of the tempestuous beauty, alluring grace, and ferocious power in the African American female body. Opposing oppression and weakness, she is bold, brazen, and bare, her nude, voluptuous body a towering strength in every kinetically activated composition. A stunning companion to Linda Stein's "Fluidity of Gender: Sculpture" exhibit, Pate's sensuously captivating world of sleek, crisp lines and elegantly etched value structures showcase a woman clad not in clothing, but the fiery cloak of awareness in every fiber of her skin, telling the viewer that she needs no hero, no rescuer of the detrimental reality and terrifying peril. On the verge of being attacked and pursued by targeting minute airplanes, she pays the metaphorically crafted danger no mind, averting her gaze away, seeming disinterested, nonchalant, or ...