Collection: Cole M James

The Ojai Institute, the artist centric initiative of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, is pleased to announce Cole M James in Residence: 3 Movements. This dynamic artist residency, exhibition, and community engagement project will exist in three parts and over multiple sites throughout the Ojai Valley. The exhibition opened in November, 2019 and has been extended through this online platform for continued engagement. We are now able to offer works for purchase which directly benefits the artist and our artist in residency efforts at the Ojai Institute. 

With 3 Movements, the artist is inviting the viewer on a personal diaspora journey, with moments of reflection, and a closing event that offers the viewer resources to pursue their own journey. The inherent generosity of this project explores being comfortable or mindfully uncomfortable in the unknowing of one’s cultural heritage. 3 Movements has been informed by the artist’s recent time spent this summer in Ghana, and an ongoing exploration of cross cultural ethnomedicinal knowledge especially as to how it relates to the female body.

In the artist’s own words:

There are truths to being African American, I will never know the language my ancestors or the traditions of their ancestors. This began my investigation into the unknown or rather an embrace of the unknowable and the ability to transcend the unknown into the imagined and the experiential. My intention is to embark on an imagined story of creation with a system of reactions centered on the sharing of hopefulness in experience as it coincides with memory.

Conceived in three parts, the first of which will be an installation of what the artist is calling Impossible Vessels featuring objects made in ceramic, glass, and paper. In the second part, the exhibition became augmented with both sound and scent sculptures as well as works from hands on art making student workshops, and a special artist led interactive culinary experience exploring connections between traditional African and American Soul Food recipes. The third and final part of the project featured a public conversation with the artist, joined by Sade Musa, herbalist (@RootsofResistance). The conversation explored the roles of ethnomedicinal systems and its manifestations within the creative process.

The work of Cole M James is that of a negotiator, navigating the African Diaspora, circling the expanse of queerness and fumbling through womanhood. James’ interdisciplinary work explores the intersections between digital production and the analog collections of lived experiences. James was born in Chicago and raised in Moreno Valley, California. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Cal State San Bernardino and Masters in Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University. James currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

We encourage you to also visit the artist's website: www.colejamesart.com

and follow @colemjames on instagram.