Eradicating the Status Quo with Multidisciplinary

Artist Ashley Jaye Williams

WORDS BY NICOLE SCHALLER

Walking Union Market District, artist Ashley Jaye Williams is bound to run into a familiar face.

At La Cosecha, Williams greets me ahead of the interview, then promptly makes her way to Grand Cata Latin American Wine Bar & Market to catch up with owner, co-founder and CEO Pedro Rodríguez about mutual friends and upcoming projects. Before departing, Rodríguez insists she take some marinated hibiscus. As we make our way outdoors to a shaded spot — taking advantage of the fleeting, non-humid warm days of D.C. spring — Williams spots installation artist and Pop Up Bae Creative Director Adriana Salame Aspiazu.

In both encounters, minutes apart, Williams is quick to introduce and try to engage me in the conversation, which is indicative of her start in the industry. When working as a busser at the Wardman Park Hotel, Williams cold-pitched artist and entrepreneur Maggie O’Neill, who offered her an assistant position at her studio.

Fast-forward eight years later, Williams is established in the local art scene as a freelancer with a diverse portfolio of multimedia work, including countless murals around the city, paintings, illustrations (like the cover of Ms. Magazine’s 50th anniversary edition), sculptures, installation art and printmaking for clothing line Model Mutiny with partner and fellow artist Anthony Le. She has shown at HOMME Gallery, Legacy Gallery and Umbrella art market, and recently started a joint art blog and newsletter Aqua Plums with Le.

Based on her beginnings, Williams now makes it a point to create bridges for people, not only fostering connections within the community but also offering advice to those seeking to one day join.

“I love when people ask me for advice,” Williams says. “I have some artists and pals that are younger who saw my Ms. Magazine cover and reached out. We’ve maintained correspondence [since 2021]. One just graduated and is looking at art schools. I told them to not spend all their money [for the prestige of a school] and to make connections while there.”

When not looking outward, Williams’ art focuses on questioning social norms not working for or not representative of most people. Her upcoming permanent mural at Selina Hotel allows Williams to lean fully into her art ethos.

“I’m really excited to work with Selina,” Williams says. “It’s such a great crew of women, which is cool because I can paint what I want. I don’t have to paint flowers or idealize cliches of women’s bodies and promote impossible beauty standards.”

Williams points out standard mural themes portray women and femme people as the same visually pleasing stereotype. Once noted, it’s hard to unsee how frequently painted modelesque women are draped on walls throughout the District.

“The male gaze is the status quo. I don’t think all women are just one archetype. The subjects on the Selina mural don’t exist to serve the viewer.”

Instead, the mural features two vignettes, including a anthropomorphic dragon fruit staring into a teeth-adorned mirror, hiding a chunk of missing fruit on its back. There is also a self-portrait of Williams with her head covered by a lampshade — a nod to women being represented as objects in murals. Each piece is different, but they both represent a larger theme of queer identity expression and Williams’ personal self-reflection.

In our first interview together in 2021, Williams noted she wanted her art to highlight people’s strangeness “that isn’t necessarily polarizing, [but rather] subtle. [I want people to] accept the strangeness that’s part of them. I’m trying to get away from binary ideas that paint absolutes.”

Now, Williams notes the descriptor was a placeholder.

“I’ve used the word ‘strangeness’ a lot as an attempt to get my work to have a universal appeal,” Williams says. “But I think a lot of what I’m relating to as strangeness is actually queerness.”

Not one to use labels and an admittedly private person, Williams held back from publicly identifying as part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“I think I’ve always known I was queer,” Williams says. “And I’ve definitely always been attracted to and dated whoever regardless of gender and presented myself however I wanted to present myself.”

While Williams acknowledges that she identifies closest to pansexual — although she jokingly laments the term reminds her of “pots and pans” — she did not feel like her experience was valid enough to become public, especially since her marriage is a hetero-passing relationship.

“If you care about a community and you care about the part of your identity that is tied with the community, you want to do good and do right by them.”

However, with current political pushback and legislation striking down recent progress for LGBTQIA+ rights, Williams felt compelled to speak more publicly about her identity, regardless of her apprehension.

“Now more than ever, it’s important for everyone to rally and show ourselves and remind each other we, identifying and allies, are the majority,” Williams says. “With everything that’s going on, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless because evil is prevailing, but there are more of us.”

Completing the mural and co-curating an official Capital Pride art party with District Fray is William’s inaugural public step into the LGBTQIA+ community.

“I’m excited to have a big, fun art event and to create safe space for different viewpoints,” Williams shares about the June 3 party featuring 30+ queer artists and allies.

On the drive home from the interview, I stop at a red light in Columbia Heights. To my left, a mural depicts a conventionally attractive woman watering flowers. While visually pleasant, the depth is missing. I am reminded of Williams’ question when we talked about redundant mural patterns: “What are we really communicating?”

With Williams and the community she is helping build, we can look forward to local public art that eradicates the status quo, makes you think and embraces the many dimensions of life — the imperfect, the strange, the beautifully queer.

To learn more about Williams and her upcoming projects, visit ashleyjayewilliams.com or follow her @ashleyjayewilliams.

Visual Artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer

Paints the Colors of Love

WORDS BY ABI NEWHOUSE

Lisa Marie Thalhammer wants to paint the world a rainbow. The artist responsible for the iconic “LOVE” mural in D.C.’s Blagden Alley, Thalhammer was inspired by people’s response to her work. After the mural was completed in August 2017, residents and visitors flocked to the alley for creative photo shoots.

“They used the work as a way to convey their own positive messages of love and joy and acceptance,” Thalhammer says.

After the hype continued for two years, Thalhammer came up with the idea to do a rainbow tour of the United States, painting “LOVE” murals in all states and territories. It was the end of 2019, so we all know what’s coming — the Covid-19 pandemic put a temporary hold on her plans.

“But I think now’s a really good time,” Thalhammer says. “Every four years, we spend so much time dividing our country into red and blue states that we often forget we’re united — people of all different colors.”

The “LOVE” Mural Tour kicked off last month in St. Petersburg, Florida with a mural painted on the side of The Body Electric Yoga Company.

Though Thalhammer’s vision is country-wide, her artistic story really started in D.C. You can see her work all over the place: Notables include the “TOGETHER” mural inspired by the Women’s March on 9th Street Northwest; “DC 51” on Pennsylvania Avenue in Georgetown; and, of course, “Boxer Girl,” which, when it was painted in 2009, started major conversations about public art in neighborhoods — especially rainbow art.

“It’s pretty cool to see the cultural shift towards acceptance and being a champion of equity,” Thalhammer says.

During Pride Month, we see rainbows on businesses everywhere, but some stick around longer — metaphorically and literally. In 2019, Thalhammer worked with Stoli Vodka to create a label that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

“That was really cool, because it’s a business that’s not just slapping a rainbow on something,” Thalhammer says. “They’re really trying to tell the story of LGBTQ history.”

As an artist and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Thalhammer says she wants to authentically represent the stories of her people, and so her work goes deeper than creating murals for photo ops or advertisements.

“I think the more authentic people can be, the more you’re coming to Pride Month with real love in your heart,” Thalhammer says. “While yes, LGBTQ issues is a cornerstone of the messaging, [the mural] also speaks to a broader message of acceptance.”

Thalhammer considers the colors of her murals carefully. The 13 colors used in the “LOVE” mural are inspired by the chakra centers of the body according to yoga theory.

“I see the colors like the human flag, where we are respectful of all our lives and intersections,” Thalhammer says. “Every human wants to be loved. There’s no one on the planet who doesn’t have some inkling of understanding that feeling.”

To reach the humans who want to be loved in different U.S. locations, Thalhammer has help. She is in the process of identifying ambassadors in different states to help connect the dots for the “LOVE” Mural Tour — finding the perfect location, funding for the project and involving the community. Born in, as Thalhammer puts it, the “American heartland” of St. Louis, Missouri, she understands that love looks different in all places, so she makes sure to understand how her ambassadors view the concept and how that resonates with the larger community in each location.

“I feel like our ‘why’ is so important,” she says. “Like what is motivating us? What’s the point — why rainbows on walls?”

Thalhammer draws on color therapy to create a balanced, harmonious color spectrum in each “LOVE” piece. Fittingly, the “LOVE” mural in Connecticut, slated for June of this year, is sponsored by Mental Health Connecticut.

“A lot of us struggle with depression or loneliness,” Thalhammer says. “Especially LGBTQ people — we’re at a much higher rate of having mental health issues. So, when you go to the rainbow walls, you feel better and uplifted emotionally and spiritually. These colors have a physical, mental and emotional effect upon our energy fields.”

Thalhammer sells canvas versions of the “LOVE” mural in all different color spectrums to address different needs in viewers. One features a spectrum of yellow and gold — representing the solar plexus chakra and self-confidence.

“When you’re needing self-confidence and personal power, gold and yellow are the colors you want to surround yourself with,” she says.

Another painting focuses on teal colors, which Thalhammer says represent speaking from the heart. Another had peaches, creams, tans and browns — an ode to the colors of all people. Thalhammer, a survivor of intimate partner abuse, says her mission goes deeper.

“I’m on a mission to understand self-love,” she says. “It’s really a healing journey that I’ve gone through, and it’s helped to see that relating to so many people. And now, we take it to the street.”

Check out more of Thalhammer’s work at lisamariestudio.com and follow her on Instagram @lisamariestudio. See the artist in action at Art Out Loud on June 3, an official Capital Pride event hosted by District Fray and Selina Union Market & Cowork. Register here: districtpride2023.eventbrite.com.

Making Space for Joy with Artist + Designer

Nia Keturah Calhoun

WORDS BY ANNIE AGNONE

When I meet Park View-based artist and designer Nia Keturah Calhoun, her partner and dog (a boxer, aptly named Cassius) are scurrying out of frame to give her the room for our interview.

“I’m obsessed with him maybe a little bit,” Calhoun says, gazing after Cassius for a moment before turning back to the screen. “He’s so emotive. It’s like there’s a little grown man walking around our house all the time.”

Calhoun is sitting in her living room, prints of her own art adorning the wall behind her. She’s wearing a white longsleeved T-shirt, purchased from the streetwear boutique Commonwealth in Northwest, with “by any means necessary” in block letters across the chest — a nod to the phrase popularized by Malcolm X less than a year before his death.

“A lot of people see it as a call to violence, which I don’t,” she says. “To me, it’s just that there are certain things in this life that are non-negotiables, and I will do what I have to do to maintain those things. Peace of mind is non-negotiable. I won’t live in a state of anxiety or worry. So whatever I have to do to achieve peace, it’s by any means necessary.”

One of the featured artists at District Fray’s Capital Pride kick-off event on June 3 (hosted in collaboration with Selina Union Market & Cowork), Calhoun tells me she’ll otherwise be taking Pride Month for herself.

“I’m Black and I’m queer, so usually there’s this expectation [during Black History Month and Pride Month]: ‘Oh my gosh, this is your time! You can go out and make art.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I do that 365.’ So I’m taking time to just stay in and read some books that I’ve been wanting to read and hang with my people.”

During the course of our conversation, I learn it’s exactly this ethos — that simply being and creating authentically is enough to make art — that epitomizes Calhoun’s approach to creative life.

Calhoun spent her early years in North Carolina, where her father was a pastor. She remembers drawing for the first time to stay quiet, channeling her ADHD into art while watching her father preach in the Black churches she grew up in.

“I think how I first started focusing my brain was through art,” Calhoun says. “By drawing him while he was preaching, I would listen more deeply and intently to what he was saying and try to put that into my drawings. I’m sure it wasn’t great, but it’s always been that undercurrent of trying to capture what was happening in sacred spaces.”

When she was 8, Calhoun’s family returned to D.C., where her father was from. She went on to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, dropping out part way through to make a mixtape. From there, she joined an art collective, taught at the Hirshhorn and worked as a graphic designer before Peter Chang and Brandon Hill from No Kings Collective invited her to paint with them. With No Kings, she learned to make big pictures on walls, including designing the nationally recognized Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson mural on 14th Street after the judge’s historic confirmation to the Supreme Court. Reflecting on her career, Calhoun finds a throughline in making concepts that connect with people.

“Even during blips of my life where I’m like, ‘Let me go find a big-girl job,’ it’s always felt in the vein of art,” she says. “My core belief is that everyone’s always doing their own kind of art. How people move through the world — the way a host will greet somebody at a restaurant — that’s art. You’re creating a way to connect with people and, on the most visceral level, that’s art.”

These days, Calhoun finds most joy in making art that feels honest — the most genuine expression of who she is, when making art in D.C. sometimes means facing expectations or pressure to be political. Authentically representing herself, she believes, is just as important.

“I think we’re experiencing a moment of expansiveness, which is really awesome and always feels at the precipice of being endangered through legislation or popular sentiment, so it also feels like something that has to be protected,” Calhoun says. “So just making art that is innately Black and queer because that’s who I am — it just feels like precious work.”

For District Fray’s Pride event, Calhoun says she wants to share that joy with others.

“I’ve just been really obsessed with cartoons recently, and so I’m making some very queer Black characters,” Calhoun says. “It’s the first day of Pride, it’s pop-out season, it’s time to go outside and be happy, and so I really just want to throw joy on the board through these avatar characters that all kind of identify with bits of me and folks who I love and look up to.”

She hopes people will see themselves in her characters, too, perhaps in a way they haven’t felt represented before — the way she felt when she first encountered “The Boondocks” in elementary school, trying to convince her parents to buy her the book at Barnes & Noble.

She turns her screen to give me a sneak peek of one of the characters she’s been working on: a Black man with hot pink hair, diamond earrings, a nose ring, a full beard and a chain that says “Baddie.” Speaking faster and faster, she tells me her plans for him: fierce pink eyelashes, cuts in his eyebrows, a neck tattoo that says “love,” a cross tattoo on his arm.

“What I really love about him is he’s really in touch with peak masculinity and peak femininity at the same time,” she says. “He’s like, ‘No, they’re both me. Yes, and.’”

She pauses, gazing at him adoringly: this person she created to exist boldly, to hold parts of herself, of everyone.

“I’m in love with him. I think he’s wonderful. And I want nothing but the best in this world for him.”

Keep up with Calhoun online at nias.work and follow her on Instagram @niaketurah.