Letter from the Editor

BY ADRIANNE RAMSEY

The Black Woman is a God is a reoccurring exhibition series at SOMArts Cultural Center (San Francisco, CA) that I often find myself returning to. Each iteration features a community of Black femme artists whose creative practices embody healing, Black joy, Afrofuturism, and more. The overarching theme of the show is to give ode to the Black woman, who contributions to the art world are often excluded from mainstream conversation due to misogynoir. This series had its fourth showing at SOMArts last winter, and each time I attend the show I notice that I stand before each piece for elongated periods of time. Not only do I want to take in each creative medium, but I also admire the care each artist takes in honoring the Black woman.

GIRLS 14: Black Girl Magic is an issue that highlights the practices of Black femme creatives (artists, art administrators, curators, and scholars). I've wanted to do an issue exclusively dedicated to Black womxn for a while now, and GIRLS 11: Erasing The Line, which highlighted Latinx femme creatives, was a good reminder that I needed to create what would end up being GIRLS 14. I am currently working on my MA thesis, which investigates the history of Black run art spaces in Los Angeles. An important touchstone of my research is how the period of the sixties to eighties was a time when being a Black femme creative was considered radical. Black women typically found themselves excluded from the Civil Rights Movement, as most of the recognizable leaders were male – Dr. King, Malcolm X, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, etc., as well as the Black Power Movement, as their memorable image was one of Black masculinity, nationalism, and rampant aggression. Joining the Women’s Liberation Movement also proved to be a lonely experience, as it catered towards middleclass and wealthy white women and didn’t offer much to the working-class Black woman. Beginning in the late sixties, several Black women creatives around the country, such as Linda Goode Bryant, Suzanne Jackson, and Dr. Samella Lewis, founded their own artist collectives, publications, and galleries in order to reject the sexism within political movements that they were excluded from and racism from non-Black communities. I would like to think that I bring this sentiment to not only this issue, but GIRLS Magazine as a whole.

Thank you to Meklit, Mia, Alexsandra, Michon, and Delphine for participating in this issue, as well as speaking so passionately about your individual practices and the importance of highlighting BIPOC artists, particularly in exhibitions and programming!