Between the Lines Broadside Collaboration:
America Kissed Me In The Dark
About Between the Lines
Center for Book Arts 2021 Workspace Artist in Residence Rowan Renée‘s year-long project Between the Lines—consisting of correspondence based workshop series with LGBTQ+ artists incarcerated in Texas and Florida—concluded with an in-person reading & print launch event at CBA (28 West 27th St, 3rd Fl) on Wednesday, October 27, 2021.
Six limited-edition broadsides produced by collaborative pairs of NYC-based artists and queer incarcerated artists are available for pre-order to pick up at the event. Individual broadsides are $15 and the entire series can be purchased for $75. All proceeds directly benefit organizations supporting queer incarcerated artists.
About America Kissed Me in the Dark
This edition of 100 broadsides is a collaboration between NYC-based artist Alix Pentecost-Farren and queer incarcerated artist Maurice Young.
When designing the broadside, Pentecost-Farren was inspired by the epic scope of Young’s poem that makes reference to the big dipper as a romantic symbol of surviving hardships, while also pointing out how American society has failed to achieve racial equality since the abolition of chattel slavery. When Pentecost-Farren and Young corresponded about the broadside design, Young suggested that Pentecost-Farren incorporate an image of an angel hiding their face—as if they were contemplating the sins of America. The pageantry parade of stars in the design is a nod to Young’s mention of the Big Dipper in his poem.
Alix Pentecost-Farren
Alix Pentecost-Farren (she/her) is an illustrator and visual artist. She studied illustration and filmmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to New York. Her work has been awarded a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators, a Communication Arts Award of Excellence, and shown by galleries in the U.S. and abroad. She has been an artist in residence at the SVA RisoLAB, Elsewhere Museum, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Her work is motivated by her passion for the environment, developed during her upbringing in rural North Carolina. Equally inspired by folktales and scientific journals, she uses ornamentation and symbolism to reflect on the human relationship to the natural world. Much of her work is an attempt to process the Anthropocene—the age of human influence on geological systems long thought to be immune. She uses delicate imagery and finds unexpected ways for the audience to encounter the work in an attempt to create opportunities for people to think about the unthinkable.
She was a 2018 CBA Workspace Artist-in-Residence.
Bro. Truth
Bro. Truth, AKA Bro Hernandez Wiley, is a freedom fighter mobilizing his visual art and spoken word to combat racism, misogyny, and prejudice for all Americans. He has broken the chains of the mind to live free from oppression.
He is a contributor to A.B.O. Comix, based in Oakland, California, which publishes work from incarcerated LGBTQ+ people, and he participates in Between the Lines, a series of collaborative art workshops by correspondence. His contributions will be exhibited in The Power of We, a large-scale public art exhibition, supported by We, Women Photo, that will travel across the U.S. to venues in Anchorage, Atlanta, Chicago, and New Orleans. In 2021, his work was featured in the virtual exhibition Freedom & Captivity, a state-wide humanities initiative in Maine that asks contributors to imagine freedom in an abolitionist society.
Bro. Truth’s comics star himself as Katman, with sidekick Double Ree. They are members of the alien nation of Love Kats, from Planet Love. Their leader has given them orders to return to Planet Earth to help free humans from bondage and the tyranny of racist police and to assure the victory of the largest civil rights movement in history. He dreams of an intergalactic future on Planet Love, where his artwork will help him raise funds for a lawyer to advocate for his exoneration.
Other Broadsides in the Series
Claudia Cortínez + Scott Munro–>
Adama Delphine Fawundu + Bro. Truth–>