February Gallery Exhibit! Sapphire & Crystals: BEyONd Race and Gender

Join the Noyes Cultural Arts Center and the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center in the City of Evanston's celebration of Black History Month. This year, we are extremely lucky to host the Sapphire & Crystals artist's collective exhibit entitled BEyONd Race and Gender.

The exhibit runs from January 23 to March 12, 2009. The opening reception will be on Sunday, January 25, from 3PM-5PM and will feature local jazz group The Walter Clark Trio.


Noyes Cultural Arts Center
927 Noyes St., Evanston, IL
847.448.8260
Gallery hours: Mon-Sat 10AM-7PM
Sun 10AM-6PM


The Sapphire & Crystals artist’s collective was established in the late 1980s because of the biases women faced as artists. Specifically, artists Felicia Grant Preston and Marva Pitchford Jolly decided to stop waiting for someone to choose them and decided to choose themselves, and other artists they knew. In 1986, the group launched the first Sapphire & Crystals exhibition at the South Side Community Art Center in historic Bronzeville. Employing the tenets of self determination, they banded together to create exhibition opportunities for themselves and other professional women artists.

Shahar Caren Weaver

That began a 20-plus year history of showing and mentoring promising and established professional women artists throughout the city and beyond. A regular component of the exhibition is the Self-Portrait Silent Auction. This year, all bids open at $125. Another feature is a collaborative altar/installation produced on site. The Noyes exhibition fills two floors of the center.

Dorothy Carter

The curator for the exhibition, artist and Chicago State University art professor Joyce Owens, has managed a series of successful exhibitions for the group in recent years. At Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, the Sapphire & Crystals: Black, White and Blues exhibition was one of 12 featured programs during Chicago Artists Month in 2005. Owens has also organized Sapphire & Crystals exhibitions at Concordia University Chicago and the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

The following women will be showcasing their work as a part of the Sapphire & Crystals collective:

Rose Blouin
Dorothy Carter
Arlene Turner Crawford
Makeba Kedem DuBose
Juarez Hawkins
Candace Hunter
Renee Williams Jefferson
Marva Pitchford Jolly
Nicole Malcolm
Joyce Owens
Frances Callaway Parks
Felicia Grant Preston
Joanne Scott
Janet Sheard
Patricia Stewart
Michelle Stutts
Shirley J. Sullivan
Dorian Sylvain
Pearlie Taylor
Anna M. Tyler
Shahar Caren Weaver
Rhonda Wheatley
Shyvette Williams