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James C. Palmore grew up in Kalamazoo’s Eastside neighborhood, and works out of a studio in his childhood home on East Michigan Avenue. After serving in Germany as a medic during the Vietnam War, Palmore moved back to Kalamazoo and eventually became the Youth Program Coordinator at the City of Kalamazoo Parks & Recreation Department for 25 years. He was a founding board member of the Black Civic Theater, and, with Bertha Barbee McNeil, a member of the Velvelettes, Lois Jackson, and Gayle Sydnor, he helped found the Black Arts and Cultural Center. Palmore has been awarded a Community Medal of Arts by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo. Palmore’s large-scale portrait Chief received the Peoples’ Choice Award in the 2018 West Michigan Area Show.

“I’ve always investigated things. How does stuff work? How do people work? That’s always been a fascination to me and so that transferred into art subjects. Art is a polysynthesism of thoughts, dreams, feelings, manifested through the manipulation of materials, motion, sound, and sense. I don’t know where all the ideas come from. Maybe it’s life experiences. But I know I don’t want to be old with a tube in my neck saying, ‘I should have.’ The art that I make appears in a verity of styles and techniques that are dictated in most part, by the idea and subject. I am totally open to using any material, technology or concepts that will aid me in conveying the statement. Part of my intent is to reflect back what I hear people saying regarding social, economic, ecological, environmental and political conditions. Communicating what I perceive and what others tell me shapes my art into forms that are constantly changing. Let’s see, maybe I’ll use a little of this instead of that?”

My work is part of me. My personality, emotions, skills, and knowledge all come into play during the process of creating the work. The subject matter I have chosen is primarily portraits. By enlarging the face it allows me to explore the medium to a greater extent. This use of pastels, in painterly-like style helps me to create a more realistic image, thus communicating thoughts and emotions going on inside me through my subject.

“Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.” –Pope John Paul II

Chakila L. Hoskins is a fine arts painter and drawer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She began honing her God-given talents at Grand Rapids Community College, where she received her AFA (2009). Hoskins continued her journey graduating cum laude and earning her BFA in Painting and a minor in drawing from Kendall College of Art & Design (2012), where she also received her MFA in Painting (2016). Hoskins’ work focuses on themes of Spirituality and Eternal Life. Hoskins believes that art should be obtainable and enjoyed by everyone. She has learned about semiotics, the theory and study of signs and symbols, and applies it in her artwork. Semiotics uses communication, which requires a sender, a message, and an intended receiver. Her use of biblical scriptures and poems in braille is a means for the blind and visually impaired to connect with Hoskins’ art. Braille is a tactile media form of Semiotics. Hoskins currently resides and works in Grand Rapids as a Continuing Studies Youth Instructor and an art teacher at New Era Christian School.

I am a twenty-three year old biracial woman born in Grand Rapids, Mi currently residing within Kalamazoo, Mi where I have lived for the past eight years. I am currently enrolled at Western Michigan University within the Frostic School of Art and will be working towards my degree in Art Therapy. 
As an artist I find that actively creating work allows me to explore, release and transform life’s emotions and experiences into something of substance. I have developed a connection to nature and as I’ve grown have come to associate it with femininity and the black woman within my work. My work is both a reflection of self and my relationship with my ideal and actualized self as well as an opportunity for other feminine individuals to find a connection to my work within themselves. I’ve always focused on growth and evolution within my life and the beauty of it and personally can draw much inspiration from nature as it is constantly growing and evolving. My work has allowed me to develop strength and wisdom through the excavation of my own personal feelings, desires and fears, as well as my view of the world.

I was born & raised in Chicago, IL, received a BA in Fine Art from Siena Heights University in Adrian, MI and have lived in Kalamazoo for 34 years. My work is intuitive, coming from a past that resides within the soul I was born with. All of my pieces are hand-built and most often, pit fired. Pit firing is the process of burying the piece in a container filled with wood, planar shavings, sawdust and/or other combustible materials. The materials are then set on fire and allowed to smolder until completely burned away. The result is an earthy, smoky finish that I feel suits the forms I create.