This past week, I've enjoyed attending and teaching at the Cool Fool School in Atlanta, Hosted by the Laughter League. It's been an artistic highlight for me. I'm particularly grateful for the artistic challenge. The
Read MoreSomeone smashed my car window. Broken glass was everywhere!
My car was parked in a public lot, and someone decided to break my window after I parked it. I don't know who did this. I was only away from my car for a few hours. It happened in a public car lot. Now, I had to spend the rest of my day addressing this problem. I had to clean up the mess to make the car drivable, and then I had to drive somewhere where I could vacuum the rest of the glass out of the vehicle.
Breaking something can be easy; repairing it will take work….
Read MoreI'm always looking for new material to perform in the hospital. Usually, some of the better musical material are things right under my nose, everyday things, or songs I grew up with. It's just a matter of finding the right piece and seeing the opportunity to use it.
Read MoreThere is a vibrancy in the image heightened by an almost 3-D quality of his body in front of a pattern behind him. Each time I visited the museum and saw this image, I noticed how the young man seemed to float in front of the canvas…
Read More….Sydney Poitier and Helen Donnelly were trailblazers creating new paths, moving us forward to a new normal. Both authentically shared their work with us. We are better because of their art and their lives.
Read MoreOne of the unique challenges in the field now is that there are very few African-American clowns doing this work. When I began this work 21 years ago, I was one of eight people who were hired. I was the only black clown on the team…
Read MoreThe past election and the upcoming runoff here in Georgia has me thinking about political action and how we all participate in the process. I live in Georgia…
Read MoreThe conversation about diversity in the arts and the clowning world continues. I've been in several panel discussions about diversity and people of color in the circus world. In late September, The Play the Fool Festival hosted a talk called "Culture, Identity, and Clowning: A BIPoC Artist Conversation"…
Read MoreThe words were familiar if not identical to comments I've seen before. They talk about the purpose of art in our world, how artists' work can serve a greater good in our society. Too often, we think that the artist's primary goal is to entertain…
Read MoreI recently had a conversation with Ampie Alblas. They are a blogger from Belgium who writes a blog called Collecting Clowns. Ampie was working on a story about a film made in 1916 called “Natural Born Gambler.” This film is unique because it is considered one of the first films directed by a black man, Bert Williams…
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