make a donation get art
To celebrate the life and legacy of Black Women, I created over 30 portraits of different women who are leaders in their field. The artworks featured here are available for purchase through a minimum donation of $25.00 to one of five community-serving foundations on this page.
To Claim An aRTWork:
Contact me to provide a receipt of your donation (a confirmation email from the organization will suffice) or if you have any questions! Donation to one foundation equals one portrait.
The artwork
Betty Blayton - Available
Betty Blayton-Taylor was an American activist, advocate, artist, arts administrator and educator, and lecturer. She is best known for her works often described as "spiritual abstractions". Blayton was a founding member of the Studio Museum in Harlem and board secretary, co-founder and executive director of Harlem Children's Art Carnival (CAC), and a co-founder of Harlem Textile Works.
- WIKIPEDIA
carolyn b. parker - available
Carolyn Beatrice Parker was a physicist who worked from 1943 to 1947 on the Dayton Project, the plutonium research and development arm of the Manhattan Project.
Parker is the first African-American woman known to have gained a postgraduate degree in physics.
-WIKIPEDIA
CLAUDETTE COLVIN - UNAVAILABLE
Claudette Colvin is a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.
- WIKIPEDIA
GAYLE KING - AVAILABLE
Gayle King is an American television personality, author and broadcast journalist for CBS News, co-hosting its flagship morning program, CBS This Morning, a position she has held since its debut in 2012. She is also an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.
King was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2019.
- WIKIPEDIA
Janelle Monáe - AVAILABLE
Janelle Monáe Robinson is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, actress, and record producer. Monáe is signed to Atlantic Records, as well as to her own imprint, the Wondaland Arts Society. ]Boston City Council named October 16, 2013 "Janelle Monáe Day" in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, in recognition of her artistry and social leadership.
-WIKIPEDIA
LENA WAITHE - AVAILABLE
Lena Waithe is an American screenwriter, producer, and actress. She starred in the Netflix comedy-drama series Master of None (2015–2017). She became the first black woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2017 for writing the show's "Thanksgiving" episode, which was loosely based on her personal experience of coming out to her mother.
-WIKIPEDIA
MAYA ANGELOU - UNAVAILABLE
Maya Angelou born Marguerite Annie Johnson was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
-WIKIPEDIA
Phylicia Rashad - AVAILABLE
Phylicia Rashad is an American actress, singer and stage director. She is known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–92), which earned her Emmy Award nominations in 1985 and 1986. She was dubbed "The Mother Of The Black Community" at the 2010 NAACP Image Awards.
In 2004, Rashad became the first black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, which she won for her role in the revival of A Raisin in the Sun.
-WIKIPEDIA
Simone Biles - available
Simone Arianne Biles is an American artistic gymnast. With a combined total of 30 Olympic and World Championship medals, Biles is the most decorated American gymnast and the world's third most decorated gymnast.
At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Biles won individual gold medals in all-around, vault and floor; bronze in balance beam; and gold as part of the United States team, dubbed the "Final Five".
-WIKIPEDIA
Stacey Abrams - AVAILABLE
Stacey Yvonne Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–21 U.S. Senate election and special election, which gave Democrats control over the Senate. In 2021, Abrams was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in the 2020 election.
-WIKIPEDIA
Taraji P. Henson - available
Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy (2001). She received praise for her performances as a prostitute in Hustle & Flow (2005), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination; and as a single mother of a disabled child in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), for which she received Academy Award, SAG Award and Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In 2010, she appeared in the action comedy Date Night, and co-starred in the remake of The Karate Kid.
-WIKIPEDIA
Tarana Burke - AVAILABLE
Tarana Burke is an American activist from The Bronx, New York who started the Me Too movement. In 2006, Burke began using metoo to help other women with similar experiences to stand up for themselves. Over a decade later, in 2017 #MeToo became a viral hashtag appropriated by Alyssa Milano when women began using it to tweet about the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations. The phrase and hashtag quickly developed into a broad-based, and eventually international movement.
Time named Burke, among a group of other prominent activists dubbed "the silence breakers", as the Time Person of the Year for 2017. Burke presents at public speaking events across the country and is currently Senior Director at Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn.
-WIKIPEDIA
Tiffany Haddish - AVAILABLE
Tiffany Sara Cornilia Haddish is an American actress, comedian, and author. After guest-starring on several television series, she gained prominence for her role as Nekeisha Williams on the NBC sitcom The Carmichael Show. Her breakthrough came in 2017 when she starred in the comedy film Girls Trip, receiving critical acclaim for her performance as Dina. That year, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for her work as a host on a Saturday Night Live episode, and published a memoir, The Last Black Unicorn. She stars in the TBS series The Last O.G., and executive produces and voices Tuca in the Netflix/Adult Swim animated series Tuca & Bertie.
-WIKIPEDIA
Tina Turner - AVAILABLE
Tina Turner is an American-born Swiss singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the frontwoman of Ike & Tina Turner before launching a successful career as a solo performer.
Having sold over 100 million records, Turner is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She has received 12 Grammy Awards, which include eight competitive awards, three Grammy Hall of Fame awards, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She was the first black artist and first female to cover Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone ranked her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
-WIKIPEDIA
The Foundations
THE PFUND FOUNDATION - Minneapolis, MN
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
“PFund Foundation was started in 1987 in response to the AIDS crisis; as people in the LGBTQ community experienced isolation, stigma and ignorance, our community came together to provide for itself and ensure such obstacles could be confronted. We recognize that eradicating homophobia and transphobia is work that requires significant courage, energy, tenacity and resources. As the regional LGBTQ grantmaker in the upper Midwest, PFund Foundation inspires donors and catalyzes communities to invest in lasting change. PFund Foundation is proud to support LGBTQ and allied activists, organizers, practitioners, artists, educators and communities. We invest in LGBTQ people across the lifespan in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.”
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studio museum harlem - new york, ny
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
“The Studio Museum in Harlem, founded to champion, empower, and celebrate artists of African descent, has continued steadfastly in its mission for over fifty years. One of the Museum’s original initiatives, the Artist-in-Residence program has supported over one hundred artists early in their careers. The permanent collection, informally begun by artists who saw the critical need for institutional stewardship of their work, is now recognized as one of the most important public collections of works by Black artists.”
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HEADWATERS FOUNDATION FOR JUSTICE - Minneapolis, mn
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
“We are a Minneapolis-based community foundation that invests in grassroots organizing across Minnesota. We do this through grantmaking programs that support organizations and groups on the front lines of social change. Each of our programs invite people from the community to learn about and lead our grantmaking work. Since 1984, Headwaters has believed that the people who directly experience society’s injustices are exactly the people who know the way to collective liberation. We fund a variety of groups, and we prioritize funding groups that are led by and for Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.”
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Housing works - New york, ny
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
“Your donations help fund our mission to provide lifesaving services to homeless, low-income and marginalized men, women, and youth. Through your donations, we are able to make sure people are connected with lifesaving healthcare, provided with job training opportunities, receiving housing, and have a supportive community.”
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ARTISTIC NOISE - new york, ny
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
“For more than 20 years, Artistic Noise has used art as a vehicle to amplify the voices and stories of young people whose lives have been impacted by the juvenile court system, probation system, foster care system, mental health care systems, and more. At Artistic Noise, we believe that over-policing, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the ways in which mass incarceration has destroyed our communities remain the most urgent and pressing social justice issues of our time. These systems want our young people to be silent… and that’s why we make Artistic Noise.
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