Any editorial choice is subjective, made from among people we’re exposed to by our travels and wanderings, based on what impresses our artistic sensibilities, tickles our political fancy, or strikes our editorial nerve. For this installment, we admit a bias more personal than usual: not only are these featured artists accomplished and lauded in their respective fields, and doing work we think is vital, important, and worthy of praise… they also do it with us.

Red Clay Arts is an organization close to our hearts, dating back to sometime circa 1994 (in its incarnation as Atlanta-based independent arts and culture ‘zine) and stretching to the youth media education program we (pierre & jamyla) have traveled to teach with the organization for the past couple of summers.

Through the years, Red Clay has functioned as a collective. As a zine in Atlanta, it was a group of college-aged creatives exploring cutting edge photography and writing, envelope-pushing design, independent publishing, and grassroots distribution. A few years later, when several members of the collective found themselves living, working and/or studying in NYC, the group began to function as an arts presentation collective, curating and presenting some of the most cutting edge exhibitions, panel events, new media installations, and performances at a time that solidified the core of Brooklyn’s underground arts community.

Along the way the group became Legal – incorporating as a nonprofit and building a youth arts curriculum around its members’ varied skillsets. Over the past five or six years, Red Clay’s educational endeavors have coalesced and matured into One Shot – a multi-site media education intensive for young people of the Diaspora. Under the executive direction of Elissa Blount Moorhead (@ right, with animator Jenga Mwendo), OneShot has grown into the organization’s flagship program.

Since 2003, the program has been multi-site; teaching artists Mario Moorhead and Scott E. Smith (at right) have headed to international or far-flung domestic locations to interact with students in areas underserved by the arts and under-represented in the international media. The students learn to use documentary photography and computer-aided art to tell their own stories about the places they live, to chronicle their own lives and expose the uncommon beauty of their neighborhoods, families, and homes. P&J Bennu joined the scene in 2004 w/a documentary filmmaking program. One Shot has traveled to Trenchtown, Jamaica, St. Croix, USVI, and Marvell, Arkansas in the Mississippi Delta; teaching a mirror course each year for local young people in central Brooklyn.

During the two-week intensive, the quality of work that is attained is often nothing short of stunning. The work is mounted in a professional show in both Brooklyn and the satellite location – showcasing the youth artists in their local communities and connecting them virtually with each other.
You can see the students’ work at Red Clay Arts’ website, and read great articles and interviews with the young students in the Daily News and Arkansas Times.

Here, however, we seek to give shine to the talented teaching artists and the dedicated staff of Red Clay who make the program happen. ICP-trained photographer Scott Smith and exec. director Elissa Blount-Moorhead (currently studying design at Parsons) – take a moment out of their busy schedules to chat with Mike Believe about their art and their craft.

click ‘more’ to read q&a with elissa and scott