Spatial Illusions as Radical Mindscapes: A Conversation about the work of Richard Mayhew

Join us in celebrating the work of Richard Mayhew in a conversation with Nashormeh Lindo and Kajahl moderated by Shelby Graham. This event will begin with a short Mayhew-inspired musical performance by James Gordon Williams.

About today's collaborators:

Nashormeh N.R. Lindo is an artist, educator, independent curatorial consultant, and arts advocate. Lindo’s recent work explores the way one medium informs another, utilizing her constructed compositions for surface design on textiles. As an arts educator, Lindo teaches art classes to children in Oakland and is a former adjunct instructor of African American Art History at City College of San Francisco. She has served as a consultant for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum of California, among others. She was Manager of Educational Programs at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library and a member of the Education department at the Baltimore Museum of Art. A native of Philadelphia, Lindo received her M.S. in Educational Leadership from the Bank Street College of Education, and her B.A. in Art Practice from Penn State University where she first met Mr. Mayhew. Most recently, Lindo served on the California Arts Council from 2014 to 2021, serving three years as the first African American woman to be Council Chair. She lives and works in the Bay Area with her husband, actor Delroy Lindo, and their son, Damiri.

Kajahl was born in Santa Cruz in 1985 and received his BFA in painting from San Francisco State University in 2008. He spent his final year studying at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, Tuscany, Italy. In 2012, Kajahl received his MFA in painting from Hunter College in New York. In 2013, he was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. He was also a 2016 Artist in Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans. More recently, Kajahl was awarded the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship in 2022, and an Artist-in-Residence at Lower Eastside Printshop New York in 2019. His work is in the public collections of Collection Solo, The Dean Collection, and 21c Museum Hotel: Art Museum. Kajahl now lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA, where he met Richard Mayhew while in high school.
www.kajahl.com

Shelby Graham has an M.F.A. in photography and a long career as an arts educator, contemporary gallery director, and experimental photographer, including exhibitions in the U.S., Japan, Spain, and the Czech Republic. She recently retired as the Director/Curator of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Shelby is currently teaching a class called Careers in the Creative Economy. She is the co-curator, along with Kajahl for Richard Mayhew: Inner Terrain at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

James Gordon Williams (JGW) is a transdisciplinary composer, pianist, and cultural theorist. He has collaborated with artists Crystal Z. Campbell, Maria Gaspar, Fred Moten, Moor Mother, Cauleen Smith, Suné Woods. He has performed, and or recorded with, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, composer Anthony Davis, bassist Mark Dresser, Joseph Jarman, Charli Persips’ Supersound band, vocalist Gregory Porter, composer George E. Lewis, saxophonist Greg Osby, vocalist Charenée Wade as well as other musical luminaries. He has performed at Birdland, El Museo del Barrio, the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Lenox Lounge, Knitting Factory, Symphony Space, Village Vanguard, UC Santa Cruz Music Recital Hall, and music festivals in France, Italy, and Malta. Upcoming performances include a third collaboration with artist Maria Gaspar at the San Jose Museum of Art in June 2024. He has written music for Syracuse Stage’s staging of playwright Kyle Bass’s salt/city/blues. He is the author of Crossing Bar Lines: The Politics and Practices of Black Musical Space (2021). His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in Ethnomusicology Review, Jazz & Culture, Jazz Research Journal, Journal of African American Studies, Liquid Blackness Journal of Aesthetics and Black Studies and Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture. He is Assistant Professor of Composition at the UC Santa Cruz Music Department, a faculty member in the Visualizing Abolition certificate program, and an affiliate faculty in the History of Consciousness program. He holds a Ph.D. in Integrative Studies from U.C. San Diego. You can view his work at https://vimeo.com/jamesgordonw...

About Richard Mayhew:
Richard Mayhew was born in 1924 and raised in Amityville, New York, on Long Island's south shore, to Native American and African American parents. He was educated at Columbia University, the Academia Florence, the Art Students’ League, and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Richard Mayhew lives and works in Aptos and in Santa Cruz, California. Please see more about Richard and his current exhibition of his paintings at the MAH here.

Image: Richard Mayhew, Atascadero, 2013, Serigraph. Courtesy of Richard and Rosemary Mayhew.