Our next amazing Guild Spotlight is Asiyah Kurtz (she/her), executive director of Camden FireWorks! Get to learn more about how Asiyah and this New Jersey-based art gallery have uplifted creatives of multiple identities and artistic practices, empowering the community of Camden in the process.
Hi Asiyah! Please tell us a bit about yourself, and what motivates the work you do day-to-day.
I am a quilter, applied anthropologist, and mom of three amazing humans and two pups. I was born in Memphis, TN but have been in New Jersey for the last seven years. As Executive Director of the only independent art gallery in Camden, NJ (Camden FireWorks), I am able to pair my work as a fiber artist and culture worker in collaboration with local artists.
What motivates the work I do is the people with whom I work. In a city with fewer economic resources, I have found that the social capital runs deep and allows artists to continue sustaining their work despite structural challenges. I am proud to be working in community with Camden artists.
Where are you located? Who is your community?
I work in Camden, New Jersey and live just a few miles from where I work. Because the definition of community is contextual, I would define my work community as self-taught artists who live or work in Camden. This would include artists from traditional disciplines as well as those from who are folk artists and culture bearers with deep generational knowledge.
In a city of 78,000 people with no grocery or artist supply store, we are intentional about providing opportunities for creative expression. Community arts education has helped us to strengthen the connective fiber of social cohesion with our community and has enabled us to highlight cultural traditions that embrace our full humanity.
How has community arts education supported in healing and/or meeting the needs of your community?
At Camden FireWorks, we view art and art-making as a communal right. In a city of 78,000 people with no grocery or artist supply store, we are intentional about providing opportunities for creative expression. Community arts education has helped us to strengthen the connective fiber of social cohesion with our community and has enabled us to highlight cultural traditions that embrace our full humanity.
For example, our exhibitions have allowed us to show art as a healing practice in the work of Renata Merrill who used quilting to heal from a brain tumor, Quinton L. Greene (a veteran who employed painting to help with PTSD), and Brittany Anne Baum who used oil portraiture to emotionally heal from heartbreak.
What are some challenges that your organization is currently facing?
As with most post-pandemic arts organizations, we are facing continual financial pressure to provide art and art-making opportunities in a city where the median income is well below the poverty line. We sorely need general operating support that helps us to sustain the work we do well and the relationships we have developed.
What do you love about the work you do, and/or the community you work in?
What I love most about the work I do is that we have the unique opportunity to meet people who are marginalized within the arts. Whether a person from the LGBTQ community or a BIPOC artist, we uphold their life experiences and artistic practices as valued and valuable to the community as a whole.
Photo courtesy of Camden FireWorks
Do you have any highlights or stories regarding your work that you’d like to share?
We recently launched a curator initiative that allows us to identify, partner with and provide competitive pay to artists who have never curated a gallery exhibition. Our program allows us to build the individual practices of emerging curators from diverse communities using a collaborative research approach and in-depth professional development. We have already had much success with this initiative and have committed 50 percent of our exhibition calendar to emerging curators.
What’s in store for you/your org for the remainder of this year? What are you looking forward to?
Camden FireWorks is looking forward to expanding our base of operations by adding more studios for artists to rent as well as establishing a new pottery village. We are also working to create a public art program which we believe will positively change the art landscape in Camden for generations to come.
Lastly, what does community arts education mean to you?
To me, community arts education means the opportunity to reach people using art regardless of their ability, experience or skills. Fundamentally, community arts education is about, for, and with artists at all levels.
Photo courtesy of Camden FireWorks
If you'd like to be featured as one of our future Guild Spotlights, then be sure to fill out our interest form! If you have any questions on how to do so, please reach out to nataliavilela@nationalguild.org.
Published: June 27, 2023