CFAC’s latest exhibit ‘This Woman’s Work’ explores the legacies of prominent Black women in CNY
(Central Current | Jan. 30, 2025) When Cheeki Williams reflects on her own story, she remembers one phrase: “Planted, not buried.”
Those three self-affirming words gave her past a renewed purpose and outlook for her future.
Williams, a Syracuse-based multidisciplinary artist, first used the phrase as a poem. Shortly after she turned it into a song and eventually transformed it into her brand and art business: Planted not buried.
It’s the title of her first-ever public art installation featured in “This Woman’s Work” art exhibit at the Community Folk Art Center (CFAC). The exhibition’s curator is Rochele Royster, a Syracuse University Creative Arts Therapy Department professor and community psychologist.
Williams’ work has joined the display of notable Black women whose experiences leave lessons for those who follow them. The figures in the exhibit include musician Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, herbalist Elsye Brooks, and abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Sarah Loguen Fraser. All are recognized as Central New York icons for the ways they have historically cared for the world they inhabited …
… The exhibit is on display in the Herbert T. Williams Gallery at CFAC. It features mixed media artworks from 13 local artists and will run until Feb. 28.
For the entire month of February until early March, the gallery is offering opportunities for community members to engage with the exhibition through a series of free community-based workshops and activities. Each week guests can attend a doll-making workshop, participate in Optical Illusion and Painting, or design Zines and Afrofuturism and Shibori and Indigo Dye.
There will also be a community quilt where guests can design a 10-inch by 10-inch patch to attach to the quilt. Those interested in participating can stop by CFAC and design one. All supplies will be provided.
In response to recent diversity, equity, and inclusion rollbacks, Royster is developing a curriculum based on the exhibit for teachers in the Syracuse City School District. She is working with Courtney Mauldin-Jones, a Syracuse University School Education professor and an artist featured in the exhibit …