Progress Reports: May 2025
Drowning People/Sometimes Die/Fighting Their Rescuers — Big Announcements, A Month in Review, May's Playlist, The Community Corner, and A Little Housekeeping
Work in Progress is a newsletter synthesizing ideas about culture, identity, and politics through “the personal.” Show your support by subscribing to Work in Progress on Substack, following on Instagram, and engaging with external publications and services on richelle.work.
Monetary contributions can be made electronically via Ko-Fi, Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal. The suggested minimum contribution is $5.
Big Announcements
My collage, “School Spirit,” will be shown in the upcoming exhibition: Portraits of Pride and Resilience from June 20 - August 30th. Portraits of Pride and Resilience “centers on portraiture as an act of radical visibility - a direct counterpoint to historical erasure and a celebration of storytelling through self-representation. Artists are encouraged to creatively interpret the theme, exploring identity, resilience, and presence in a world that has often sought to silence and erase LGBTQ+ lives.”
The reception will be held on June 20th from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Creative Philadelphia Art Gallery in City Hall. All featured work will be shown in The Creative Philadelphia Art Gallery (Room 116), and select works will be shown in the Office of Councilwoman Rue Landau (Room 592).
Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., and Friday, 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on weekends and holidays.
The Resonaters, a New York City-based rock band, hired me to create their cover art for a new song. Willy is an old friend with a huge heart, and it was an honor to create the digital collage for their new HIT! Pre-save The Resonaters new single, “Fuck Marry Kill” on your streaming platform of choice. Out June 26th!
Congratulations Willy, Tui, and Morgan!
Congratulations to one of my closest friends, Temple Douglass, on being selected for Mural Arts’ Black Artist Fellowship 2025. Temple is a visual artist whose large-scale charcoal drawings explore themes of isolation, melancholy, and dissociation. She is fiercely talented with published work in Black Art Magazine and Stillpoint Literary Magazine. Recent exhibitions include The Female Gaze at Da Vinci Art Alliance and With All My Heart at The People’s Gallery in Philadelphia.
She inspires me daily to commit to my practice despite life’s challenges. Whether we are gossiping about the Kardashians, seriously analyzing the world around us, or musing about our lives on a trip to the grocery store, I can always show up as my authentic self with Temple. And those are just a few of the reasons I’m proud to announce that…We launching business ventures y’all!
Richelle and Temple Selling Art is a new pop-up shop coming to Philadelphia this Summer!
Our first pop-ups will take place on June 21 and June 28 at Clark Park during the Farmer’s Market. We will be selling prints, stickers, shirts, and more. Slide through and show support for your two favorite Black Artists this Pride Month. And watch this space for future pop-up events in the city!
A Month in Review
Had to catch an event with the girlie, Temple!! We went to some exhibition opening at PAFA, where we were more entertained with giggling and taking selfies than listening to the drawn out speeches about the art!
Girls Just Wanna See The Art! I accepted an offer from St. Joseph’s University as a Research Assistant for the Marvin Samson Museum for the History of Pharmacy! In this position, I will be doing more work in the archives, like cataloging and curating exhibitions. This is what I’ve been working toward for months, and it’s so satisfying to see the outcomes!!!!
The Open Source Afro Hair Library(OSAHL) awarded me an honorarium to develop and propose research in collaboration with their project. OSAHL initially began as a free database for 3D and 2D models with textured hair. It is now a platform created by Black artists around the world and across disciplines. The University of California, Santa Cruz facilitates the month-long proposal development program and OSAHL. I’m thrilled to be part of this project and look forward to sharing my results in the June newsletter!
On Repeat
Dude, May speeeed by like so fast. I tried to hold on to memories of my trip to Los Angeles for as long as I could. But it was halfway through the month, and I was still bumping Bon Iver’s April release daily.
It felt overwhelming to listen to anything different for a while, then I fell into a very eclectic mix of old Alicia Keys, Labi Siffre, and Karol G. And I HAVE to applaud Moses Sumney and Haley Williams for making such a beautiful and seductive record. Truly, had no idea of what I could expect, and literally I couldn’t get enough of it this month!
The Community Corner
The Community Corner is a space to uplift community members, events, and resources.
This month’s shoutouts go to:
Dyke+ Art Haus is an intergenerational community-driven space and home in West Philadelphia. Juno Rosenhaus expands her art practice by hosting and facilitating exhibitions, residencies, salons, and more in the three-story row home. Rosenhaus even invites travelers and friends to, “stay at the Haus for one night free or a few more for a low negotiable amount.” Uni and I took a trip to see the exhibition, Z-CODED: Painting Whilte Trans and Incarcerated: The Work of Kal-El Carey by Kal-El Carey. The artwork left me speechless. Please support Carey’s work and livelihood by donating to his PayPal.
I took a day trip to NYC to meet up with Maya and attend Black Food Rising together in Brooklyn! It was a Black-led event focused on supporting and celebrating the cultural legacy of Black cooperatives and food in Central Brooklyn. A time was had! We visited the Black & Cooperative Marketplace and learned about Central Brooklyn Food Co-op, Brooklyn Packers, and more! We watched the documentary The Sun Rises in the East, about a Black Cooperative network in Central Brooklyn founded in 1969. I made new friends, had a delicious community meal, celebrated my first Haitian Flag Day, and enjoyed a day surrounded by Black joy. Please support Central Brooklyn Food Co-op and its community members in raising $40,000 on GoFundMe.
A Little Housekeeping
If you made it this far, thank you deeply for reading this month’s Progress Reports!
So, I wrote the essay, “Confessions of a Court Jester,” for this month’s newsletter…but I’m thinking of publishing my cultural essays separately. In my opinion, it will enhance the quality of this column because I will be able to give more attention to each. The change will also drastically reduce the length of Progress Reports.
What do you think? Fill out the poll below, please!
Until next month
Xoxo,
Richelle
Congrats on the new job! Great to see you on Substack.