The Sacred Tzolk'in of the Maya: Yellow Solar Seed/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 8

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Yellow Solar Seed/ Lunar Scorpion Moon of Challenge, Day 8

9 Kan

Yellow Solar Seed

Clouds float by

In grand Procession –

Billowing, pillowing

Wisps of white –

Stately Fortresses of Mist

Kissing a blue Sky

Shape-shifters all –

Turning Light to Shadow

Eclipsing both Sun and Moon –

Silently they pass en masse

Carrying Hope to Heaven.

©Kleomichele Leeds

Three Placards, Photograph by Marilyn Nance, 1986

Marilyn Nance (aka Soulsista) (b. 1953) is an African-American artist whose interest is in technology, exploring human connections, and spirituality. Her photographs have been published in Life, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Essence, and New York Newsday.

Early life and education

Nance was born in New York on 12 November 1953, and grew up in Brooklyn. Her mother was a factory worker and her father was an elevator operator. Nance attended New York University (1971-1972), studying journalism, before gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in communications and graphic design from Pratt Institute (1972-1976) and a Masters of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, (1996) as well as graduating from ITP, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (1998).

Work

Nance began taking photographs as a child but declared herself a photographer after having worked in the photo studio of Pratt Institute's Office of Public Relations under the direction of Alan Newman. After the studio closed in 1974, she began freelancing for The Village Voice.

In 1977, she served as the official photographer for the North American Zone of FESTAC 77 Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, a Panafrican international festival held in Lagos, Nigeria. Over the course of the month-long event she amassed 1500 images, representing the most complete photographic archives of this major event.

A two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography (1991 and 1993) for her body of work on African American spirituality, she was awarded three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, for photography (1989, 2000) and non-fiction literature (1993). Nance served as an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in New York City from 1993-1994, Her work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's Preservation of the Black Religious Heritage Project. Nance gave a lecture on her work to the Library of Congress in 2004.

In 1995, Nance became a digital pioneer, developing her soulsista.com website, and in 1996 serving as one of the first internet DJ's. In 1997, she developed a digital project prototyping Ifa divination, and in 1999 she curated a digital project for the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, putting online more than 500 images of nineteenth-century African Americans. Nance went on to become a Technology Specialist in the New York City public school system, helping teachers and their students use technology as a tool for lifelong learning.

In 2017, Nance attended ITP Camp, a 4-week crash course/playground where makers, artists, musicians, artists of all sorts come to create, hear speakers on the cutting edge, and collaborate with people from diverse disciplines. She is a two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography.*

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Nance