Joyce J Scott

Biography

"I make jewelry to be worn. And if it tells about scary, icky subjects, then so much the better for the person who has the cojones to wear it in public."

Joyce J. Scott was born in 1948, and according to a 1977 interview, spent her first few years in Illinois in a log cabin. She is the daughter of Charlie Scott Jr. and noted quilt maker Elizabeth Talford Scott. Her mother encouraged her creativity and Scott began drawing in elementary school in Baltimore, Maryland. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art (graduated 1970), and an Masters of Fine Arts from the Instituto Allende in Mexico. Later, Scott pursued further education at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine.

Scott's own mother was an artist who taught Scott appliqué quilting techniques and encouraged her to pursue her career as an artist. Scott is also influenced by craft traditions in her extended family of "quilters, woodworkers, basketweavers, chair caners, planters and blacksmiths," where people developed skills in more than one craft so that they could survive.

Scott's African influences are manifested in her use of intricate and elaborate decoration. According to scholar Leslie King-Hammond, African arts and tradition functioned to transform every day objects into beautiful decorations.

Scott's practice includes performance in addition to sculpture. Her unapologetically critical and humorous personality is often employed in her performances to critique issues such as feminism, sexism, and racism.

Scott's works are held by the Baltimore Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, the Mint Museum of Art, North Carolina, the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Images Concealed

In 1995 Scott responded to the Yale University for the Museum of African Art exhibition Face of the Gods: Art and Altar of Africa and African Americans with an installation titled Images Concealed at the San Francisco Art Institute. Curator Jean-Edith Weiffenbach noted that Scott, "challenged by that exhibition's revelations of the impact of African traditions on Western art, belief systems, and social customs [...] fashioned a reply that uses a contemporary hybrid of craft vocabularies from several cultures in an allegorical language that confronts stereotypes as well as issues of representation and perception."

Kickin' it With the Old Masters

Kickin' It with the Old Masters was an art exhibition held at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in January–May 2000 in collaboration with Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

exhibitions

Scott's exhibits include;

Select honors and awards

Below are a few selected awards, honors and fellowships Scott has received so far in her career:

Museum collections