By Canisha Bell
Have you ever walked or driven past a place numerous times only to discover it’s actually an amazing venue that you should’ve paid a visit to a long time ago?
For me that place, until recently, was the Mott-Warsh (MW) Gallery – despite my going by countless times with the fleeting thought of “I wonder what it’s like inside there.”
Opening its doors in 2016, the gallery in a former Internal Revenue Office on the corner of Court and Saginaw streets now hosts the Mott-Warsh Collection, “a private collection of fine art created by artists of the African diaspora and others who reflect on it” according to its website.
While personal interest had always been there, I never really had the push to visit the gallery until this year.
I’d seen Mott-Warsh Collection pieces around the city often. My church has a few MW pieces in our fellowship hall. I’d walked past the Risky Intentions stainless steel and rubber piece on the north visitor’s entrance path into Applewood Estates, and of course I’d admired the pieces on the walls of the Gloria Coles Flint Public Library.
But after my good friend mentioned her private tour of the MW Gallery with a group of colleagues, I decided to organize a similar outing for my work group.
As I reached out to the gallery, Michaela Mosher, the gallery manager, warmly welcomed me. She answered all of my questions and even offered to put together an agenda and theme for our visit.
“I approach every interaction with openness and curiosity,” she told me. “I endeavor to provide a friendly, safe and positive experience for all.”
Visiting the MW Gallery is an entirely uplifting and inspiring experience. Our private tour led by Mosher and Stephanie James, Director & Curator of MW Gallery, felt so personal and thoughtful.
The gallery had this inviting warmth that instantly made me feel comfortable. From the vase of fresh flowers on a display table at the entrance to the soft lighting that gently illuminates the carefully curated exhibits, I felt almost like I was in a beautifully adorned home rather than a traditional art museum.
“My aim is to create exhibits that will be visually stimulating, intriguing and thought provoking to people, whether they are longtime art enthusiasts or just beginning their exploration of the arts,” said James.
The exhibition we viewed was “Beyond the Physical World” featuring engaging, abstract paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, which will be up until Jan. 25, 2025.
Now I will admit, abstract is not my favorite form of art to view. I never understood abstract art, it just seemed so chaotic and random, and I always found it difficult to really grasp the concept. But James and Mosher eased us into engaging with the pieces using a modified version of a process called Visual Thinking Strategies or “VTS.”
“I would describe [VTS] as an educational methodology utilized to facilitate group discussions about artworks. Participants start building a narrative around the artwork… and ground their interpretation of the visual elements… in concrete evidence… this is achieved by answering the question, ‘What do you see that makes you say that?’” explained James.
There was one particular piece that really caught my attention – matte black on one side contrasted on the other with colorful strokes of purple, teal, blue, red and a crisp black that deliberately drips down the canvas, merging the colors and creating new hues and different gradients.
The artwork is by by Mary Lovelace O’Neal and entitled “Racism is Like Rain, Either it’s Raining or it’s Gathering Somewhere.” It left me in awe.
Mosher and James would propose the questions like “What do you see?” and “What do you see that makes you say that?” And through each discovery, I felt something different about the artwork. Each revelation would give me butterflies in my stomach or chills down my spine. Each time they proposed the question, I was able to view the artform from a new perspective.
I was able to gather concrete evidence from my own life, and the impacts of racism, the culture of racial superiority, greed and disconnect.
Yet each time the questions were proposed, I was able to shift my interpretation in a way that allowed me to continue to progress towards my own inner peace and nurturing of my soul.
That experience at MW Gallery changed my perspective so much that I started to wonder how I could apply that way of thinking not only to unfamiliar art forms but in other facets of my life:
How can I gain a new perspective going into the new year? How can I shift the narrative that I’m painting in my own mind of the next four years? Is it a matter of simply asking myself, “what do I see?” and acknowledging the chaos and uncertainty, the randomness of life?
I think so. So now I ask myself: what do I see that makes me say or think this? What can I see beyond the chaos and uncertainty?
Then I can ask myself again and again, noticing each time how my perspective shifts.
This article also appears in East Village Magazine’s December 2024 issue.
