CURRENT/UPCOMING
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There Are NO Black Shakers:
A Contemporary Folk Opera - A REPRISE - Thursday July 24, 2025, 7pm The Yard, Beacon, NY There Are NO Black Shakers has been awarded an Arts and Culture Projects Grant from Arts Mid-Hudson for a performance in Dutchess/Orange Counties. Written and directed by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak Dramaturgy by Gary Sunshine Musical Direction by Gwen Laster Music by Gwen Laster (violin), Damon Banks (bass), Patrick Jones (guitar/banjo) and Todd Isler (percussion) Starring: Aviva Jaye, Onome, Melvin Tunstall III There Are NO Black Shakers is a contemporary folk opera re-interpreting traditional Shaker hymns to tell the story of Prime Lane, a free Black man who joined the Shaker Society in Albany in 1802. Nine years later he renounced the faith, attempting to take his family with him. When his daughters Betty and Phebe elected to stay in the covenant as Shaker sisters, Prime sued the Shakers - not for custody of his daughters, but for theft of his property. His children having been born to a formerly enslaved woman whose freedom he bought, Prime could legally claim that the Shakers were holding his slaves. There Are NO Black Shakers gives voice to the silent history of the painfully gradual abolition of slavery of African Americans in New York State that, while resisted by many Abolitionist groups like the Shakers, remains invisible in the dominant historical narrative. |
Photo credit: Jackie Skrzynksi
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"Six of the First" is now part of the Newport Historical Society's Collection!
The Newport Historical Society (NHS) unveiled a powerful new exhibit: “A Name, A Voice, A Life: The Black Newporters of the 17th-19th Centuries.” Open Monday through Friday through November and free to the public in the NHS headquarters at the Richard I. Burnham Resource Center, the exhibit explores the experiences of Black Newporters whose stories were recovered as part of Voices from the NHS Archives, an expansive four-year research project. The exhibition also includes the outdoor sculpture “Six of the First,” a monument by artist Jean-Marc Superville Sovak that commemorates some of the earliest recorded Africans trafficked to the shores of Newport County in the mid-1700s thanks to research of public historian Peter Fay. The sculpture was generously donated to NHS by Tony and Tracy Weisman, having been produced for the Jamestown Arts Center 2022 Biennial Outdoor Arts Experience. The Newport Historical Society is located at: 82 Touro Street Newport, RI 02840 401-846-0813 
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From the Ground UP: Archive Launch
Hosted by: Ann Street Gallery 104 Ann Street, Newburgh, NY Since the beginning of what I imagined was possible with a project like From the Ground UP, I knew that the release of a publicly accessible, institutionally stable, and humanly-designed archive of my research around the potential of naming those “unnamed” who were laid to rest in Newburgh's "Colored Burial Ground" would be at the root of this project. In a way, it’s possible that everything that occurred during the events at ASG during my residency were in preparation for this moment... Special thanks to Alison McNulty, ASG Director and creative partner for the development and presentation of this project. From the Ground UP was made possible by funding from Humanites NY and Orange County Arts Council. |
RECENT PROJECTS:
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Arts-Mid Hudson EMPOWERING ARTIST AWARDEE
Arts Mid-Hudson is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2023 Empowered Artist Award, a prestigious recognition bestowed upon exceptional artists in Dutchess, Orange, and Ulster Counties. This annual award, created in honor of Linda Marston-Reid, the former executive director of Arts Mid-Hudson, provides unrestricted funds to support artists in pursuing their creative journeys. The Empowered Artist Award addresses the critical need for artists to access unrestricted funds that enable them to continue their artistic practice, elevate their careers, and enhance their visibility within their communities. These grants empower artists to create new works, acquire essential equipment, access educational opportunities, and meet their financial obligations. |
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From the Ground UP From the Ground UP, an investigative and experimental public art project which took place at Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, featured a site-specific participatory art exhibition and a series of roundtable discussions with invited historians, community activists and guest artists dedicated to the memorialization of African-American lives and deaths in Newburgh shortly after the Gradual Abolition of slavery in New York State. Ann Street Gallery 104 Ann Street, Newburgh, NY PLUS: Listen to iHeart Radio interview on Finding Out with Peter & Poet Gold |
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A Life in Bondage or Among Believers?
by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak in the Watervliet Shaker Journal The story of Black Shakers may come as a surprise (it was for me) but the story of Betty and Phebe Lane is exemplary of the life of many Black citizens of early 19th-century New York for whom "Gradual Emancipation" meant a transition to a different form of servitude. |
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One City, Two Schools:
Racial Politics of School Districting in Poughkeepsie - A PODCAST - An Arts-Mid Hudson Individual Artist Commission awarded to a new investigative podcast series dedicated to two overlapping historical narratives: 1) A late 19th century Black community’s many decade-attempt to desegregate public schools in Poughkeepsie, NY and 2) a mid-20th century suburban community’s successful attempt at openly defying the New York State Education Department to create a separate, functionally segregated school district in a mostly white sub-urban section within the township of Poughkeepsie known as Spackenkill. generously hosted by: BEACONITES! with production support from: Beacon AV Lab This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts-Mid Hudson. FIRST EPISODES COMING SOON! |
design - Josh McKible @MCKBILLO.COM
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a-Historical Landscapes @ Loeb
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College has recently acquired two "a-Historical Landscapes"; "Am I Not a Man?" and "Between Hell and Hell on Earth", currently on view in the museum's Hudson River School Collection, the collection of works acquired by Matthew Vassar in dating back to the museum's founding in 1864. |
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"Blauvelt Blues: Afro-Dutch Voices of Rockland County"
Rockland County Art in Public Places contract awarded for permanent outdoor public sculpture installation at Cropsey Community Farm in New City, NY Opening Spring 2023 |
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Thomas Pomplin Memorial
Public Sculpture commissioned by Piermont Fire Co. #13, Piermont, NY Thomas Pomplin (1826-1854), a Black man born one year before the conditional abolition of slavery in New York State was also the Piermont Fire Company's first Line of Duty Death (LODD) and was posthumously recognized for his sacrifice 168 years after the fire that ultimately consumed his life. I was commissioned by Chief Dan Goswick to create the sculpture of Thomas Pomplin, which is based on the only known photograph of Pomplin, pictured without a uniform. His recognition as a firefighter, a citizen and a hero is now recorded in Rockland County's Legislature and the monument to him stands proudly at Flywheel Park in Piermont for all to see. |
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Olana and the Color of Freedom
A discussion with Dr. Myra B. Young Armstead, Professor of Historical Studies at Bard College and author of Freedom's Gardener, considering how the timeline of Church’s site-specific masterpiece, Olana, runs concurrent to the experiences of men and women born into slavery in the Hudson Valley. |
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Press
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"Always Present, Never Seen"
by Editor Chip Rowe "a-Historical Landscapes" featured in Highlands Current article on Black history in the Hudson Highlands "Always Present, Never Seen" by Editor Chip Rowe. "The exclusion is reflected in recent artwork by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, who has a studio in Beacon. In a series of prints, a-Historical Landscape, he took idyllic 19th-century landscape engravings typical of the Hudson River School and inserted images from anti-slavery almanacs and abolitionist tracts of the same period. “What makes these works so American, I think, is not what is depicted but also what’s missing,” he says." |
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"7 Emerging Hudson Valley Artists to Watch"
by Carl Van Brunt "Black Artists in the Hudson Valley" A selection by Chronogram staff |
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Scenic Hudson's Hudson Valley Viewfinder
Scenic Hudson recently acquired the site of the former Empire brickyard, located in Stockport, NY and the source for many of my "Empire Brickwork." It is now the Charles Flood Wildlife Management Area at the Empire Brickyard. |
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Interviews
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sculpture
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prints
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video
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drawing
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