Join us as Caldecott Honor Award and Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award-Winning illustrator Janelle Washington shares her artistic process.
Janelle Washington, 2023 recipient of the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator award, shares how her paper-cut style perfectly matches Angela Joy's words in Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
This program is generously supported by the DC Public Library Foundation.
For ASL interpreters and other reasonable accommodation requests, please contact DC Public Library Center for Accessibility via email DCPLaccess@dc.gov or call 202-727-2142.
Janelle Washington is a self-taught paper-cut and silhouette from Richmond, Virginia. She graduated from VCU with a BFA in Fashion Design and worked as a children's wear designer for 12 years. While designing, she found interest in paper cutting after being presented withan opportunity to display other artistic talents during a company show and tell presentation. Creating with paper proved to be quite an exciting concept, and after extensive research, she designed and made her first paper cut.
Through the simplicity of paper, Janelle creates images that showcase African Americans' courage, achievements, and grace in difficult situations. In addition, her work explores Black culture, history, identity, family, and feminine beauty themes.
She has commissioned silhouettes housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and art installations at the historic St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. In addition, Janelle's silhouettes have been published in the Oprah magazine, September 2020 issue for the #SayHerName campaign featuring Breonna Taylor. She was also interviewed and featured in the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper by the 2021 Pultizer Prize Winner, Michael Paul Williams. Janelle's first illustrated book, written by author Angela Joy, was released in September 2022 and has won numerous awards including: Randolph Caldecott Honor Award, Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Honor, The Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature, Younger Readers Category, Jane Addams Peace Award, Books for Younger Children, Orbis Pictus Honor Award, Flora Stieglitz Strauss Award for nonfiction, and Ezra Jack Keats Nomination.
Janelle is a member of The Guild of American Papercutters, Artist/Scholars of Color Collective, Art Impact USA, Inc., and Ikouii. Janelle currently lives and works in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband while enjoying reading sci-fi and fiction books from the library and researching new paper-cut ideas.
Photo credit to: Class & Style Productions
AGE GROUP: | Adults | 13 - 19 Years Old (Teens) |
EVENT TYPE: | Black History Month | Author Talk |
