Jessica Lynne, Brooklyn-based art critic, co-creator and editor of Arts.Black talks about:
Her home neighborhood of Crown Heights, which has an interesting history of race tensions and more recently of gentrification, both of which she's aware of, and in her specific section which has many older residents – including those born-and-raised in Crown Heights – she's always saying 'hello' to her neighbors, and how her Southern roots (she's from Virginia) prepared her to be both respectful of her neighbors and take pride in her neighborhood; her coming into being as an 'art critic,' embracing the challenge of filling the void of black art critics initially by latching onto bell hooks as a model, and then by establishing her art journal Arts.Black, which she co-created with friend Taylor Renee Aldridge; how she started having so much more fun on the internet by taking advantage of its open-source nature, transitioning from lurking around certain peers she admired to becoming collaborators and even intimate friends with some of them, a route of connection that social media is now routinely providing; her extremely close friendship with her Arts.Black partner Taylor Renee Aldridge, despite Aldridge living in Detroit, and the way they maintain an intimate connection despite the distance through multiple communication platforms (Lynne's favorite emoji is the eye roll); the Black Art Incubator project, which she co-organized with Aldridge along with Jessica Bell Brown and Kimberly Drew, and which took place at Recess Arts in SoHo during July and August of '16, it offered several invaluable workshops (including 'Art + Money') and was free and open to the public; and ways that Lynne and Aldridge are working on various ways to bring Arts.Black some income, including Patreon (they're also currently among the finalists of Knight Arts Challenge Detroit).