In 1991, ceramic artist and professor Bobby Scroggins was frustrated by the lack of access and recognition for artists and craftspeople of color, particularly Black artists. At the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference, he sought out Black and Brown faces in the crowd and organized informal chats, inviting peers and colleagues to form a cohort. Conceived with a mission to promote the careers of ceramic artists of color, share information, and facilitate opportunities across the U.S., The Color Network was born.

In the early 2000s, Scroggins passed the baton to Chicago-based artist Paul Andrew Wandless, who transformed the project into an exhibition platform and website called Cultural Visions, which continued until 2014. Then, in 2018, a conversation at the same annual NCECA conference prompted Natalia Arbelaez and April D. Felipe to initiate a new organization named The Color Network in homage to Scroggins’s original idea.

Comprising a substantial database of artists, a mentorship program, micro-grants, community discussions, exhibitions, and residencies, The Color Network’s core aim is to advance people of color in the ceramic arts. Currently led by five co-organizers including Arbelaez, Felipe, Magdolene Dykstra, Corrin Grooms, and George Rodriguez, the group assists artists in developing their work, networking, and creating dialogue as a way to foster community and provide support for those working at all professional stages and skill levels.

Colossal editor Kate Mothes spoke with Arbelaez, Dykstra, and Rodriguez about the significance of access to the arts for people of color and education for their allies, the power of peer mentorship and sharing resources, and ideas for the future.

This conversation was conducted via Zoom in September 2023 and has been edited and condensed for clarity.

---

Kate Mothes: How did the three of you get involved with The Color Network, and how long have you been a part of it?

Magdolene Dykstra: I first got involved with The Color Network as part of their mentorship program, as a mentee. Natalia was my mentor at that time, and that started in 2018. I had just finished grad school and was looking to find a new community after leaving that previous community. And then, in 2021, I was invited to jump on as a co-organizer and help organize different opportunities through The Color Network.

Natalia Arbelaez: I got involved in 2018 as part of this iteration of The Color Network. A few of us got together, and we got the namesake from Bobby Scroggins. I was part of the first group of organizers to start using more of the web-based organization and meeting and mentorship.

George Rodriguez: I did a little bit of jurying for The Color Network. Then I came on as a mentor in 2020 and officially joined the co-organizing team earlier in 2023.

Kate: I read that the initial history of the organization goes back to 1991 when artist Bobby Scroggins began a project by the same name. In its current guise, 2018 was a big year of redefining and reorganizing, and I’m curious how that came about. How did it change gears when a new group of people became involved?

Natalia: Yeah, it was a whole new group of people. I applied to run a topical network discussion with a few other individuals at NCECA, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. I approached the community and asked, how can we organize? And what is important to you to see from the community, for artists of color?

Bobby Scroggins came to our talk but also pulled us to the side later and was like, well, we used to do this and this. So, after that, coming together and realizing that this work has been done for a long time—it’s nothing new—we asked Bobby if we could take on the namesake and continue the work, where a completely different group is honoring and continuing the work of elders in our community to help us be present, visible, and empowered.

Kate: Did you view the project initially as primarily a database, or were mentorship opportunities there to begin with? What were the anchors in the beginning?

Natalia: Yeah, I think the database was the first thing. Artaxis is a really great organization that was already kind of doing that. It was a great foundation to look at, and they were always willing to answer any questions and kind of be a mentor to this version of The Color Network. So we looked at their structure and made a database for other people who are looking for artists of color or other artists of color looking for each other.

The mentorship program was always really important from the beginning. That developed from a few of us not having that in our own community, feeling isolated, or not having a natural mentor. So it was important pairing people with a mentor, with someone that you’re allowed to ask questions, and you’re allowed to initiate that conversation and not feel like you’re a burden on someone for just asking random questions.

(As a mentor), you get to know other artists as people, what their goals are, and have a conversation about how we become better stewards in the world through our artwork.

George Rodriguez

Kate: Magdolene, you mentioned that you were initially a mentee and then a mentor and that there was a post-university aspect of community that you wanted to continue or find again in a different way. I’m curious what that transition was like, being first on one side of that relationship and then the other, and how that developed for you.

Magdolene: When we’re talking to mentees and mentors, and trying to recruit more mentors, this comes up a lot. Even if you’re serving as a mentor, you’re not necessarily an expert in all things. During my mentorship with Natalia, I started to realize that my feet were getting a little bit more firmly under me, and I started to understand that I have some things to offer. So, it’s a gradual transition; I’m still planting my feet. They could be firmer, but hopefully, that is always present. Hopefully, there’s always that sort of light-footedness in terms of looking for growth and understanding; there’s always room to grow.

I started to understand that I had my feet under me enough to be able to at least listen and be present with someone else. Not to have all the answers, but to at least be someone who could share space with a mentee and help them make connections to people who could answer questions I couldn’t. That’s how I decided that I was ready to give back in that way.

Kate: George, you mentioned that over the past few years, you’ve done mentorship and also been involved in a jurying capacity. Does The Color Network provide exhibitions, opportunities, or connections that you find particularly interesting or meaningful?

George: Yeah, so to speak on the process, I’ve applied to many, many things in my life as an artist. Sometimes it’s unknown how you get chosen to be in an exhibition or are selected for a grant. I think that to be on the other end, where I’m actually jurying a large assortment of applications, to narrow it down to just a couple of grantees… It was good to be in that perspective of having to sift through all of these different people. And I would say that all of them are qualified in some capacity, but we still have to narrow it down. It’s a really enlightening process to be able to witness.

In the mentorship capacity, to echo Magdolene a little bit, I’ve taught formally at different institutions, but to get a one-on-one conversation with a mentee is just more valuable. It’s more personal. You don’t just talk about academia or their work or their process. You get to know other artists as people, what their goals are, and have a conversation about how we become better stewards in the world through our artwork, which is really great.

Kate: There’s a certain language involved with academia and scholarship, whereas mentorship can be so much more about relationship-building over longer periods. In your involvement with The Color Network as a mentee or mentor, how has it impacted your own artistic practice?

George: There’s such a wide breadth of artists involved with The Color Network, and there’s a really lovely page on the website where all of these artists can showcase their work. Just looking through to see who’s on there, you begin building some relationships. Then, the first time that I had the opportunity to see a TCN grouping in person was really striking. You can feel the intention and power of the work, which just made me question like, okay, well, if I want to be in this grouping, how am I putting in my intention? So it didn’t change the concepts, but it increased the intention that I was putting into creating my own work.

Magdolene: That’s really well put, George. For me, too, my work continues to follow its own path. I don’t think it’s coincidental that, in my work, I’m thinking about relationships and finding ways to visualize that. A lot of the work we do with The Color Network is about building and fostering relationships. So it’s a sort of echoing or reverberation, between my work and the work we do through The Color Network.

Kate: Do you actively tie artists in the database and the mentorship program to exhibitions within the network?

Magdolene: We’ve been trying with exhibitions to turn those into opportunities and not limit it to just the folks who are in the network, to really expand and allow more opportunities for folks who might not be on the database yet. A really exciting component of the database is that educators and curators are looking at it. Educators and curators are well aware of needing to question the models they’ve been following and decenter previously prioritized groups. For me, as an educator, that’s the most exciting aspect of the database: there is no longer any excuse for any educator to say that they just don’t know any artists of color.

Natalia: I think that’s my favorite part when K-12 teachers send us their projects and share how excited the students are to be using the database. And how the database is really for everyone and anyone, not just for artists of color. I also think that, now that people are recognizing TCN, we can just put out open calls to anyone.

George: Yeah, and I just wanted to add that our connections as organizers, individually, reach beyond what the database has. There’s always a lot more interest. And the upkeep of the database is slower than we’d like it to be, so we do reach beyond that and try to always incorporate more.

Kate: That’s a great point to make, Natalia, about the K-12 education because the art world at large isn’t necessarily thinking about how they’re reaching, you know, 16-year-olds. It seems like you’re building elements that appeal to different groups of people depending on what their entry point is.

Magdolene: I think that accessibility to K-12 educators is actually incredibly important because the majority of those students aren’t going on to art school. So what does that mean? Only if you go to art school do you learn about artists of color? That’s not right. K-12 education is an important way to get more young people talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and what that can look like in visual arts and beyond.

Kate: There are so many variables, based on geography, economic background, what size school you went to, what your teachers even have been exposed to throughout their lives. Think about how much that early art education enriches how students view the entire world.

Magdolene: It’s massive. I mean, arts education, whether it’s K-12 or it’s post-secondary, like what are we really teaching? Yeah, we’re teaching art, but art is a vehicle for learning how to be a better human and a better co-traveler with all these other humans. Artists of color are doing incredible work that addresses these issues. There are beautiful prompts for student creativity, just by looking at the work being made today. You can start talking about incredibly crucial issues that are hard to get into otherwise. If you have an art object, whether it’s a piece of ceramic or painting or whatever, all of a sudden everyone can talk about this together.

Kate: Have you seen an increase in demand from artists or educators, seeking out this information as it has grown in the last few years?

Magdolene: From my experience, I would say yes. In the school board that I work with, there is still a really high need and a sense of not letting anyone off the hook in de-centering previously Eurocentric curricula but also acknowledging the capacity of each educator.

Every educator has a certain capacity that is stretched between a variety of responsibilities, and every educator also has a life where they’re navigating many factors. What I’m seeing in my role as a secondary educator is that my colleagues don’t always have the experience or even the capacity to do in-depth searches. The database offers educators a stepping stone to start this work, and I see that as really crucial. I’m seeing my colleagues hungry for it, and some are just a little bit lost until they can find a platform to start from.

Art is a vehicle for learning how to be a better human and a better co-traveler with all these other humans. Artists of color are doing incredible work that addresses these issues.

Magdolene Dykstra

Kate: TCN launched online in 2018, and then during the pandemic there was a wave where everyone went online out of necessity, to maintain connections and to keep working. Did that period change how the organization reaches people or what the response has been?

George: I think a big part of the 2018 formation—and even in 2017, right before that—it was about gathering in person, building community and camaraderie with one another, and exchanging ideas, like when you’ve had a similar lived experience or just have a perspective that you want to get some honest feedback on. It was all about gathering in 2018 and 2019. When we moved into an online platform, we tried to continue that through open studio sessions. We were able to figure out the technology and figure out, like, how can we still gather, but digitally?

We had these Open Studio Sessions where we could bring different ideas or just have conversations amongst each other. It’s imperfect, but it also opened up a lot of doors because we could do it more often, as opposed to those in-person gatherings, which tended to happen once a year.

Kate: The group offers something called affinity rooms. What are those?

Natalia: That is the Open Studio Session, and it’s still open. We provide a stipend for any artists of color who want to run a discussion. You can have up to three or four co-facilitators, and everyone receives a stipend just to guide a conversation.

The biggest feedback from the community is that they wanted more connection, more community events, and more ways to be able to connect with each other. A lot of us are spread throughout the United States and Canada, and a few of us are sometimes the only person of color in the surrounding area. A lot of spaces are predominantly white. So especially for a few artists that were living up in, for example, Alfred, New York, they were thirsty for conversations with the community. Doing these conversations or having community events online when we can’t get together in person, people can have a little bit of that. We’re always open to receiving applications to facilitate the Open Studio Conversations.

Kate: Can you tell me about TCN’s involvement with the Watershed Residency?

Magdolene: It’s a really good connection to make between the Open Studio Zoom gatherings and Watershed. I would say that both fall under a major pillar of our mission, which is to provide networking opportunities. Watershed goes a little further in terms of offering, rather than a quick network, a bit more of a sustained space and time for more in-depth dialogue and relationship-building. We’re still in relationship with Watershed, and we’ve been in talks around an upcoming project to try and keep that opportunity running.

Natalia: Yeah, it’s all grant-based. We will continue to try to make in-person residencies happen, and that’s just dependent on whether we receive funding. It’s a lot of work for some of these grants, but as long as we’re here, we’re going to continue to try to offer these in-person residencies for artists of color.

Kate: As you’ve been involved in various ways as part of the community, is there anything that you’ve been surprised by, something that happened that you didn’t anticipate, or anything that stuck with you over time?

Natalia: I would say the mentorship. I came into it as kind of the guinea pig with Magdolene, and I had graduated only a couple of years earlier than her from grad school, and I thought, what can I offer her? But having someone to talk to and becoming good friends through that program, it became peer mentorship. Even though I was the mentor, there were times she became the mentor. It’s a rich relationship, and we’ve worked on projects outside of The Color Network, which I think has been the most valuable experience for me.

George: I would also say the mentorship portion tied into the Watershed Residency because the residents at Watershed were mentees and mentors coming together. A lot of those relationships are digital; we’re online. My mentee was in Sacramento, and I’m in Philadelphia. Mostly we corresponded online, and that tends to happen a lot with our mentorship program, but we were able to gather a group of mentees and mentors at Watershed.

What was lovely is that, as soon as we all arrived, the hierarchy of the mentorship-mentee relationship kind of leveled out. Everybody was just there on even footing, and we were able to have really lovely conversations with each other. We came out of that and continued these really deep friendships with everybody. I think, because it was a residency and we were all in community, pretty constantly together, for two weeks, we were able to come out of that with a mentality of being able to rely on each other even more, which is lovely.

Magdolene: The surprise that came out of that, for me, was seeing a small group within the group of residents who were at Watershed carrying forward with friendship and professional relationships. They are taking control of the conversation. They gave an excellent panel presentation at NCECA this past year. It’s really exciting to see the power of mentorship, just having that connectedness and that network. Every person is a node connected to so many other nodes.

I think George absolutely hit it on the head: to just have this safe space where you can count on these people. And even if it’s as simple as, “Where are you going to stay for NCECA? How are you managing the logistics of this insane three-day sprint?” Even things like that are really beautiful to see.

Kate: That’s a great point, too, that no matter what region of the art world, so to speak, you might be in, it’s all about relationships. I love your idea of the nodes connecting to other nodes. Is there a goal or a mission that you’re working toward or projects that you’re in development for, like a focus on more in-person opportunities?

George: I think the focus right now is to apply for grants so that we can have that funding to create these larger opportunities. We do have a fiscal sponsorship with Watershed that allows us to continue some of the programs that we’ve been running. Micro-grants are ongoing for artists to get reimbursed for application fees. It’s a really small thing, but it’s something that we can provide pretty easily. But for larger-vision projects, we gather about once a month as co-organizers to discuss these ideas. Right now, we’re just trying to kind of steady the ship and figure out things like, how do we gain more funding to create these bigger opportunities?

Kate: Say there’s endless funding. Is there a dream opportunity? Is there a project that you would love to see within the next year or two, a dream goal? I know that’s a big question, like “endless funding,” what’s that?!

A lot of us are spread throughout the United States and Canada, and a few of us are sometimes the only person of color in the surrounding area. (They’re) thirsty for conversations with the community.

Natalia Arbelaez

Magdolene: If there’s no limit to the account, I mean… Something that’s on my radar at the moment is the Gardiner Museum in Toronto recently hosting a major exhibition of Magdalene Odundo’s work. I was talking with a friend who was previously my mentee, and we were talking about how amazing it would be for The Color Network to arrange some sort of event that interacts with that show, to celebrate these stars in our network. That’s been on my mind.

Natalia: We’d like to pay mentors because we know that that’s work. And to get more mentors—we’re always looking for more mentors. I think people don’t realize that somebody just out of grad school could be a mentor. Somebody in grad school could be a mentor. A lot of people have that imposter syndrome or feel that they don’t have anything to give. We’re doing this out of a labor of love, but if we had unlimited funds, yeah, we’d be paying people, recognizing that it is important work.

George: For me, I’m a lot about the party! I want people to come together and hang out with each other. And if we had unlimited funds, having an event somewhere central where people could gather. Maybe we could pay people’s way if they needed help and just financially be able to support folks to come together and be in community with each other for a week. It’s those in-person conversations that are really powerful.