"TRENDSETTER"
You have just come across, not by accident, one of the premier artists of the "Golden Age of African American Art." Kathleen A. Wilson is one of the trendsetting artists of the 1980s and 1990s, who was self-validating by creating, publishing, distributing, and marketing her career and destiny. She, among others, was the dynamic force who fostered a multi-million-dollar African American global art market. She leaped past the gatekeepers of the elite handlers of a few noble African American Artists to make her art available and affordable to the “beloved community." Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned the Beloved Community as a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love of one’s fellow human beings. In this Spirit, “Art of the Spirit” was birthed through her life-long creative career. This year we celebrate thirty-five years in business.
It was 1984, the perfect timing for the opportunity to engage the printing industry during a time of technological growth. It was a golden age of cultural awareness which only the arts could usher in with a vision of ourselves in life, on our walls, in our hearts as a beautiful people. She made culturally edifying statements to uplift the nation and the nation embraced her art. Of all the artists, Ms. Wilson’s body of works give visual voice to her African Heritage. She explores sacred memory, expands her faith in God with her gift, honors our ancestors, and fulfills her desire to connect heart to heart and spirit to spirit. The experience is wordless, wholehearted, timeless.
Notable collectors include Debbie Allen, Cicely Tyson, Coretta Scott King, Steve Wonder, Stu Lantz, and thousands more in the “beloved community” in spaces across America. Notable Awards: American Library Association Coretta Scott King Award for best children’s book illustration, African Studies Association, best children’s book Award, Awarded Commission: Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Charlotte, NC sixty-foot faceted glass façade, education literature publishers around the world, South African Embassy. Motion Pictures: White Men Can't Jump, This Christmas, Snow Dogs to name a few.
