We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Patricia Andrews-Keenan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Patricia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
“Where you talents and the needs of the world cross: there lies your vocation,” Aristotle
What I realise now is that I had all the tools and skills I needed to start Pigment International perhaps ten years before our 2018 founding, what I had not discovered was the need for a Black run platform that was elevating Black art. Once I identified that need we began to make strides.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
At Pigment International we tell stories! Pigment International is a Black female led multi-media art platform founded in 2018 for Black art enthusiasts. Our vision is to educate, advocate and advance stories of the Black art ecosystem by engaging with Black writers to craft stories about artists, collectors, curators, gallerists, institutions and others. We are the publishers of the award-winning Pigment Magazine and the founders of Black Fine Art Month. Black Fine Art Month (BFAM). BFAM is a global celebration of the Black Art aesthetic, an annual recognition of artists, innovators, collectors, curators and those vested in the Black Art tradition, and an opportunity to commemorate these contributions through art programming.
We produce the following:
Pigment Newsletter – A digital newsletter sent monthly via Constant Contact. This newsletter reaches over 10K people with original content, art news and aggregated cultural content.
ART – This pageable digital newsletter was launched in April 2021 and features original stories about Black artists across the country.
Pigment Magazine – This award-winning, printed glossy, oversized magazine is Pigment International™ flagship publication currently produced once a year.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
What is most rewarding is seeing how Black creatives evolve and create new forms of art that build on what was done before. Black artists are never stagnant rather they chart new paths that lead us to new ways of looking at the world. They use their art to fight injustice and they are never satisfied with the status quo.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
At Pigment International we tell stories. Our mission is to call attention to the work Black artists are doing and document it for posterity.
We believe all of Black art is part of a continuum with each new generation linked to the previous one. We want to call attention to the work of past artists and creatives and how what they did allows today’s creatives to flourish.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://pigmentintl
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pigmentintl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PigmentIntl/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pandrewskeenan1/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHkRcrVfLFfbqg3OLTYB-tQ
Image Credits
Photo credit to Saint the Good Boy