We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Roc. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Roc below.

Alright, Roc thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I’m very proud of all the programming our collective is doing. I have to admit though, my favorite project we host is the Queens Rise Art Walk which is basically an art gallery that showcases local women artists on a first-come, first-serve basis. I love seeing all the unique pieces the women create and all the love and energy that goes into the work. Even more importantly, it makes my heart happy to see women and especially women of color have a platform to share their work and be celebrated. It’s nothing but love there and I love it for the artists and us as the collective, it feels so good.

Roc, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Our organization is called the Black Girl Brown Girl Collective, we aim to celebrate and create platforms for all women to share their art through organizing educational, cultural and arts events and providing other arts-related social opportunities. Our vision is to create a community space in South Phoenix where all women feel safe and welcome to engage in free or highly discounted, cultural, arts and educational events. We recently have been able to put our vision into practice as we acquired a small venue that we call, herP.L.A.C.E. (Pouring Love into Arts. Crafts. Events) where we host our events as well as others. In the future, we hope to have a larger-scale venue to offer arts to the South Phoenix community. Some of our programming we envision offering includes HER Voice which is an open mic for women expressionism, Queens Rise which is an art gallery that showcases local women and HERarts n Crafts which are free art classes for women.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I personally think a good way to support artists and creatives is to offer more opportunities for them to generate income through their work whether that be through residencies, pop-ups, grant opportunities, speaker engagements, shows, commissions or networking. Thankfully there are organizations that value the arts and are providing these opportunities but certainly, more can be done in Arizona. We are trying to play our part as an organization as well, figuring out how to incorporate artists more in what we’re doing and ways to compensate them. I think another option if there are monetary concerns is simply sharing an artist’s work on social media or with a friend, you never know what that can turn into.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

For our organization, the goal is to offer arts programming to women, that is the drive behind our projects and programming. There is something about bringing women together, that’s just magic! During events, we see women making friends, helping one another, complementing one another, sharing their thoughts/opinions and we hope in a comfortable and safe way. There are not always spaces where we can do that and also be surrounded by the arts and what we are attempting to build and the potential that we know it can have, is the driving force.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bgbgcollective.square.site/
• Instagram: @bgbcollective
• Facebook: @bgbcollective

Image Credits
Lezly Sandoval Adi Lizarraga Angie Bautista Chavez