Rooted in Color: Conference offers advice for collecting African-American Art

"In Memory of Mary Turner" by Tiffany LaTrice. / Photo from the artist
"In Memory of Mary Turner" by Tiffany LaTrice. / Photo from the artist

If you go

› What: Rooted in Color: A Conference on Collecting African-American Art› When: 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 30› Where: The Edney Building, 1100 Market St.› Cost: $10 suggested donation› Phone: 423-991-4198› Online: www.risecha.org

The founder of an Atlanta arts incubator whose work to promote female artists of color has drawn the attention of national media outlets will be the keynote speaker for an arts conference Saturday in Chattanooga.

Tiffany LaTrice, founder and executive director of Tila Studios, will offer her expertise at Rooted in Color: A Conference on Collecting African-American Art, presented by Rise (formerly Jazzanooga).

photo Tiffany Latrice / Photo from the artist

This will be a homecoming for LaTrice, 30, who grew up in Chattanooga and graduated from Baylor School in 2007. She says she has felt a passion for art since childhood, encouraged by a contest win in first grade and inspired by forebears who "could create with their hands." Her family, however, encouraged her intellectual gifts.

"While I do come from a family of creatives ... I was pushed toward an academic route," she says.

She earned a degree in international relations with a concentration in gender, culture and global society from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a master's in women's history from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

She was working for media conglomerate NBCUniversal in New York City, rubbing shoulders with such notables as Jimmy Fallon, the "Saturday Night Live" cast and news anchor Brian Williams, when she realized that her career was thriving but her creativity was stalled.

"Everyone would think that I had made it, but I was super-depressed," she recalls.

photo "Black Love Is Black Excellence" by Tiffany LaTrice. / Photo from the artist

So she quit her job, loaded up a U-Haul and relocated to Georgia, where she spent the next eight months painting. Galleries weren't initially interested in her output, but she was selling works online for $1,000 and up, convincing her she might have a viable future in art.

"I started the studio primarily because I needed space to create. It was for my own personal need," she says.

But she was also interested in widening the circle of opportunity for other women of color, using her gallery rejections as motivation.

"I knew that wasn't only my experience but other black women's experience," she says. "I kept thinking how can I remove that barrier."

Thus Tila became a place "that was ours to create and thrive in and exhibit our work," she explains. "You can't ignore us. We're here, and we're present. You've been exposed to us."

Her enterprising efforts earned her the notice of The New York Times, Forbes and The Huffington Post.

"Removing those barriers to entry for these marginalized artists kind of brought Tila to life," LaTrice says. "It has been built and sustained by women of color."

James McKissic, a conference organizer, says Rooted in Color has several objectives. It is designed "to grow the number of Chattanoogans who are passionate about collecting and preserving African-American visual art and culture; to connect people to artists and galleries; and to create a local culture of collectors."

photo Tiffany LaTrice with one of her paintings on display. / Photo from the artist

Other featured speakers include Birmingham, Alabama, collectors Norm and Carnetta Davis; Nashville collector Lamar Wilson; Nandini Makrandi, chief curator of the Hunter Museum of American Art; and Reginald Moore, a Chattanooga collector with an extensive collection of African-American works on paper and other ephemera.

LaTrice says her keynote presentation will touch on strategies that benefit collectors and artists, much of it based on lessons learned at Tila. She'll focus on how to empower and support early- to mid-career artists and how individuals can become early-stage patrons and collectors. She'll also explain how to determine the value of art and the mathematics behind it, where to find emerging artists and how to make collecting affordable and sustainable for any budget.

Most of all, she says, she hopes to convey "a message of the joy that comes from collecting art, the stories that come along with it and the people you get to bring along on the journey."

Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281.

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