ANGEL'S DESTINY: A Novel Story of Poems & Illustrations by April Martin Chartrand

‘ANGEL'S DESTINY: A Novel Story of Poems & Illustrations’ by April Martin Chartrand

‘ANGEL'S DESTINY: A Novel Story of Poems & Illustrations’ by writer/artist April Martin Chartrand

Similar to novel style chapters, each advances you from one stage of life’s emotions to another. This collection of poems & illustrations mimics a novel in an unexpected way – similarly, it tells an emotional plot of a character which interweaves the four emotion elements Illusions, Anger, Awareness, Love - progressing forward towards a healing resolve. Each emotional character takes the reader through a progressive journey of a multi-cultural woman’s self-discovery . . . far away from adversity.

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Aug. 30 – Oct. 2, 2018

The Black Woman is God exhibition presents A Sacred Beautiful Natural Heritage Hair: An African Diasporan Photo Exposé

San Francisco Human Rights Commission* | 25 Van Ness Ave., 8th Floor, SF, CA

Mon. - Fri. | 9am -12noon— 1pm-4pm | Cost: Free and open to the public www.FaceBook.com/groups/ASacredBeautiful

FEATURING

KaliMa AmiLak & Nye’ Lyn Tho, Photographers
Egyptsia Mcgillvery, Natural Hair Practitioner Collaborator
April Martin Chartrand, M.S., Curator & Researcher

*Satellite location for ‘The Black Woman is GOD: The Assembly of GODS’ art exhibition Grand Reception: Thurs., Aug. 30, 2018 | Time: 6pm-10pm– SOMARTS | 934 Brannan St. | San Francisco, CA | www.somarts.org www.theblackwomanisgod.com

Curator’s Statement

The three principal zeitgeist artists of A Sacred Beautiful - Natural Heritage Hair: An African Diasporan Photo Exposé – KaliMa Amilak, Nye’ Lyn Tho, and Egyptsia Mcgillvery establish themselves as cultural zeitgeist spirits; by using the novel visual language of the natural hair movement cultural iconoclasts. Furthermore, these creative hair iconoclasts create paradigm shifts in consciousness, embody keen sensibilities, and usher in the acceptability of presenting diverse ways of being, through their prolific visual aesthetic lens. Creating exquisite Diasporan textural imagery, AmiLak and Lyn, aspirational photographers, and Mcgillvery, Natural Hair Movement designers embodying Ma’atian cultural consciousness, and are paradigm shape-shifters. In essence, these new-day shape-shifters embrace visionary sensibilities, and illuminate the acceptability of presenting diverse ways of existing in the world. Finally, the underlying inspiration for A Sacred Beautiful exhibition was inspired by curatorial research of the "reclamation of our hair-itage," the global African Diasporan Natural Hair Movement - birthed in the 20thcentury, and to bring attention to the dreadful Louisianan 1786 Tignon Law.

The 1786 Tignon Law, a “sumptuary law was enacted under Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró,” which prohibited African woman (e.g. 1-Drop Rule = Mulatto, Mustee, Quad/Octo/Quint-roon, and Zambo) from wearing their natural hair in public. This, shame-filled law, further codified that Diasporan textured hair was to be ‘policed’ or ‘othered’ in perpetuity (e.g. Micro/Macro-aggressions) in America and globally. What was the reason for legalized hair-policing of African textured hair? According to researcher Callendar (2018), the following historical analysis is offered:

…creole, mulatto, and women of African [Diasporan] descent would adorn their textured hair with gems, beads, and other accents that made them stand out from white women, these laws were designed to regulate our hair. …it is believed that white men [were] attracted to the exotic looks of women of color, which enraged white women.

True to form, innovative African Diasporan women found ways to circumvent these laws, by elaborately adorning their Tignons with cultural beads, luxurious fabrics, fancy hats, and ribbons – making wearing Tignons a major fashion trend and a culturally defining image that is fashioned in 2018 (e.g. AFROPUNK©). Finally, AmiLak, Tho, and Mcgillvery’s design aesthetics and their prolific interpretation of Diasporan natural hair textures illuminate special temporal coifed reconfigurations; they create a broad-spectrum of hair textures that range from the wavy 2A, an S-pattern to the tightly coiled 4C, a Z-pattern.

AmiLak, Lyn, and Mcgillvery respond to the African Diasporan ‘ancestral calls’ in order to manifest exquisite and iconoclastic textural photographic visual language, in the 21st century. Thus, we are delighted that these eighteen visually superb and extraordinary photographic examples of A Sacred Beautiful join the ranks of the African Disaporan Natural Hair Movement’s zeitgeist-makers.

Sponsor: San Francisco Human Rights Commission

Creator: The Black Woman Is God

Presenter: SOMARTS

In-Kind

April Martin Chartrand, M.S.
Egyptsia Mcgillvery
FLAX Art & Design
Trader Joe's

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#TBWIG #ASacredBeautiful #KaliMaAmilak #Nye’LynTho #EgyptsiaMcgillvery

#AprilMartinChartrand,M.S.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

APRIL MARTIN CHARTRAND'S, M. S. articles and poems have been published in the Bay Area Reporter, Oakland Tribune, and Family Violence Prevention Fund’s - Think How Your Life Would Have Been Different If Someone Had Helped You. She is the author/illustrator of Angel's Destiny: A Novel Story of Poems & Illustrations which was reviewed in the "Midwest Book Review" in 2010.

She has been featured on KQED Radio’s Forum, KPOO Radio, KTVU TV 10:00 p.m. News, KRON Bay Area Back Roads and KTVU TV Bay Area People.

Chartrand is a national award-winning fiberalchemist. Her art work is displayed in the Atlanta Life Insurance Company’s private collection. July 1, 1997 was April Martin Chartrand Day an honorary Proclamation issued by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Lewis Brown Jr.

The City and County Commission on the Status of Women awarded Chartrand with the 1998 Isabelle Cerna Award, San Francisco Board of Supervisors Certificate of Honor (two presented 1998/2001), and a San Francisco Public Library Unsung Hero Award presented by Supervisor Sophie Maxwell in 2001.

Chartrand optained her M.S. Degree in 2017 in Counseling and holds a B.A. in Creative Arts (Center for the Experimental Interdisciplinary Arts) from San Francisco State University.

*E-Mail: angelsdestiny2009 (@) gmail (dot)com

CONTENTS N THIS BLOG IS COPYRIGHT by APRIL MARTIN CHARTRAND, M.S. All Rights Reserved 2009 - San Francisco, CA.
No content can be copied and pasted into other mediums without permissions from the Author.

INTRODUCTION by IMANI HARRINGTON (ANGEL'S DESTINY)

One main factor that binds one in an abusive relationship is relative to how one views herself and it is through self awareness that we are able to break through our silence. Here in ‘Angel’s Destiny’, we find the inner working thoughts as a meditation on love and hate. A yin and yang of human behavior caught between mysticism, metaphysics and the principles of what the Gods, Goddesses, Angels and the Saints of Our Muse offers us when one uses their voice and pen as a weapon against violence. In its illustrations we find signs and symbols of transformative powers of the cosmos.

Ensconced in April Martin Chartrand’s destiny we find a rare gem of a novel story of poetry that digs deep into the inner core of the soul, manifesting a deep reflection on the nature of violence. She calls on the greatest sages of our times: Thich Nhat Hanh, Dalai Lama, and even contemporaries as Louise Hay, Ruth King, Eckhart Tollie and Iyanla Vanzant all of whose philosophical underpinnings are sprinkled throughout this book and tells the tale of tension and conflict as an arc of violence and creates a spectacle with a cast of characters as told through emotions. What’s key to unlocking this compendium of poetry is when the door opens on the prisoners of violence, we witness the heroic act of breaking free from ones executioner. This spiritual consciousness is verisimilitude at its best, and it offers us psychological medicine.

The poems are richly crafted in rhyme and meter and some told in the style of epigrams and others in longer stanzas that demonstrate through irony, sarcasm and wit, the illusions of anger, the attention of awareness and the offering of love where we find the archetype role each of us plays out in our own drama. Deception that hides behind violence unveils the lie of the mind and the maddening silence that traps the soul of its victims as prey. But Chartrand awakens the souls of the dead and shows us how parts of ones self lost and is now found in the arms of an Angel.

Through poems like ‘Angel’s Destiny’ we find sheer power and in My River Iguazu there is a self-crafted identity Goddess Siddhu that illuminates and offers inner strength and the value and strength of finding the goddess in ourselves. Chartrand tells her readers that To Be a Poetess is akin to being a priestess and after having been at war she comes out of battle brandishing her shield of honor and courage as redemption. This act of poetry is an allegorical spin of moral lessons for all of us. In the last section, the most visual and reflective, she say’s “I’ve been sent here to tell you my overdue story of redemption and salvation in a world of symbolism syntax and pretext.” This is a great read and metaphor reflecting historical and contemporary slavery that will reach a wide audience where we hear the cries of cultural violence and its echoes for which we have all experienced. I commend and congratulate Ms. Chartrand on her courage and character that speaks the truth about the unwavering human condition.

~Imani Harrington, writer and playwright - October 7, 2009