A
Renaissance woman defined as a self-taught artist, writer, community activist and advocate of the arts, E. Joyce Moore, whose artistic name is JEMI, holds a passion for the arts since childhood.Her initial career choice was fashion
design.She pursued that dream, majoring
in Home Economics at AmbassadorUniversity in Texas.
"I took one cooking class because it was required.I attended both Ambassador and KilgoreCollege concurrently and full-time in my
junior year, so that I could take courses in Fashion Merchandising and still
get my degree.Although I took
twenty-four hours a semester, I had fun because I had a passion for what I was
pursuing."After college, her road
toward design took a detour, as family responsibilities took priority.While living in Chicago, Joyce worked toward
a Master of Arts degree in Advertising at NorthwesternUniversity,
but decided that it would not help achieve her creative and financial goals.
Joyce spent nineteen years in management
with AT&T where she developed her strategic, entrepreneurial and
developmental planning strengths, along with formal training in project
management.
In 1997, she combined her
corporate-honed business skills with her passion for the arts and education, to
found a grassroots organization supporting the education of and about artists
of color and African descent: the Alliance of African American Artists, Inc.In 1998 the Alliance
took its first major exhibition to Grand
Rapids, Michigan. In fall 1998, Joyce was the sole juror and
curator of the annual Ohio Art League Fall Exhibition of Art.From 2000 through 2004, the Alliance
was invited to participate in the National Black Fine Art Show in Manhattan, a show
previously hosted by such celebrities as Danny Glover, Susan Taylor, Leon
(Robinson) and others. As a result of the Alliance’s
consistent success in its exhibition of high quality fine art, the Alliance’s was invited to participate in the 2000 COLOR: National Black Fine Art Exposition
in Chicago,
which was hosted by Oprah Winfrey. In
June 2001, the Alliance hosted LINES™, a
four-day program event, at the ContemporaryArtsCenter
in Cincinnati, Ohio. In May 2002, the Alliance
also developed, sponsored and promoted the New
Harlem Renaissance™ exhibition in Indiana,
renting the IndianapolisArtCenter
as the venue.In 2003, the Alliance was invited to
include an exhibition of its member artists’ work in the Indiana Black Expo
Cultural Pavilion.Her passion for fine
arts have given her the opportunity to work with such talents as author Dr.
Halima Taha, Ora Reed – cultural ambassador for the state of Mississippi,jazz musician Pharez, and classic tenor
Derrick Alton.
Joyce
is a poet and a writer of numerous articles published by Black Suburban Journal newspaper, American Vision magazine, and Newslink,
a professional development publication, including an on-going column "From the Stoop." She wrote play and
movie reviews for NUVO newspaper, and
has op-eds and articles published with an array of e-zines, national and
international online news sources and various hard-copy magazines and
publications. She wrote for New Vision Magazine was a feature writer for BBM
Magazine. She has written for Huffington Post and comments regularly on HP articles. Her writing
experiences include interviews of public figures such as Kwesi Mfume, Ed
Gordon, Slide Hampton and the Hampton
family.She self-published her first
non-fiction book, “Gettin’ to the Good
Wood” which received exceptional reviews from the Indianapolis Recorder and the 2004 Midwest Book Review, and has completed her first collection of
poetry “ Ramblings Through the Attic of
Thought” which was published by All Things That Matter Press and received the 2009 SORMAG Poetry Book of the Year and Poet of the Year awards.She is a contributor to
a number of books, including Chicken Soup
for the African American Soul, What is the Purpose of a Banana by Dr.
Cartlon Green, Gumbo for the Soul and
MoAD Stories Project.
She
has expressed her creativity on film, directing a cable television show in Indiana back in 1984,
creating an infomercial for AT&T products in 1988 and producing a video,
introducing various emerging artists, for the 2000 National Black Fine Arts Show.Joyce has a television drama series concept withtwo scripts.She also completed ascreenplay,
one short animation play: Sand andhas
other concepts in the works.She has two children’s book projects – Princess Jahzzara
-- that she is developing and hopes to launch as a multimedia project and I Like Brown illustrated by fine artist Charlotte Riley-Webb. she was recently named the National Curator for the Nina Simone Experience, which is scheduled to debut in April 2010. She can
be reached for presentations, lectures and
panel discussions via e-mail jemiltd@aol.com.
