This Black History Month, art across Jacksonville is doing more than catching the eye. It is preserving stories and creating space for Black history to be seen.<\/p>\n
From a Black-owned gallery downtown to a museum exhibit rooted in the city\u2019s Black film history, to murals lining the streets of the Eastside, artists are using their work to connect the community \u2014 past and present.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n On Jacksonville\u2019s Eastside, murals stretch across alleyways and building walls, transforming once-blank spaces into open-air galleries filled with color and meaning.<\/p>\n Each mural was shaped by conversations with residents.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not just art installations,\u201d Kandice Clark, founder and curator of The Petite Jax<\/a>, said. \u201cThey\u2019re conversations about visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n For Clark, art is deeply personal.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, art is kind of like the heartbeat for me. For everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n RELATED: \u2018Drama queen\u2019: Carrico responds to Peluso\u2019s call to temporarily step down as City Council President<\/a><\/p>\n Inside her downtown gallery, The Petite Jax, a Black History Month exhibit titled \u201cAfromagnetic\u201d fills the walls with bold, expressive works.<\/p>\n \u201cThe name Afromagnetic comes from Black creativity just being very magnetic,\u201d Clark said. \u201cIt\u2019s a thing that moves the culture \u2014 whether it\u2019s through movement, art. It\u2019s just a magnetic force.\u201d<\/p>\n Across town at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens<\/a>, history is preserved through rare film posters dating back to the 1920s. The exhibit highlights Jacksonville\u2019s role in early Black cinema.<\/p>\n RELATED: Transformation and innovation shapes Edward Waters University<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAll-Black cast of us as pilots, us as heroes, heroines \u2014 one that broke the mold of what a cast could look like \u2014 and that was right here in Jacksonville,\u201d Brianna Sharpe, Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole associate curator at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, said.<\/p>\n Many of those films were created at Norman Studios<\/a> in Arlington, one of the nation\u2019s first movie studios dedicated to Black filmmakers.<\/p>\n \u201cThese were all movies that were made here in Jacksonville, at the Norman Studios in Arlington,\u201d Sharpe said. \u201cThere\u2019s one still in full feature today, \u2018The Flying Ace.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n At a time when opportunities for Black actors and filmmakers were limited, those films carried powerful messages.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gives you a picture of what you can be, especially at a time in the 1920s where things were negative,\u201d Sharpe said. \u201cYou were deemed to be just one specific thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Art, in all its forms, continues to inspire that sense of possibility.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cThis gives you an opportunity to be seen as better, bigger, brighter,\u201d Sharpe said. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing that carries out. Everyone loves to see themselves in the future. This just resonates with that from the 1920s into now.\u201d<\/p>\n And those stories are not confined to one month.<\/p>\n The exhibit at the Cummer is part of its permanent collection and remains on display for most of the year, celebrating Black history not just in February, but year-round.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Black History Month, art across Jacksonville is doing more than catching the eye. 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