Asia B. Jewell

06/08/2026

05/23/2026

Join us for the 2026 BFA Thesis Exhibition and experience the work of KyCAD’s seniors as they present the culmination of their studio practice, research, and creative exploration.

Featuring work by Kerstin Imhoff, Beige Price, Asia Jewell, Carol Anne Raby, and Madison Boone.

📍 849 Gallery
📅 Opening Reception: May 15
⏰ 5–7:30 PM

Come celebrate the Class of 2026 and support these artists as they share their work with the community.

05/17/2026

Top 10!!! Let's go!

My Artistic Practice And Research Centers Around The Story Of My Identity And Ancestry As A BNW, An American Descendant Of Slavery (ADOS).

05/17/2026

Echoes of the Ninth:
A Visual and Performance Memoir Memorandum

Multimedia

05/17/2026

Your Friday plans = coming to our Senior Thesis Exhibition 👏🏼

Come out tomorrow to support our graduating seniors and explore the incredible work, vision and creativity that is their final show.

Opening: 5-7:30pm
849 Gallery

05/17/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DVHRNze9g/

05/08/2026

VCUarts student Taylor Hodge said her school denied her a Black model and turned her work into minstrelsy.
Taylor Hodge is a third-year fashion student at VCUarts. Less than a week before the annual VCUarts Fashion and Merchandising show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, she went public with an accusation about her department that cuts to the center of what diversity in arts institutions actually means in practice versus on paper: her request for a Black model to present her collection was denied, and she stated directly that the department had ""made my work into a minstrelsy.""
The word ""minstrelsy"" is specific and deliberate. It names a historical practice of performing Black culture for a white audience in ways that strip it of authenticity, dignity, and the perspective of the people whose culture is being displayed. Taylor Hodge is saying that her collection — presumably designed from and for a specific cultural vision — was being presented in a way that removed the cultural specificity that gave the work its meaning.
The comment section response identified the institutional failure precisely: ""Why isn't choosing the model part of the designer's process?"" is the question that shouldn't require asking. Fashion design is a creative practice in which the presentation of the work is inseparable from the work itself. The model is part of the design statement. Removing that choice from the designer — particularly in a collection where the cultural identity of the model is central to what the designer is communicating — is not a neutral administrative decision. It is an overriding of the designer's vision.
The pattern Taylor Hodge identified is familiar to students of color in arts and humanities programs: institutions that present diversity as a value in admissions materials and promotional content while systematically constraining the work that students of color are allowed to produce and present in their own terms.
She named it publicly. The conversation it started is the one that was needed.

05/08/2026