Spring/Summer '21 | Issue Eleven
Still in Time
Welcome to the eleventh edition of the Doe Creative Brief. Eleven has always been a significant number for me. For the past several years (since 2011) I have been seeing the number 11 almost everywhere I go, and in everything I do, no matter where I am. I learned that this was not just my reality, but also the reality of those around me from friends to industry colleagues. It has always been a marker of decision, destiny, and refocusing of the dream for me and causes me to lean in more towards what Heaven is saying about what’s happening on the Earth.
Mariamo Diallo Photographed by Nogen Beck
After what we’d call, in an understatement, a very bad year in the world, refocusing on the dream was so necessary. I needed to pull back, withdraw, and realign with the things that made me start the Doe in the first place. Those reasons still remain, Equity, Access, and Education. Although this has taken many forms over the last three years of existence, primarily true is that the industries in which we create our art within have long excluded us. New creatives (Us), People of Color (Us), and the so called disenfranchised and marginalized (Us).
Ai Bendr Photographed on FaceTime by Kreshonna Keane
Barriers to success have been due to, in part, because of the color of our skin, access to capital and the right connections. This has hindered so many talented young artists. The Doe represents that percent of the unknown. Continuing to champion that is paramount to moving the Doe forward and into solidifying a decade of work. The Art + Sustainability issue touches on something incredibly dear to my heart, consumption, the Earth and what we are doing as artists to fight that, but also, the sustainability of the Human Race as cohabitants. Our ability to push the knob forward while recording how far we’ve come is exactly what this Eleventh issue represents. A flag, gesturing onward moving, and a flag, waving an ode to the past, captured still in time, like a photograph.
Sincerely,
Jane
Editor-in-Chief