ALECIA DAWN YOUNG

Art is most transformative for me when experienced in the home, in everyday life on our walls, clothes, cookware, and space making items. This series, Sunburst Belly, was created to rest on the walls of its pregnant muse and invite space for reflection and celebration of motherhood. A new parent expecting her first child, a blossoming belly holding baby number two during an eventful pregnancy - each belly cast invites a collaborative exchange between the mother and myself as pregnancy and birth are honored in this vibrant sculptural form.

As an interdisciplinary artist and arts worker, I explore collaborative creative practices as an invitation to heal. I believe creativity and intuition are connected and my work examines embodied making through line, texture, pattern, and form with hopes that each moment of making reveals more of our true selves. Each belly cast sculpture was created collaboratively with each hollowed form derived from expectant mothers, and the overall style supporting the intention of the birther. An invitation for slowness, gentle movements, an easeful birth and supported postpartum journey, Sunburst Belly is a display of collective care for people who birth.

Alecia Dawn Young is an arts worker and educator with over 15 years of experience in community art and wellness education. She believes that creating art and creating life are connected and invests her time in people, projects, and communities that explore these practices. Her first love, was the clay studio and she pursued this craft through a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Alfred University. While there, she also received a New York state teaching certification in K-12 studio arts. After teaching in non-profit and public education for five years, Alecia obtained a Master of Arts Management from the H. John Heinz III College at Carnegie Mellon University.

She went on to manage and consult nonprofit operations for start-up and established businesses in Pittsburgh and around the country. This was evident in her role as Director of Artistic Initiatives at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture where she managed mainstage and education programs. During this time she also created the social enterprise Dream Cream Ice Cream, a fundraising ice cream shop, and was a recipient of the Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's Citizen Service Award. Expanding upon her social entrepreneurship career she joined Bill Strickland at the Manchester Bidwell Corporation's National Center for Arts & Technology as a Senior Project Manager where she consulted to create small non-profits around the country.

After gaining an appreciation for self-healing, she pursued a 200-hour, anti-racism, yoga teacher certification through YogaRoots on Location - preparing her to practice trauma-conscious yoga. In 2018 she founded YOGAMOTIF to offer creativity as a wellness practice through the signature yoga painting workshop, Yoga Paint Party and its patent-pending mat. The former Board Chair of New Voices for Reproductive Justice -- a non-profit dedicated to the health and well-being of Black women, femmes, and girls - she continues her reproductive-centered work as a registered prenatal yoga teacher.

Her work is grounded in the collective healing of Black mothers and the liberation of colonized people. Through her studio practice and social justice-centered projects, she believes that creativity (including birth) is a path to healing and collaboration is our way forward.

IG: @thealeciadawn