User:Kathazenyo/gap analysis

Gap analysis
The title should be "Kay Brown" and does not yet exist.
 * What is the title of the article in which you identified a gap. If no article exists at all, what should the title be?
 * Document the gap you found, describe how you identified it, and analyze its impact on knowledge.

When beginning my research, I knew that I wanted to find a wikipedia gap that involved an African American artist because I know that their history is often left out of the books. I began searching things like ‘African American Feminist art’ and ‘important black arts movements’. I eventually stumbled upon a wikipedia page about a group called "Where We At" Black Women Artists, Inc. (otherwise known as WWA), in which the Black Arts Movement was linked. I found it odd that on the Black Arts Movement page, the WWA was not linked at all and there was also no mention of many of the prominent members of the group, even as individual artists. The WWA is, however, mentioned in a few books such as Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artist by Lisa E. Farrington and Entering the Picture: Judy Chicago, The Fresno Feminist Art Program, and the Collective Visions of Women Artists by Jill Fields.

In both of these texts, they mention artist Kay Brown as a essential member of the group, if not the original founder. On the wikipedia page for WWA, I saw that she was mentioned as an artist, but had no page herself. I found this very frustrating because she seemed to have a huge part in the groups history, which was affiliated with the Black Arts Movement which Time magazine had described as the "single most controversial movement in the history of African-American literature – possibly in American literature as a whole.” The non existence of the page for someone like Kay Brown is a perfect example of the common erasure of black history from our archives. In doing this gap analysis I hope to pay respects to her as an artist; one who has an important voice but has somehow gone unheard.
 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)
 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)

Kay Brown (Born 1932—) is an American visual artist who’s work emerged during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. She is most well known for her painting, relief printmaking and mixed-media collages. In 1968, Brown graduated from Harlem City College and began to work with a group of African-American artists called the Weusi Artist's Collective (founded in 1965). This is where she began to explore art and expression of the "black aesthetic." The collective, which was based in Harlem, brought black artists together to explore their heritage through African art practices. This is where Brown first became involved with feminist art, working with other African-American female artists like Dindga McCannon and Faith Ringgold. The three were the only women in the Weusi collective. With these two women, Brown co-founded the Where We At collective (formed in 1971) in Greenwich Village due to the feeling of being "left out" of both the Black Arts Movement (where they were dominated by black men artists) and the Feminist Art Movement (where they were dominated by white feminist artists.) Ultimately, the group's values aligned more with the Black Arts movement, as Brown explains in her memoir, “The feminist artists focused totally on sexism, often in a flagrant, bizarre fashion. The black women artists explored the unity of the black family, the ideal of the black male-female relation, and other themes relating to social conditions and African traditions.”

Kay Brown has also written two novels, one which is called Willy’s Summer Dream as well as an article called The emergence of black women artists: the 1970s, New York, which reflected on her experiences as an artist. She now resides in Northeast Washington D.C. where she lives in an community home but continues to practice and appreciate art as well as educating other community members about the movements in which she was involved.
 * List the reliable sources that could be used to improve this gap. (You can use the Cite tool from the editing toolbar above to input and format your sources.)


 * Brown, Kay, 1932-. "The Emergence Of Black Women Artists: The 1970S, New York."  International Review Of African American Art 15.1 (1998): 45. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). 	Web. 17 Feb. 2016.
 * Farrington, Lisa E. "Chapter Seven: Black Feminist Art." Creating Their Own Image: The History  of African-American Women Artists. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 146-74. Print.
 * Painter, Nell Irvin. Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619  to the Present. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.
 * Searson, Lauren. "An Inspirational Artist: Active Adult." Retirement Living RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.
 * Smith, Valerie. "7: Abundant Evidence, Black Women Artists of the 1960's and 1970's." Entering  the Picture: Judy Chicago, the Fresno Feminist Art Program, and the Collective Visions of Women Artists. Ed. Jill Fields. New York: Routledge, 2012. 119-31. Print.
 * Wikipedia contributors. "Black Arts Movement." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,  The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Feb. 2016. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.
 * Wikipedia contributors. "Where We At." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.