PODCAST SCRIPT 

Hello all of you beautiful people! Im Katrina Miranda and coming up we will be celebrating the
life of an amazing and inspiring African American leader, Lois Mailou Jones. Stay tuned!
(short pause)
Alright so Jones, Lois Mailou Jones. She was what I believe as one of the most iconic artists of
her time. She didn’t allow the prejudice of her color define who she is. Holland Coller, a
journalist from the New York Times, stated that "Her eclectic, academic work, in a career
spanning nearly 70 years, ranged from impressionistic landscapes to political allegories, and
from cubistic depictions of african sculptures to realistic portraits". ​To Jones, a red light means
go; a green light, keep on going.

Now, i'm not saying she was famous due to her ability to pick up any type of medium and create
a beautiful painting out of it. Jones work always contained something to do with the reality of
those who are colored, impressionism, racism, politics, or maybe even all of the above.

Although, there was one painting in which caught my eye the most and that was her piece titled
'Meditation (Mob Victim)' and that is because of the story behind it. Imagine a painting of an
elderly man that is about to be lynched, or in other words killed.
Believe me, I didn't want this to be my favorite piece either, but Jones said herself that she "...
was very much moved by these horrible, horrible stories, so [she]decided to do painting. [She]
needed a model." And so she went to a rather poor section of Washington, discovered an old
man with two guitars on his back, and paid him to come back to her studio to study him as a
man about to be killed. You would never expect an well-rounded artist like Lois Mailou Jones to
find her muse on the streets of Washington, in which is why I think this was one of the most
intriguing and unique pieces by her.

But, one of her most well-known paintings is her piece called Les Fetiches in 1938, a
composition of five overlapping masks from different and distinct African tribes. It depicts the
influences of African traditions. Jones work is always partially concerned with the representation
of black reality in which overt themes of African life were visible. This was most likely the reason
she was an important link in a groundbreaking generation of black American artists. ​Jones’s
work unveils the truth: the color of our skin shouldn’t dictate how we see one another.​ Not only
did she push the boundaries of art, but she was active in the Civil Rights Movement, in which
Jones commemorated the struggle for racial equality with the collage Challenge America, and
embarked on a three part project called the Black Visual Arts in which Jones "collected
interviews, photographs, and slides collected across Haiti, Africa, and the U.S. to document
contemporary art of the African Diaspora" says Nina Aron, a reporter of timeline.com. And with
that being said Jones died at 92 on June 9th, 1998. ​A powerful activist, tireless learner, and an
inspiring artist– these are the titles Lois Mailou Jones have earned through her lifetime. ​And with
her confidence, perseverance, and creativity, Jones will always have an everlasting mark on the
history of black American artists.