2020 GRANTEES

Celeta Hickman

Celeta is an independent artist who dances, designs and creates embellished implements of authority, densely beaded sacred jewelry, beaded flags, processional regalia and masquerades. She makes every effort to create authentic and functional West African art forms. The pieces she makes are not new concepts, but instead she uses contemporary materials to tell very old stories with influences from pre-colonial Black Africa, the colonial era francophone, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Her creative production over the past 30 years has focused on dancing, creating and singing for masquerades from West Africa, Brazil, Haiti, and Cuba, and the study of Yoruba court and spiritual regalia. Celeta’s sacred bead and fiber art mentors are priests of the Yoruba tradition, Cathleen Richardson Bailey (Obatala), the late elder priest of Oshun Penelope Stubbs of Brooklyn, New York. 

AE&E Fund is proud to continue to help fund Celeta’s work in “A Black Bead Story: The Digital Spectacles” which will consist of 5-7 short films or spectacles centered around five themes featuring the sacred, secular, Afrocentric and period designs of dancer, masquerade, bead artist and accessories designer Celeta Hickman. A Black Bead Story has a creative team that is contributing to the shooting of a series of stills and the short films/spectacles featuring period accessories curated in era-based, unique and creative spaces as well as classic studio shots. 

The short films and still photography will be used to document Celeta’s beadwork in its proper spacial and aesthetic context for use on social media platforms, streaming services and for academic conferences, auditorium programs in schools, and fashion & beauty events.

Above images show model and performer debuts held in December 2019 and January 2020 at Celeta’s studio space featuring her Afrocentric beaded accessories, clothing designs by Kings & Queens of Pittsburgh, and styling & comportment lead by choreographer Verna Vaughn. Photographs courtesy of Curtis Reaves.

A Black Bead Story digital spectacles descriptions include:

  • Processionals for Exu Emergence, Oshun Bante, Opa Soro for Obatala, Ose Shango in outdoor nature/natural spaces (rivers, mountains, wooded parks, etc.) throughout Allegheny county.

  • Beaded accessories created for a Harlem Renaissance/Jazz Age performance inspired by Josephine Baker (hopefully to be performed on the Frick’s auditorium stage).

  • Beaded accessories highlighting the “Era of Contemporary Black Glamour” inspired by the late Eunice Johnson of Ebony Fashion Fair fame and Gloria Giddens Grate a regional, cosmetologist, beauty industry leader and stylist.

  • Afro Futuristic beadwork masquerade that celebrates ancestors to be danced during one of Allegheny county’s summer 2021 Black open air festivals. The densely beaded pieces Celeta creates are meant to be danced, included in processions, modeled in fantasy fashion shows, or are designed to accompany praise poetry, masquerade spectacles, or tableaus.