'Rooted in Color' is an art exhibit tackling discrimination

JOHNSTOWN - As Black History Month comes to an end, one local artist is using her creativity to spark up a conversation about discrimination.

Ashley A. Jones, a master's degree student at IUP, says the idea for her exhibit “Rooted in Color” came after dealing with discrimination herself, and she knew she wasn’t alone.

“I wanted to see something that talked about black women and that talked about the issues within the community, and hair and all these different issues of trying to be a black woman and these standards of beauty that doesn't exist,” Jones says.

Standards of beauty Jones says she didn’t understand and wanted to show her frustrations through her artwork.

Her project is divided into three different parts, one of them being the discrimination against African American hairstyles.

“You hear so many stories about how little kids will have braids or maybe an adult will dread lock their hair and go to work and you find out you like, yeah that's unacceptable, they want you to cut your hair, they want you to do something with your hair, and most of the times they want you to straighten out your hair, and who's definition of presentable?” Jones says.

Then skin undertones, painted with every color used as an undertone in an African American’s skin, with ink splattered throughout the paintings meaning something much deeper.

“Around the slave trade time, people called African Americans ‘ink dots,’” Jones says.

However, Jones’ master's piece focused on the beauty standards within her own community.

“The idea came from colorism. Colorism is discriminating against someone by the color of their skin that's usually within their own race,” Jones says.

Jones says colorism showed its true colors when she was asked to do a brown paper bag test.

“It was actually a test that was administrated by African Americans to other African Americans that kind of prevent darker African Americans from having privileges,” Jones says.

So instead, Jones is using 150 brown paper bags to share encouraging messages and portray the beauty behind African American women, hoping to change the meaning behind a brown paper bag.

“Rooted in Color” will be showcased at Bottle Works in Johnstown until Friday. However, Jones will be presenting her master's piece and other paintings at an art showcase at Indiana University of Pennsylvania at the end of March.

ncG1vNJzZmivmpawtcKNnKamZ56axLR7y6iamqRfp7ywwMSdZKKmXZi8rbvRZpinZZGnwW6x16Ggm6GkYsGir8qloKefXZm2tK%2FRoqSippGptrC6