Kresge Eminent Artist Awards

Wendell Harrison is an award winning jazz guru, known all over the globe as a world class jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, educator, recording artist, and jazz entrepreneur. Harrison was born in Detroit in 1942. His early days as a young musician began with his elder schoolmates at Northwestern High School, which included internationally known pianist Barry Harris and drummer Roy Brooks. These world known jazz icons encouraged and mentored him. Later, Harrison migrated to New York where he honed his skills and performed with famous jazz musicians like Grant Green and Hank Crawford.

In 1970, Harrison returned to Detroit. Determined to record his own music and control his own destiny within the music industry, he teamed up with trombonist Phil Ranelin and founded Tribe Records—an independent Black jazz record label. Tribe Records began recording prominent Detroit jazz musicians such as Marcus Belgrave, Doug Hammond, and Harold McKinney. They also published a Black awareness magazine called Tribe Magazine. Tribe Records still thrives today with re-issues and new releases internationally.

Harrison has garnered many awards which, most recently, include the 2021 Jazz Journalist Award, 2021 New Music USA, 2018 Kresge Eminent Artist Award, and 2020 Chamber Music USA. He has over 30 recorded releases on the international jazz market and has authored two publications: The Be Boppers Method Book, Volumes I & II—invaluable aids to students studying jazz improvisation.

Wendell Harrison

Grace Serra is the art curator at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan North Campus Research Complex. She has worked in the field of public art for over 30 years with the singular focus of building collections and curating exhibitions that celebrate Detroit art.

Serra has served on faculty at Wayne State University, Henry Ford College, Macomb College, and Eastern Michigan University, working with undergraduate and graduate visual arts, art history, and arts administration students. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Wayne State University; a Master of Arts in painting from Dominican University in Florence, Italy; and a Master of Arts in arts administration from Eastern Michigan University.

Kahn Santori Davison is from Detroit, Michigan. He was formerly an art columnist for The Gazette News and entertainment writer for the Michigan Citizen. Currently, he's a music writer for the Detroit Metro Times. He has appeared on Netflix's “Hip-Hop Evolution” and FX's "Hip-Hop Uncovered."

Davison wrote the wall text for the Detroit Institute of Arts’ "D-Cyphered" exhibition, served as a creative writing instructor at Detroit Impact Community Center as well as Inside Out Literary Arts, and was a co-star in the award winning play "Mahogany Dreams."
He's been featured on the Boyce Watkins Show, The Brenda Perryman Show, and many others. He's a Cave Canem fellow whose works have been featured in The Alabama State Poetry Society, The Entoitist, The Baltimore Review, London's X-Bout, Barbaric Yap, Callaloo, Black Renaissance Noire, and The Litchfield Review. Davison authored the poetry book Blaze (2015, Willow Books) and was the recipient of both the 2015 Kresge Artist Fellowship, in literary arts, and a 2018 Documenting Detroit Fellowship.

Scheherazade Washington Parrish is a writer, artist, moderator, and muse in Detroit, where she lives with her son. She is co-director of Detroit Lit and works as a program manager with Allied Media Projects.

Gil Ashby is a creator of narrative images. He grew up in Harlem and Bronx, NY, during the 1960s and ‘70s—a time of civil unrest and social awakening. He was transplanted from NYC to Detroit to embark on the academic path early in the new millennium. Ashby's art is built on the intersection of organic patterns, lines juxtaposed with traditional drawings, and painted assets stitched together using 21st-century technology. His narrative imagery aims to conjure both power and the spirit of imagination as he plays in what he calls "the divine game of Pictionary.”

Ashby’s art, he states, is a visual extension of the performances of African American Classical Musicians. These were performers of the truth forged from the American struggle, mastering and thriving as independent creatives, armed and capable of controlling their destinies. Ashby's art comes from these passions: defiance and self-determination.

Michael H. Hodges was for 30 years a reporter at The Detroit News, most recently covering the fine arts until his 2021 retirement. He calls getting sent to New York to report on the 9/11 attacks the most-affecting assignment of his career. On graduating from college in 1979, Hodges headed to Venezuela for a reporting job with the Caracas Daily Journal. He later taught high school for a number of years outside Seattle before getting his Masters in international affairs at Columbia University. He returned to journalism for one very entertaining year at the New York Post before moving to Detroit. Hodges' work has appeared in Salon, the New York Times, Details, Out, and Spy. He's the author of two books on local architecture—Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit (2018) and Michigan's Historic Railroad Stations (2012). Hodges grew up on a dairy farm in Rochester Hills.

Prior to joining the staff of the Wayne County Executive, Keith Owens was the Senior Editor of the Michigan Chronicle for a little over two years. During his journalism career he has also worked for the Denver Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Ann Arbor News, the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, the Detroit Free Press, and the Detroit Metro Times. He was also a nationally syndicated columnist with Universal Press Syndicate for three years beginning in 1993.

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Owens has lived in Detroit since January, 1993, and is the author of four works of fiction: The Mayonnaise Murders, Part 1, The Mayonnaise Murders, Part 2, Fire and Wanda, and the children's book, Who Stole the Zmulobeast?

He is also co-founder of the Detroit Stories Quarterly, a magazine focusing exclusively on Detroit through the lens of science fiction, fantasy, alternative fiction, horror, and just plain fiction. He has also worked as a professional musician for more than two decades.

Satori Shakoor is an artist, storyteller, social entrepreneur, and a 2017 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow. Satori received early recognition as a recording artist with George Clinton, Parliament. She expanded her performance career to include actor, standup comedienne, and comedy writer for Canadian television. Satori was the catalyst and founding member of the award-winning Obsidian Theatre Company in Toronto. Founded in 1999, Obsidian Theatre has become Canada's leading culturally diverse theatre company.

Satori began her professional career as a storyteller when she toured the country as a Moth Mainstage storyteller and host. Her stories have aired globally on NPR to rave reviews. She hosts the Twisted Storytellers podcast produced by WDET Radio and is the 2021 host for Detroit Performs Live at Marygrove for PBS/DPTV.

Satori is the founder of The Secret Society Of Twisted Storytellers® (TSSOTS), a live, curated storytelling event. TSSOTS has a global mission to connect humanity, heal and transform communities, and to provide an uplifting, thought-provoking, and soul-cleansing entertainment experience through the art and craft of storytelling. She is also the Executive Director for The Society for the Re-Institutionalization of Storytelling (TSRS), a Michigan 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization.
Satori designs and facilitates workshops in the art and craft of storytelling in community for organizations, corporations and privately as a coach.

Satori Shakoor

A Detroit native, Debra J. White-Hunt has danced all of her life–socially, spiritually, professionally, and purposefully. She has traveled the world teaching, dancing, and choreographing works for all ages and many cultures to express passion, artistry, and emotion–with a message. White-Hunt has choreographed at least 50 ballets and produced and directed more than 100 dance concerts. She has also created educational tools used for the training of dance students. White-Hunt has been commissioned to create her works on stage, television, film, and video, and she has received numerous national and local awards for her excellence in the arts and education. She is co-founder and artistic director of Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy.

Debra J. White-Hunt

S. Kay Young is a descendant of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation. Young's photographs are in numerous private and corporate collections, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan, and TCF Center in Detroit. From 1979 through 1989 Young worked in the photography department at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

For the past seven years S. Kay has held an artist residency with Michigan Arts Access. She teaches photography and multimedia art to Special Needs students in public school transition programs throughout Michigan.

Young has exhibited in five solo shows, including “Wildflower Paintings, A Photographic Exhibition” at The Detroit Institute of Arts in 1998. In 1999, Young lectured at The Smithsonian for the American Indian, NYC along with an installation at the American Indian Community House, NY. In 2014, Young and her Special Needs students were featured and won an Emmy on PBS 'Detroit Performs.'

Chris Handyside has lived and worked in the Detroit creative and arts community since 1992. He began his professional career in journalism at the Detroit alternative newsweekly Metro Times where he served as Music and Arts editor. As a freelance writer, he has covered the Detroit music and arts scene for such publications as Spin, Rolling Stone, Conde Nast Traveller, and more. He is the author of "Fell in Love With a Band," the first biography of Detroit group the White Stripes as well as the award-winning book series "A History of American Music" (Heinemann-Raintree). He has recorded and performed as a musician locally, nationally and internationally.

He serves as Secretary on the Board of Directors for the Detroit music preservation group, Detroit Sound Conservancy. He is currently a Creative Director for the advertising firm Leo Burnett and a member at-large of the D Council Board, supporting Detroit's advertising industry.

Gloria House, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Humanities and African American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Associate Professor Emerita in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department of Wayne State University. She is a former Director of the African American Studies Program at University of Michigan-Dearborn. Since the 1960's, when she was an organizer in the Student Non-Violent Organizing Committee, Dr. House has been an activist in human rights and international solidarity causes. Her poetry collections are Blood River, 1983, Rainrituals, 1989, Shrines, 2004, and Medicine, 2017. Additional publications include Tower and Dungeon: A Study of Place and Power in American Culture; A Different Image: The Legacy of Broadside Press, a 2005, Library of Michigan, Michigan Notable Book (lead editor); Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts of Women in SNCC (Part 9 Chapter), and Home Sweet Sanctuary: Idlewild Families Celebrate a Century, a cultural study of the Northern Michigan African American community.

Gloria House

Carole Morisseau is an American artist whose works emphasizes traditional painting and drawing techniques. Morisseau is a retired Detroit Public Schools Art Teacher. She is the recent recipient of a 2018 Fulbright Hayes Fellowship Group Project Abroad, studying Afro-Brazilian art and culture. Her 3D interactive installation, “Healing Wall” was created as a reflection of that journey and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit has selected it to be the focus of an exhibit there in 2020. Her work was also selected to hang in the Kresge Arts in Detroit main offices and can be found in collections in the U.S., Canada, Haiti and Brazil. She has published one book of her art work and is currently working on a second book to be published in 2020. Carole was honored in 2019 with her work being published in the most recent volume of “Essay’d,” a book featuring 30 writers writing about 30 visual artists. Morisseau’s work is in several private collections including that of noted actress and avid collector, Ms. CCH. Pounder. Morisseau is also showcased in an online video produced by the Detroit historical arts organization, the Scarab Club.

Morisseau is an award - winning Michigan artist who has exhibited internationally, nationally, regionally and at local galleries, including the Detroit Artists Market and the Scarab Club. Having served on the Board of Directors of the Scarab Club for six years she looks forward to continuing to move the organization forward and helping to sustain its role as a landmark arts organization within the region.

Carole Morisseau

Kenneth Morris has nearly 40 years of active involvement in Detroit's creative community. He has always been fascinated with history and the human compulsion to create. Morris enjoys helping create energy and interest around Detroit artist and other creatives. Another fascination of his is uncovering connections between people and communities that are less than obvious. Prior projects include serving as a curator in Detroit's version of "citydift" and as a content contributor to the "How is your School?" exhibition at the Edwin Street Gallery.

Morris is head of evaluation and research at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). He joined the DIA in 2004 to support a museum wide reconstruction and reinstallation project. In his work, Morris also supports organizational development, visitor centered museum practice, and audience development efforts. Before joining the DIA, Morris worked in academia and spent nearly 20 years in banking, managing customer service and investment operations functions.

Dell Pryor, curator and founder of Dell Pryor Gallery (1991–2020), has been a pioneer in the art and cultural scene of Detroit over the last thirty years. In 1991, Dell founded the Dell Pryor fine art gallery space which provided an artistic, cultural, and educational base for local emerging and mid-career artists, musicians, and collectors. Since closing the gallery space, Pryor continues the work of informing and educating collectors in addition to collaborating with other galleries and cultural institutions.

Lynne Avadenka

Kim Hunter

Gayelynn Mckinney

Gary Anderson

Cary Loren

Marsha Music

Gary Anderson

GILDA SNOWDEN

Vince Carducci

Lynn Crawford

George Tysh