Mediocre Portraits of Outstanding People is the most recent series in the City Reliquary’s slate of digital programming on Instagram! From June 12, 2020 to September 4, 2020, the City Reliquary’s neighborhood artist-in-residence, George Ferrandi, appeared on Instagram Live for an hour on to create a sketch of an reflect on someone who had been influencing her thinking during this remarkable cultural moment.
During this series, George listened to and learned from Black thinkers while attempting to honor them through portraiture, and shared the experience live with our audience.
The full series of drawings-in-process can be viewed on the City Reliquary’s Instagram Stories. You can watch and draw along if you like! – and listen to and learn from these visionary ideas. The completed portraits can also be viewed on Instagram, and will be archived in this album on our Flickr page as well.
Week 1: Civil rights lawyer and legal scholar Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. While drawing this portrait on Instagram Live, George and our audience listened to a conversation between Michelle Alexander and Angela Davis about the need to take active steps toward creating a more just society, and how these can be achieved.