REVOLUTIONARY CLOSES WITH A CONVERSATION ON LEGACY, LIMITATION AND LENS

Artists Jesse Howard, Edo, and Reggie McFly in conversation with D. E. Simmons to close out the exhibition Revolutionary at Vjosa Cafe.

Revolutionary closed the way it opened — in conversation. At Vjosa Café & Events in Bridgeport, artists Jesse Howard, Reggie McFly and Edo joined Pigment International founder Patricia Andrews-Keenan and D.E. Simmons of Diaspora Rhythms for a closing-night talk that moved from craft to calling.

Edo (Eddie Santana White) went deeper into his ongoing series examining racism in animation, unpacking how the cartoons many of us grew up on carried messages we're only now learning to name — and how his work pulls those messages into the light.

Reggie McFly, whose piece “In the Land of the Free” is headed to Wilberforce, Ohio this fall for Art of Soul! at the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, talked candidly about continuing to create beyond his physical limitations. His work, he shared, is committed to elevating people and moments the world tends to overlook — the ordinary made extraordinary, the insignificant made permanent.

And Jesse Howard walked the room through how he chooses his subjects, offering a window into the instinct and intention behind each piece he makes.