MAGNITUDE AND BOND (2019) 
A WOMB OF VIOLET, LAYQA NUNA YAWAR & KELLEY PREVARD

Magnitude and Bond is a 10 stories high collaborative mural located on Halsey Street in Newark’s historic downtown that features two key figures, Gladys Barker Grauer and Breya Knight, and imagery that celebrates their significant contributions to the Newark arts and poetry community, using visual language to provide a sense of intergenerational and communal connection as a unifying force and source of power and healing.

This mural was visualized and executed by A Womb of Violet, a Black women’s artist collective of writers, poets and visual artists that include fayemi shakur, Jasmine Mans, K. Desiree Milwood, Bimpe Fageyinbo, Jillian M. Rock, Shekia Norris, Dr. Antoinette Elllis-Williams, Margie “Mia X” Johnson, Kween Moore, Jennifer Mack-Watkins and muralists Laqya Nuna Yawar and Kelley Prevard.

The imagery features Gladys Barker Grauer watching over the community at large, as Breya Knight, featured in knight armor reminds viewers of the warrior spirit and protective nature of Black women. Below, a young silhouetted girl, Sanaa, reads Lucille Clifton’s poem, “Come celebrate with me”, an inspirational reminder of the resiliency of Black women and girls, resisting erasure of their legacies and cultural contributions. An image featuring two young girls from St. Michel, Haiti photographed by artist Kween Moore during a trip to a local orphanage, gazes intensely at viewers with a sense of agency and inquiry. Symbolism containing themes referencing the painful traumas of slavery and racism are subtly combined with elements of nature, Kente cloth and cowrie shells which lie at the mural’s foundation. The cowrie shells represent the feminine, birth, fertility, and prosperity and were painted by students, children and members of the community .

The title of the mural is inspired by a quote by poet Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s business; we are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

About Gladys Barker Grauer
Gladys Barker Grauer is well-known as the Mother of Newark Arts. In 1972 she opened the Aard Studio Gallery, the first black-owned gallery in Newark’s South Ward on Bergen Street. In fact, it was the first gallery to open in the City of Newark. There Grauer helped launch the careers of many artists and served for many years as mentor and teaching artists. She is a founding member of the Clinton Hill Neighborhood Council, Newark Arts Council, Black Woman in Visual Perspective, and New Jersey Chapter of the National Conference of Artists. In February 2019, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Women’s Caucus for Art. Grauer’s art focuses on the human experience that is marginalized by those who possess wealth and power. Poverty, homelessness, and conflict are at the center of her work. Over the years, her paintings have examined war, justice, police brutality, and racism. She passed away at the age of 96 on September 5, 2019.

About Breya Knight
Breya "Blkbrry Molassez" Knight was one of Newark’s most beloved young poets, entrepreneurs, and cultural leaders. She always maintained her mission to spread poetry, love, positivity, and a sense of self-worth throughout her community. She created the Breathing Poets Society in 2015, a non-profit organization to expose inner city youth to poetry and the literary arts. She passed away on August 14, 2016, after suffering from complications due to diabetes, leaving an irreplaceable spirit and a legacy of wordsmithing behind. A street was named in her honor near the hair salon where she worked. Her mother, Minister Dyanna Aldridge keeps her legacy alive through the Breathing Poets Society scholarship fund.

About the collaborators
A Womb of Violet is a collective of Black women writers and artists from Newark, New Jersey. These cultural practitioners both reflect back on, and propel forward the long legacy of poetry, music, and art in Newark. They come together to embrace, critique, and share their histories and the histories of the city. Members also contributed to A Womb of Violet: An Anthology, a Black feminist/womanist risograph art book edited by fayemi shakur and published in March 2019 as part of the 2019 Project for Empty Space Feminist Incubator Program.

Layqa Nuna Yawar is a migrant artist, muralist and educator born in Ecuador and based out of Newark, USA. His large scale murals, paintings and projects question injustice, racism and xenophobia, while celebrating cross-cultural identity and migration in order to amplify the silenced narratives of people of color around the Americas and the world.

Kelley Prevard is a self-taught visual artist, born and raised in Atlantic City. Influenced by social, historical, and cultural events, her art explores themes related to gender, race, and beauty in our society.

Location:
Located on the parking lot side of 114 Market Street which formerly served as RKO Proctor’s Theatre, one of the first “double decker” theaters with 4,200 total seats that occupied four floors which was built in 1915 and opened on Thanksgiving Day. The theatre eventually fell victim to urban decline and closed in 1968. A series of murals in the lobby of the old theater were by painter William de Leftwich Dodge and the building, designed by architect John W. Merrow, also once featured a rooftop garden. It is registered as a historic landmark.