We Are the Drum and the Scribe
By Monica Jones
You don’t have to know much about art to recognize when something is worth your time.
You feel it when a room slows you down. When the work asks you to stand still. When beauty, history, and craft meet you without explanation and quietly say, stay with this.
That’s what happens inside We Are the Drum and the Scribe, now on view at the Bo Bartlett Center. Drawn from the Black Art in America collection, the exhibition brings more than 40 works to Columbus. This is world-class work, often seen on national and international stages. Right now, it’s here – accessible, thoughtful, and deeply felt.
“We are intentional about beating the drum, amplifying the message, getting the word out,” says Najee Dorsey, founder and curator of Black Art in America. “And the scribe is about documentation. Telling the stories. Paying the writers. Making sure the work is recorded and placed where it belongs.”
Together, those roles make a clear and necessary claim that Black stories belong at the center of American art history, not at its margins.
The exhibition unfolds through a wide range of styles, generations, and media. Prints, sculpture, painting, and mixed media exist in conversation. The experience doesn’t rush the viewer toward conclusions. It rewards time, attention, and curiosity.
Dorsey describes the exhibition as preservation and conversation, with education woven throughout. “A lot of people have been underexposed to the work of artists of color,” he says. “I’m hoping people get excited about seeing works they haven’t seen before and artists they’re not familiar with, and that it energizes them to keep engaging with the arts.”
Works by Jamaal Barber appear in multiple forms throughout the show, including woodblock prints on fabric, relief printing, and metal sculpture. His imagery carries a sense of lineage and collective memory, rendered through repetition and material weight. Nearby, sculptural works by Carl Joe Williams introduce bold color and geometry, shifting the rhythm of the gallery and expanding the emotional range of the exhibition.
Anchoring the show historically is John Biggers’ Family Ark Triptych, a work that feels foundational without being distant. Dorsey speaks of Biggers not only as a master artist, but as a builder of community. “The subjects he tackled were family and community,” he says. “That’s what we’ve been building. From an historical standpoint, it was important to show legacy artists alongside today’s brilliant artists creating work right now.”
In contrast, Baldwin by Khalif Tahir Thompson layers oil, handmade paper, fabric, gold leaf, and construction paper into a portrait which feels both intellectual and intimate. It invites prolonged looking rather than quick interpretation, reinforcing Dorsey’s belief that art reveals itself through presence. “The work is done,” he says. “It’s really about people taking the time to engage with it and see what speaks to them.”
Rather than cataloging every artist individually, the exhibition allows the work itself to lead. As Dorsey explains, “The thread is the relationships. These are the artists we live with. These are the artists we support. We’re the ones putting the work into the world and building the connections that allow it to be seen.”
That philosophy is echoed by Michael McFalls, executive director of the Bo Bartlett Center, who has written about the difference between collecting art and truly seeing it. Seeing, he suggests, is not passive. It’s an act of presence. That distinction feels alive throughout the galleries. This is not an exhibition meant to be skimmed. It asks you to stay.
There is added significance to encountering this work in Columbus. Many of the artists represented are museum-collected and internationally recognized. Their presence here isn’t about novelty. It’s about proximity. As Dorsey puts it, “It’s free to come in. It’s free to engage. Just see what the other side of the family is doing.”
At the same time, visitors will also have the opportunity to experience new works by Bo Bartlett himself. Before traveling to New York, Bartlett’s latest paintings will be on view at the Center from January 20 through March 14, offering a rare chance to see these works up close, here at home. Drawn from his HomeFront series, the paintings will share the same public reception date and time as We Are the Drum and the Scribe, creating a singular moment where local, national, and international conversations in art intersect under one roof.
We Are the Drum and the Scribe isn’t an exhibition you fully understand from a paragraph or a photograph. It’s beautiful. It’s thought-provoking. It’s full of soul. And it rewards the simple act of showing up.
You want to come see this.
And when you do, you’ll understand why.
Plan Your Visit
Exhibition: We Are the Drum and the Scribe
Where: Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus State University
On view: January 20 – May 16
Concurrent exhibition:
New paintings by Bo Bartlett (HomeFront series)
On view: January 20 – March 14
Public reception: Thursday, February 19, 6–8 p.m.
Admission: Free
