Draft:Jjjjjerome Ellis

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  • Comment: A very interesting article! Some feedback in regards to getting it published: Citations for birth years are very important. In the third paragraph, are all the statements from the citation at the end of the paragraph? If so, that should be made clear by giving all the statements that citation. -- NotCharizard 🗨 02:52, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Jjjjjerome Ellis a multi-instrumentalist, writer, composer, and disability advocate. He was born in 1989 in Connecticut to Jamaican and Grenadian parents. He was raised in Virginia Beach, VA and studied music theory at Columbia University.[1][2] He resides in Norfolk, Virginia with his wife, ecologist and poet Luísa Black Ellis.[citation needed]

Ellis received a Fulbright fellowship in 2015 to study samba in Salvador, Brazil[3], and is a two-time MacDowell Fellow.[4] In 2022, he has received the United States Arts Fellowship[5] as well as a Creative Capital award.[6]

Ellis has an ongoing practice of spelling his first name with five j's as a way of honoring the fact that he often stutters the most on his name.[7] His work, spanning across photography, poetry, and music, explores divinity, time, and the politics of Black dysfluency. Ellis has referenced Black liturgical traditions and improvisational practices as core artistic influences, citing especially his grandfather, who was a Pentecostal minister. He also cites Saidiya Hartman, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Christina Sharpe as influences. His debut album and songbook, The Clearing, grew out of his essay "The clearing: Music, dysfluency, Blackness, and time,” published in 2020 in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies (Volume 5, Issue 2).[8]

His second book, Aster of Ceremonies, was published by Milkweed Editions in October 2023. It is a collection of poems, prayers, and essays contending with the archives of "escaped slave advertisements," dealing especially with advertisements referencing enslaved people who were said to have spoken with a stutter.[9] His second studio album, Compline in Nine Movements, is a contemplative, improvisational piano album.[10]

Ellis is active in the stuttering pride community, a movement that repositions stuttering as a valuable way of speaking. He was a part of the team that developed the stuttering pride flag[11] and, when asked to design the billboard for the 2024 Whitney Biennial, founded the group People Who Stutter Create to create a design honoring those who stutter.[12]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Jjjj Jerome Ellis". Yale School of Art. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  2. ^ Morris, Kadish (2021-11-10). "Artist and stutterer JJJJJerome Ellis: 'So much pain comes from not feeling fully human'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  3. ^ "Nine Columbia affiliates awarded 2014-15 Fulbright U.S. Student grants". Columbia College. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  4. ^ "JJJJJerome Ellis - MacDowell Fellow in Interdisciplinary Arts".
  5. ^ Martin, Saleen (2022-01-26). "Norfolk artist who explores stuttering, Blackness and history awarded $50,000 grant and fellowship". The Virginian-Pilot. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  6. ^ "Congratulations to Creative Capital Awardees in the 2024 Whitney Biennial!". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  7. ^ Nast, Condé. "JJJJJerome Ellis: The Clearing". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  8. ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349592055_The_clearing_Music_dysfluency_Blackness_and_time
  9. ^ Koenig, Andrew. "Aster of Ceremonies". Harvard Review. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  10. ^ "Carve Out a Little Emptiness Or, JJJJJerome Ellis Enters Through Another Door, Opens It, and Rearranges the Furniture". www.nationalsawdust.org. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  11. ^ https://stutteringprideflag.org/
  12. ^ "People Who Stutter Create: Stuttering Can Create Time". whitney.org. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
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