Wednesday, November 29, 2025

Where Myth Meets the Maker 
Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same 
Nana Hayrumyan ’27 

“Create your own myth,” Jamea Richmond-Edwards fondly advises as we stand beside my newly bisque-fired ceramic sculptures in the Junior Seminar art studio. “Your childhood cartoons, favorite books, and movies—they were someone’s myth, someone who had the agency to write themselves into the future,” she adds. 

A glitter glove, jeweled crowns, a Cartier brooch, a U.S. dollar, corn, orbs and UFOs, serpents, dragons, and horses, a pink Cadillac, gator shoes, and fur coats—in Jamea Richmond-Edwards’ myth, objects of reality and imagination coexist in the exhibition Another World and Yet the Same. Jamea’s blazing brushstrokes, fringe textures, and ornate patterns compose eclectic paintings, creating a web of a greater narrative: a love letter to her hometown, Detroit, Michigan. Growing up in the Motor Capital of the World, Jamea’s early introduction to art came through lived experiences—Detroit is a powerhouse of hair and nail artistry, forms of self-expression interwoven with community building. “In many Indigenous cultures,” Jamea explains to a group of us during an intimate docent gathering, “there is no word for art—creativity is rather lived, integrated into a people’s quotidian.” 

In mythscapes of Another World, viewers are invited to embark on a journey toward Antarctica, led by the story’s protagonist, Iceberg—the expedition leader and an archetype of liberation. Jamea’s canvases reveal themselves as real and imagined counter-maps, each painting a scene in the journey toward the Land of Canaanland. “Antarctica, on certain maps, is known as the Holy Land,” the artist notes during the Artists in Conversation discussion, referencing her homonymous painting Terra Sancta, Terra Sancta; Another World and Yet the Same. The work depicts Iceberg’s first Antarctic expedition, seated at the rear of the iconic pink Cadillac. “Good boots and good coats is all you need,” Jamea remarks with a smile. 

If gator boots and elegant fur coats are essential for the Antarctic journey, so is a beat to move by: Jamea’s art is lived through music. Before sketching on canvas, she meditates on what the artwork will sound like. Her musical influences exist at the crossroads of fine art and pop culture, or “the hood,” as she puts it. Lauryn Hill, George Clinton, Coast Contra, Kamasi Washington, and, of course, the Sonic Boom of the South marching band at Jackson State University—the artist’s alma mater—already hum a melody of Jamea’s paintings. As “Follow Me” by Aly-Us plays, the women in Iceberg’s group perform a line dance to celebrate their landing in Antarctica, a triumph of hope marked by whirling sunflowers. 

The magic of Jamea’s artworks lies in their reach: they speak not only to Art and Art History students but also to those in Music, American Studies, Religious Studies, Africana Studies, and Sociology, kindling dialogues across disciplines at the Wellin Museum of Art. Jamea masterfully does what all of us, consciously or subconsciously, do every day: interpret the world through stories. Where words upon words form power, Jamea’s paintings serve as a reminder to add Michael Jackson’s glitter glove to our stories—to be fearless and bold, to be the liberator of our realities, and the hero of our myths.