‘Hope grows’ as Creative Soul Art Club dazzles with art event honoring Black History Month

By David Gil de Rubio | dgilderubio@mec.cuny.edu

“But hope grows.”

It’s quite the message from Eternity Council, as the junior led the Creative Soul Art Club to an impressive display of artwork that is one part honoring Black History Month and another a tip of the cap to the Harlem Renaissance.

The display brought out dozens to the “Black Art Experience” event that the club hosted in the Bedford Building — with Council putting on her own piece that ties deeply into her influences and the place where she was born and raised.

“Today I’m presenting ‘Renaissance Baby’ and the movement that inspired it— the Harlem Renaissance,” she said. “It depicts places and landmarks in Harlem and also the ancestors that came before us like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Louie Armstrong, Josephine Baker and Zora Neale Hurston.”

Created in the span of three months from November 2024 to a couple of days before this exhibit, “Renaissance Baby” lays on a red canvas festooned with images of Harlem brownstones, small replica trumpets and trombones (reflecting the community’s deep jazz roots) and the names of a number of historical trailblazers along with phrases like “The New Negro Movement,” “Resilience” and “But hope grows.” 

Creative Soul Art Club is a 10-member organization — currently all female — full of budding artists and those that show a distinct respect of the past, and a keen sense of what the future holds. 

Council, who attended St. Jean Baptiste High School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, says her piece not only reflects her creative approach, but the influence of storied Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas. 

“I’ve been in the arts since I was really young and consider myself a mixed-media collage artist,” she explained. “I grew up doing arts and crafts since I was young and I use whatever is around me in my house. I have a bunch of yarn, pliers, scraps—its mixed media. Aaron Douglas is a favorite of mine because his artwork basically represented the triumph and struggle of Black people expressing their identity through history.”

Currently a junior at Medgar Evers College majoring in psychology with a concentration in art, Council plans on using her talents to help others.

“I plan to be an art therapist, but I also want to be an art director as well,” she said.