https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/1710306747-8231361606eeb0af1fc3c3f18f6b58e58e0f8eee4f091104e16e6688ba3c22ee-d

Experience Art That Transcends Boundaries

Discover the power of creativity through diverse mediums and perspectives

About Alice Aida Ayers

Artist Bio

In a career spanning over three decades, Alice Aida Ayers has established herself as an accomplished artist, art educator, and advocate for cultural exchange. With a Bachelor of Art and a Masters in Art Education, Ayers has exhibited her work in America, Europe, Mexico, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa.

Her passion for teaching and artis

Her passion for teaching and artistry has taken her to various countries, where she has served as a resident artist, adjunct professor, and consultant.

Since 1989, Ayers has dedicated herself to being a teaching artist, conducting residencies in more than 300 schools, colleges, community centers, and libraries.

For the past six years, she has focused her work on incarcerated individuals and women in recovery/re-entry programs.

Through art therapy and creative visualization, Ayers helps her students tap into their creative

source and explore their unique perspectives.

Ayers believes in pushing her students to question the presented information, their relationships, and their responses, encouraging them to relate these impressions to their own world.

She emphasizes the importance

of exploring art on a universal platform, exposing students to diverse cultural perspectives on art practices.

Ayers' personal artistic work revolves around textile art, specifically collage quilts. She incorporates ethnic, hand-dyed, and repurposed fabrics, as well as

found objects, to create textured and layered pieces. Her artistic process involves exploring the art of texture creation through stitching and the arrangement of objects.

As an experienced project director and arts educator with over 30 years of experience, Ayers has made significant contributions to classroom teaching, outreach programs, and community collaborations.

She has developed and implemented arts education programs, art therapy initiatives, and restorative practices.

Her roles as an arts administrator and programmer have involved

collaborating with government offices and agencies, organizing community events such as health fairs, art camps, mural projects, art fairs, and cultural exchanges.

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My Work

Artist Bio

My current work is textile art, which can be described as collage quilts. I use a combination of ethnic fabrics, recycled materials, repurposed fabrics, found objects, embroidery and applique. The process is a layering of fabric for the design as an applique’, similar to a regular quilt. Fabric is sewn with embroidery thread to attach the pieces onto a cloth surface. As an artist I am drawn to the art of creating texture, through layering, found objects and stitching. I adore fabrics and textiles, especially from Africa, and I use these in the pieces I make.

I am telling stories which are personal to me, for example, of my experiences in Africa. Whether it is the depiction of a figure on the beach of the Indian ocean or a young woman performing daily chores, the love and adoration I feel towards each event fills my soul. The Storyteller and Msemakweli depicts a friend from Little Rock and a friend from Tanzania. Even though they don’t know each other, they each have my love for them in common.

After working with incarcerated people, the portrait of Kenneth Reams was created. He is one of the brothers who has been on death row for almost two decades for a crime he didn’t commit. As a volunteer in the Arkansas prison system, I use the arts to create awareness where I can.

Quilting in the African-American community is a major influence in the work, and though these are not traditional quilts, there is a thread of storytelling through patterns, stitches and subject matter, just like quilts from the past.

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Artist Residencies

Since 1989, Ayers has dedicated herself to being a teaching artist, conducting residencies in more than 250 schools, colleges, community centers, and libraries.

For the past six years, she has focused her work on incarcerated individuals and women in recovery/re-entry programs.

Through art therapy and creative visualization, Ayers helps h

Since 1989, Ayers has dedicated herself to being a teaching artist, conducting residencies in more than 250 schools, colleges, community centers, and libraries.

For the past six years, she has focused her work on incarcerated individuals and women in recovery/re-entry programs.

Through art therapy and creative visualization, Ayers helps her students tap into their creative

source and explore their unique perspectives.

Ayers believes in pushing her students to question the presented information, their relationships, and their responses, encouraging them to relate these impressions to their own world.

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Performance

Artist Residencies

"it's Me I'm Running From"

A performance based on the real life journey of Alice Aida Ayers. She interprets some harrowing truths and life changing experiences. Using poetry, song, humor and imagery she tells an empowering story of perseverance. It is an honest sharing of love, creativity and gratitude for life. It will make you laugh, cry

"it's Me I'm Running From"

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