Meghan Quigley Graham, Wheaton class of 2011, will share her experiences in the museum field as a student intern, administrative assistant, graduate student and museum educator as well as a pro-union organizer. She will explore both the ways in which inequality is reinforced by gendered labor and pay inequity and by the privileging of postgraduate degrees over hands-on experience and the ways in which emerging museum professionals, in particular, are organizing and collaborating to change the system.

Award-winning choral director Dr. André de Quadros leads a variety of Wheaton creators such as Chorale Singers, Chamber Singers, and World Music Ensemble in exploring themes of social justice through song and spoken word.

Join us for a conversation with Museum founder Debra Britt and educator Beth Danesco. They will share the story of the creation of the National Black Doll Museum and the rich history of Black doll makers and collectors in the Massachusetts area.

Artist Shaquora R’ Bey will share her history as a doll maker and soft sculptor. Bey is an artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including textiles, crotchet, beads, and unique hair designs. She has been commissioned to make sculptures and dolls for television and films. She believes in the healing process of using craft as therapy and in using art to raise self-esteem and awareness. Her soft sculptures, which she describes as “the embodiment of femininity and masculinity,” are featured in What Only You Can Make in the Beard and Weil Galleries.

Join us for a workshop led by National Black Doll Museum founders Debra Britt and Felicia Walker. The workshop will focus on the African Wrap Doll, an adaptation of dolls based on the techniques of a traditional artform rooted in 18th C. African American culture and a specialty of the National Black Doll Museum.

Participants will create their own wrap dolls to take home using fabric and reclaimed and recycled materials all of which will be provided. All are welcome and refreshments will be provided. This is a drop in event, join as you are able.

Join us for a workshop led by National Black Doll Museum founders Debra Britt and Felicia Walker. The workshop will focus on the African Wrap Doll, an adaptation of dolls based on the techniques of a traditional artform rooted in 18th C. African American culture and a specialty of the National Black Doll Museum.

Participants will create their own wrap dolls to take home using fabric and reclaimed and recycled materials all of which will be provided. All are welcome and refreshments will be provided. This is a drop in event, join as you are able.

Arda Collins poetry features a quiet assertive voice that builds or collects or accumulates a domestic space.  It is an approach to subject matter and context that has, in the poetry world, found a greater voice through women poet’s work.

Writer, teacher, and tattoo artist, Phuc Tran, reads from his humorous and introspective memoir, “Sigh, Gone. A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In”, about his family’s escape from Vietnam, displacement in America, and his struggle to fit in during high school.  A brief Q&A will follow this lunchtime event.

Writer Kim Adrian reads from her memoir “The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet” and discusses growing up with the confusion and chaos of mental illness and generational trauma.  A brief Q&A will follow this lunchtime event.

Award winning composer, saxophonist, and flutist Anna Webber performs with her band Simple Trio (Matt Mitchell, piano; John Hollenbeck, drums) blending strands from contemporary concert music and free improvisation. It is surprising, inventive, virtuosic, and engagingly problematizes entrenched notions about the genre of a jazz trio.