Drekkia Morning, Arts in Education Programs manager with the Arkansas Arts Council, will explore the depths of art and artists in Arkansas via candid, biweekly livestreams. The live interviews will be on the main Facebook page of the Arkansas Arts Council.
Join Drekkia at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25, to discover new and established artists and arts programs in Arkansas. This week’s episode will feature Ebony Blevins, a Little Rock artist.
Since the age of 5, Ebony L. Blevins knew she would be an artist when she grew up. She picked up a camera at age 8 and began her journey in a 4-HC Club in Pine Bluff. At age 12, she won her first award, the top prize of a Rosette in 4-H, with a photo essay called “A Day at the Zoo.” The essay was shot entirely with a 110 film camera.
Blevins continued to take photos throughout high school and was a member of the yearbook staff. She decided to major in art at Arkansas State University until a professor told her that “art wasn’t for her.” She switched to journalism with an emphasis on photojournalism. She provided photos for the yearbook and was a sports photographer for the student newspaper. Blevins earned her degree and worked as a staff photographer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Blevins is proficient in several types of photographic processes, including cyanotype. She is interested in a variety of subjects, including portraiture and social justice. With the current climate of global protests, she has been diligently documenting protests in Little Rock, surrounding areas and even made trips to Dallas and Portland.
Blevins wrote about her work: “What I love most about photography is the ability to create a record of briefly occurring moments that can be viewed and revisited forever, or at least as long as the files can be accessed and the prints last. Through these frozen moments, I capture the essence of the person I am photographing. My hope is that the subject sees a side that they may not realize is being revealed, helping them to share their story with the world.”
Today, Blevins is a freelance photographer for several statewide publications and an exhibiting artist. Her work is part of the inaugural exhibition, “Let Us March On,” for the Window Gallery of the Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College. The exhibition documents and interprets the Black Lives Matter movement in Arkansas. Her work is also now a mural on Seventh Street in Little Rock.
Blevins is active in supporting and developing other artists and Arkansas’s arts communities. She has worked with Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, including donating images for “Covid in Black: The African American Experience in Arkansas.” She also is a member of a team that has been looking into developing living and work spaces for artists in Central Arkansas.