The Anacostia Community Museum will be closed from January 8, 2024-March 22, 2024. We will reopen on Saturday, March 23, 2024 with our next exhibition, A Bold and Beautiful Vision: A Century of Black Arts Education in Washington, DC,1900-2000. We hope you will join us! 

Skeezy

Object Details

Artist
John Ahearn
Rigoberto Torres
Date
1992
Medium
acrylic on hydrocal plaster
Dimensions
20 3/16 × 25 3/8 × 8 1/4 in. (51.2 × 64.5 × 21 cm)
Cite As
Gift of the Artists
Caption
Sculptors John Ahearn (1951-) and Rigoberto Torres (1960-) crafted this bust of Carroll Payne, an African American community leader in Washington, DC, in 1992. The lifecast depicts Payne from the chest up in hydrocal plaster. His features and attire come to life in acrylic paint based on a Polaroid photograph taken at the time of the casting. Payne, looking directly at the viewer, wears a black shirt, necklace and kufi hat in green-and-white, black, yellow, and red stripes.
A graduate of Federal City College (now University of the District of Columbia), Payne worked at Potomac Gardens, a public housing project in southeastern Capitol Hill, where children and teens affectionately called him “Uncle Skeezie.” He also taught leadership skills to underserved youth through the Department of Parks and Recreation’s Roving Leaders Program and volunteered at John Tyler Elementary School with fellow mentor John “Peter Bug” Matthews. Payne’s portrait was among those made by the Bronx-based artists in collaboration with residents of Anacostia and Congress Heights as well as youth at the Latin American Youth Center in Columbia Heights, for a community art project sponsored by Washington Project for the Arts (WPA). “Skeezy” was on display at the WPA’s related exhibition, “John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres: Face to Face/Cara Cara,” held in dual locations: at the WPA’s downtown gallery and at the former Congress Heights High School on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue in Anacostia. In 1993, the bust traveled to Manhattan for “The 42nd Street Art Project,” a groundbreaking community exhibit that transformed Times Square into a public art gallery.
Accession Number
2020.1.1
Type
sculpture
See more items in
Anacostia Community Museum Collection
Data Source
Anacostia Community Museum
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
GUID
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/dl83924377f-2d34-4709-b200-f6a27258f7dd
Record ID
acm_2020.1.1
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