Pray, Party, Scream: Founder Danielle Stevens Speaks on Collage Art and Identity
Pray party scream, founder Danielle Stevens identifies as pray party scream.
Although being raised multiracial (mother black and father white) I believes that choosing a race to identify with, limits me. I believe identity is a mix of identities. I also believe that I am interchangeable. I am a part of several organizations and communities. I work closely with Mixed Girl Meetup, and I am also a part of The Archdiocese of Los Angeles volunteering with Blessed Sacrament Church Hollywood.
Being mixed is fun, hard, and incredibly exciting! I wouldn't change it for the world. Having a mixed identity, contributes to my perspective of the world. I make collages to illustrate how I feel through the power of many different images.
Growing up mixed, I experienced two different cultures, which formulated my unique views of society. I’m part black, and part white. It was interesting seeing part of my family do things one way and the other do things another way. As a child, this conflicted me because I believed that I had to PICK ONE.
I’m so glad I grew out of that because I’m so honored to be able to represent two cultures as one. In terms of making my collages I get to cut out varying pictures and glue them together mixing worlds, mixing color and mixing media and I think it makes for a really cool end result.
In today’s black and white world, I’m gray. As a collage artist, I really feel that mixed media collages is the only medium that can accurately represent feeling, it can evoke emotion without an explanation. Explaining my views and explicitly stating what I mean by something is something that I’ve always hated doing, because I believe that this world wasn’t built on answers, it was built on the journey. Living life as one with a mixed identity, is the future.
I am selling my first collection this year on Loving Day (June 12th) Check out my work and my website below!