project overview

HOSPITALITY HUB |

Artist: Khara Woods Fabricator: Anthony Lee

Budget: $14,000

Upcoming benchmark/update: Schematic Design

BACKGROUND

About Hospitality Hub

The Hospitality Hub was founded in 2007 to be Memphis’ single point of entry into the Continuum of Care for individuals experiencing homelessness. The mission of the Hub is to connect individuals with the resources they need to begin their journey out of homelessness. Their comprehensive services include emergency shelters, transitional housing, and support programs.

About UAC:

The UrbanArt Commission (UAC) works to create opportunities for artists and neighborhoods to connect and shape spaces through public art. Since 2002, UAC has managed the City of Memphis’s Percent-For-Art Program, which allocates funds annually to develop public art in connection to capital improvement projects. UAC also facilitates public art projects throughout the city working with various partners and clients to support artists and new experiences with art.

Front entrance of Hospitality Hub

SCOPE OF WORK

The selection committee has expressed interest in a crosswalk that:

  • Embody trauma-informed design

  • Promotes calmness 

  • Encourages slower traffic 

  • Incorporate elements that reflect and enhance identity of the Hospitality Hub’s campus and mission

  • Creates a welcoming connection to the surrounding community

  • Complies with the City of Memphis crosswalk guidelines

SELECTION COMMITTEE 

  • Brett Ragsdale- City of Memphis Planning and Development, Zoning Administrator

  • Kelsey Johnson- Hospitality Hub

  • Jessica Houari - Hospitality Hub 

  • Su Hartline- Hospitality Hub

  • Maquita Evans- Shelby County Court 

  • Sophia Mason - Artist

  • Suzy Marie Hendrix- Artist

  • William Ezzell- City of Memphis Bikeway and  Pedestrian Program Manager

About Artists:

Khara Woods

Khara Woods is a multidisciplinary artist and graphic designer who lives and works in Memphis, TN. Her studio practice includes abstract geometric paintings, wood assemblage and public art, including murals and community engagement projects. Her work has been exhibited recently at Hillard Museum at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, LA, Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, TN, and Crosstown Arts in Memphis, TN. She has designed and installed murals and public art projects for various organizations since 2015, including the Memphis Public Library’s Cornelia Crenshaw branch (2017) and the City of Memphis’ Office of Comprehensive Planning (2023). She was commissioned by Mural Arts Philadelphia in 2019 to design a large-scale data-visualization mural for the Uptown Memphis neighborhood as a part of their Arts & Environment Initiative. Woods was awarded the New Public Artists Fellowship in 2021 by UrbanArt Commission. In 2023, she is working on a number of asphalt art designs for several institutions including the Memphis Medical District Collaborative, Smart Growth America, and the City of Memphis’ Office of Comprehensive Planning.

Website: https://www.kharawoods.com/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/khara0ke_studio/

Anthony Lee

Anthony D. Lee is influenced by the culture and heritage of the places that he’s lived, though he considers himself a Memphis Native. Lee credits his West Indian roots as an important contributing factor in his creative development- his vivid palette was inspired in St. Croix, of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his boyhood home. During the 1990s, Lee was a student of Bill Hicks, an instructor at the nearby Memphis College of Art. Lee studied briefly at NC State’s School of Design in 2001, after having served a stint as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army’s 82d Airborne Division.

Lee’s initial bodies of work were mixed-media panels with heavy color saturation and symbolic narrative content. His work has been featured at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Powerhouse, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis College of Art, Arkansas Arts Center, National Civil Rights Museum, Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, and several galleries throughout the U.S. He has also created many public art projects and large-scale mural works, of which one was nationally recognized and awarded in 2009.