Community is the starting point of the creative life for Larissa Ramey-Frimpong ’19

The work of building community has formed the bedrock of Larissa Ramey-Frimpong‘s creative life. 

Her STOOP TALK workshops — collaborative and interactive sessions designed with BIPOC communities in mind and open to everyone — have evolved into a new venture:

STOOP TALK: ARTIST TAKES. It is, Ramey-Frimpong said, “a podcast centered on art, being in active community, and sharing resources through lived experience.”

Ramey-Frimpong, who graduated from PCA&D with her BFA in Photography in 2019, was that year’s recipient of the Mary Colleen Heil Vanguard Award for Leadership. She went on to earn her MFA in Studio Art (Photography) from The University of Arkansas. She describes herself as a “multidisciplinary artist, educator, curator, and lover of archival methods. From the South and currently based in the Midwest, Ramey-Frimpong begins this fall as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Augustana College in Illinois, and also serves as Editorial and Partnerships Manager at Black Is Magazine. 

Through it all, the formation of creative community has remained strong.

“In my first year of graduate school, I wanted to build a community where I felt seen, offer accessible art and art education outside of institutional spaces, and promote the artists of my new community,’ she said. “I founded STOOP TALK workshops … (and) each iteration of the seminars focuses on providing multidisciplinary demonstrations from diverse artists, access to visual media and studio play, skill-sharing, and a location that fosters community engagement.

“The goal is to promote a dialogue and develop a new visual language that explores the potential of art for the local community and its artists. Active participation, creative strategy, and support are fundamental to the progression of these workshops, which aim to inspire change and engage in ways that represent the lived experiences and suggestions of all participants. The focus is on growing the narrative that art is for and by us, and that we can impact our legacy.”

The workshops are still ongoing, Ramey-Frimpong said, “and over the past five years, I have successfully highlighted numerous artists, resources, and local BIPOC businesses across multiple states.”

A year out of graduate school, the artist said, she missed “being a part of the conversations, creative challenges, and joy of being surrounded by like-minded people. I lost the ability to physically be with the creative community I had built after moving, and I wanted to reconnect with those relationships and the inspiring environment.” So STOOP TALK: ARTIST TAKES, the podcast, was born. The goal as this first season evolves, Ramey-Frimpong said, is “to converse with contemporary artists, educators, and creatives,” and the podcast’s target audience “is people who want to learn from about about today’s contemporary artists, educators, and creatives.”

To learn more, and see more of Ramey-Frimpong’s work, visit her website or her Instagram. STOOP TALK: ARTIST TAKES can be found on YouTube and Spotify. The first episode features artist and entrepreneur Lakisha Harper-Bradley, founder of My-T-By-Design

Headshot credit: Trent Harlan Bozeman

Podcast image credit: Larissa Ramey-Frimpong

STOOP TALK creative workshop image credit: Xavier Smith