UUC Art Committee chooses “artivist” Nikkolas Smith’s work

The Bridges room in the UUC Children’s Suite is named after Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend a whites-only elementary school in 1960 New Orleans. The new portrait of Bridges was made by Black illustrator and author Nikkolas Smith, who calls himself an “artivist”—artist and activist. It replaces the Norman Rockwell image that was retired during UUC’s building renovation.

Smith uses digital tools to create art that sparks conversation and inspires meaningful change. Bridges selected him to collaborate with her on her children’s bookI Am Ruby Bridges, published by Scholastic. Smith says that the Norman Rockwell image of Bridges walking to school under armed guard always hung in his house. “I always want my visual art to be like that oil painting,” he has shared. “I want it to have a lot of movement, the feeling of oil on canvas.”

When considering an image to honor Bridges, the UUC Art Committee wanted to select a living artist of color to illustrate her childhood role in the civil rights movement. Other images in Smith’s body of work include a depiction of Martin Luther King, Jr., in a hoodie, a protestor kneeling and holding up a mirror before a phalanx of armed police, and a portrait of George Floyd, which was the centerpiece billboard in New York’s Times Square in 2020. You can learn more about the artist atwww.nikkolas.art.

The members of theUUC Art Committee are pleased to have discovered this artist-activist for the Bridges room! All are invited to stop by and take a look.