News Brief
Erin C.J. Robertson
Jun. 21, 2016 12:50PM EST

Brooklyn Teen’s Impressive Artwork ‘Uganda’ Wins a Spot at the Met

“I’ve been told that I’m inspiring young artists all around the world and that’s amazing.”

Little did 18-year-old Cliffannie Forrester know that a rediscovered photograph of a little girl captured during a mission trip to Uganda would help her accomplish one of her dreams.

Buzzfeed reports, one of Forrester’s teachers at New York’s High School of Art and Design encouraged her to transform the snapshot into this work of art, and enter it into the P.S. Art competition that selects pieces to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC that has millions of visitors from around the world.

The teenage Brooklynite’s artwork Uganda has been selected as one of the winners, and has earned her a $1,000 scholarship.

Forrester tweeted about her accomplishment, and as Twitter always loves an inspiring story, it has gone viral, receiving more than 39,000 retweets and 85,000 likes, so far.

“Who just completed their life goal at age 18?” Forrester tweets. “Me. As of 6/14/16, my piece is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

I look like an egg

A photo posted by Coretta The Chef (@cliffannie) on

As if that wasn’t enough good news, she has received word that Uganda will be on display in Times Square as well.

:'-) so happy

A photo posted by Coretta The Chef (@cliffannie) on

“My next goal is to get another piece in a museum. I never want to give up my work,” Forrester says, who has plans to enroll at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she will major in Fine Art.

Cliffannie Forrester P.S. Art competition The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Interview

Interview: Wavy The Creator Is Ready to See You Now

The multidisciplinary Nigerian-American artist on tapping into all her creative outlets, creating interesting things, releasing a new single and life during quarantine.

A trip canceled, plans interrupted, projects stalled. It is six months now since Wavy the Creator has had to make a stop at an undisclosed location to go into quarantine and get away from the eye of the pandemic.

The professional recording artist, photographer, writer, fashion artist, designer, and evolving creative has been spending all of this time in a house occupied by other creatives. This situation is ideal. At least for an artist like Wavy who is always in a rapid motion of creating and bringing interesting things to life. The energy around the house is robust enough to tap from and infuse into any of her numerous creative outlets. Sometimes, they also inspire trips into new creative territories. Most recently, for Wavy, are self-taught lessons on a bass guitar.

Wavy's days in this house are not without a pattern, of course. But some of the rituals and personal rules she drew up for herself, like many of us did for internal direction, at the beginning of the pandemic have been rewritten, adjusted, and sometimes ditched altogether. Some days start early and end late. Some find her at her sewing machine fixing up thrift clothes to fit her taste, a skill she picked up to earn extra cash while in college, others find her hard at work in the studio, writing or recording music.

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