SAEAS News
IN MEMORIAM: SAEAS FOUNDER
Joseph Alphonso Pierce, Jr.
1935 – 2024
MESSAGE FROM SAEAS
09/13/2024
“Today, like many in the San Antonio community, we honor Joseph Pierce. Joe, with
wife and one of our co-founders, Aaronetta Pierce, was a quiet but firm advocate in
promoting respect for and access to the visual arts. In fact, he was a Charter Member of
the San Antonio Ethnic Art Society in 1983. Our hearts are with The Pierce family as
they grieve his loss. Joe’s positive impact on SAEAS is part of his lasting legacy.”
BIO
Joseph (Joe) Alphonso Pierce, Jr. was born on August 13, 1935, in Marshall, Texas
where his parents, Juanita George Pierce and Joseph A. Pierce, Sr., were young faculty
members at Wiley College. Joe was their only child. It was the time of “the great
debaters” and professors like Melvin B. Tolson, whose literature Joe would collect in
adulthood. When Joe was three years old, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia when
his father accepted a teaching position in the graduate school of Atlanta University, his
Alma Mater. Joe attended Oglethorpe Elementary School, where his mother also taught.
He had fond memories of those years where he sold the popular Pittsburgh Courier and
Ebony Magazines over a wide area of Atlanta on his bicycle. In Atlanta, Joe established
life-long friends, made lasting memories, and was influenced by significant role models
in this African American academic mecca.
In 1961, Joe earned a medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville,
Tennessee, one of the nation’s oldest and largest historically Black academic health
centers. After interning at Hubbard Hospital, also in Nashville, he entered the United
States Army Medical Corps. Following one vear in Korea and several months at Fort
Ord, California, he was transferred to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.
On March 1, 1964, Joe married Aaronetta Hamilton in Nashville, Tennessee at St. Luke
CME Church. As newlyweds, they moved to San Antonio where Joe completed a
residency in Anesthesiology at Brooke General Hospital at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, and
Aaronetta taught at Riley Junior High School in the San Antonio Independent School
District. They enjoyed living in San Antonio and made many new friends. Their union
was blessed with two sons, Joseph Aaron Pierce who was born in 1969 at the 2nd
General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany and Michael Arthur Pierce who was born in
1972 in San Antonio, Texas.
In 1967, the United States Army gave Major Pierce a military assignment to one of the
largest military hospitals in Europe. For three years in Germany, he served as chief of
the Anesthesia and Operative Services at 2nd General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany,
and during that time, he attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. While there, he and
Aaronetta travelled extensively throughout Europe, learning more about the culture and
In honor of Joe Pierce’s life, donations may be made to The McDermott Fund at The Witte Museum, SAn Antonio African American Archives and Museum (SAAACAM), or Meharry Medical College Nashville, Tennessee.
2021 Abaraka Award to fund Dallas youth sculpture project responding to Covid health disparities
(San Antonio, TX) – The San Antonio Ethnic Art Society (SAEAS) has selected artist and arts educator Jessica Bellas the recipient of its 2021 Abaraka Award for her youth art project with the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas.. The Abaraka Award, a biennial art grant, was launched in 2017 to assist African American women in the visual arts in three areas: visual arts creation; curatorial projects; and research and academic endeavors related to visual arts.
SAEAS, a collective of POC artists and supporters, partners with art collectors Aissatou Sidime-Blanton and Stewart Blanton to provide Abaraka Award grants of up to $3,000 to early- to mid-career applicants nationwide.
Winning projects are selected partly based on whether the applicant is at a critical stage in her career where this funding will have a significant impact. Additional consideration is given to proposals that incorporate young women in their research and creative processes.
Bell, a 2021-2022 Teach Plus Texas Policy Fellow and sculpture and welding teacher at the Dallas high school, holds a master’s in Art Education with a concentration in ceramics from SUNY-New Paltz. She was named a Red Bull Arts Microgrant winner for 2021. Her personal art includes a Deep Elum mural and, most recently, ceramic art installations that employ humor as a tool to discuss complex social issues. Her winning project, working titled “Dr’s Office Toy,” will have high school girls create a five-part ceramic and metal installation that riffs off the squiggly, wood bead maze toys that are commonly found in pediatrician’s offices. The students will respond to the health care disparities faced by poor and POC communities that were aggravated by Covid. Their installation will be displayed in multiple locations owned by Dallas ISD.
“The Selection Committee was most struck by Jessica’s finesse at employing playful iconography and everyday – typically innocuous – items to lure the viewer into a closer examination and then deeper understanding of the messages embedded in her own artwork,” said Ronney Stevens, artist and SAEAS President. “It’s a hard skill to master. But Jessica has a burgeoning record of teaching everyday people and her students how to transfer complex concepts into beautiful art. Her proposal also conveyed the commitments by the school district, and even parents in the school’s Visual Arts Guild, to provide additional financial and facility resources to ensure the Booker T. Washington High School girls and Jessica can complete and exhibit their installations around the city this school year.”
The guest juror for the first phase of applicant review was Steve Prince, Director of Engagement and Distinguished Artist In Residence at Muscarelle Museum of Art at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.
Other finalists included Constance White of Dallas and Krystal Hart of North Carolina.
Louisiana Fiber Artist and OSU Doctoral Dissertation selected for 2019 Abaraka Award
The San Antonio Ethnic Art Society (SAEAS) has selected Sharbreon Plummer’s doctoral research into fiber arts as both a fine art and a community-building practice among African American women as the 2019 recipient of its Abaraka Award. The Abaraka Award, a biennial art grant, was launched in 2017 to assist African American women in the visual arts in three areas: visual arts creation; curatorial projects; and research and academic endeavors related to visual arts.
SAEAS partners with art collectors Aissatou Sidime-Blanton and Stewart Blanton to provide Abaraka Award grants up to $3,000 to early- to mid-career applicants nationwide.
Winning projects are selected partly based on whether the recipient is at a critical stage in her career where this funding will have a significant impact.
Plummer, a Baton Rouge, LA. native and fiber artist, currently is a doctoral candidate in Arts Administration, Education and Policy at Ohio State University. Her research specializes in material culture, the art-craft discourse, Black feminist theory and African American visual arts. Her winning project is titled “Haptic Memory: Understanding the Black Female Experience Through Fiber Art Narratives.” Plummer has completed the Tate Intensive at Tate Modern in London, was a research fellow with The Embroiders’ Guild of America, and had an archival conservation project funded by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation.
“Our guest juror, curator and arts administrator Michelle Barnes (co-founder and Executive Director) of The Community Artists’ Collective, did a fabulous job on the initial screening of all applicants,” said Sidime-Blanton, SAEAS Vice President. “Ultimately, the Selection Committee was most compelled by Plummer’s desire to reexamine a medium and its related artistic practices – quilting, crocheting, weaving, etc. – that have historically been relegated to second-class status, and to do it through a lens that highlights the unique aesthetics that have been created through communal practices by women.
“Plus, the final project will include new art works, as well as chapbooks and other publications accessible to the general public.”
Other finalists included Tammie Rubin in Austin, TX; Sanah Brown of New York City currently in the Fort Worth, TX area; Chesley Antoinette Williams in Dallas; and Irene Reece of Houston and currently in Paris.