"Queen Brooks was one among seven original artists, Bill Agnew, Barbara Chavous, Andrew Scott, Larry Winston Collins, Pheoris West, and LaVerne Brown, who contributed to the Kwanzaa Playground which was developed in 1995 as a joint effort between the community and the City of Columbus. It is designed in the shape of a human figure, which represents the first ancestor and it focuses on positive African American images. Brooks work symbolizes peace and tries to bring a sense of welcoming and calm to all visitors. Brooks's current ""African Portal"" is constructed out of steel to ensure its longevity as a beautiful architectural piece for decades to come.

Queen Brooks is a Columbus native. Her gallery and place of residence, Blue Haven Art Studio is where she does most of her creative work. She is the recipient of the Ohioana Career Award the highest recognition bestowed on an artist in the state of Ohio. She works with a diverse range of media from wood burning, drawing, painting, print making, mixed media, and digital photography. Her work is often colorful, patterned and textural and she focuses on subject matter surrounding her culture, human issues and spirituality. Her artwork has been shown nationally and internationally and is held in the collections of the Ohio Dominican and Ohio Otterbein Universities, the King Arts Complex, and the Columbus Museum of Art."

"“Akua'ba Invocation Figure” is one of eight Invocation Figures by Andrew F. Scott. The Akua’ba fertility figure has historically been used by the Akan women of West Africa to aid in conception. Traditionally, akua’ba figures are carved from wood and consecrated by priests although Scott’s comparatively massive sculpture is constructed entirely out of steel. The figures are all carved in a similar style with characteristics of ideal Akan beauty such as a flat disklike head and rings around the neck to replicate rolls of fat which are signs of beauty, health, and prosperity. Akan women carry these figures against their backs wrapped in their skirts, in the same way they will carry their infant children. After aiding the woman through pregnancy, akua’ba are returned to shrines as offerings to the spirits in return for the safekeeping of the child. Some families choose to keep their akua’ba as a memorial to the child and the figures become family heirlooms that call specific loved ones to mind. The disk-headed akua’ba figures remain one of the most recognizable forms in African art.

Andrew F. Scott is a multimedia artist and sculptor whose work falls at the intersection of digital fabrication technologies, traditional fine arts practices, and collective cultural ideals. He finds inspiration from African American art and culture and views his work through the spirit of “Sankofa,” a word in the Twi language of Ghana that literally translates to ""go back and get it."" Metaphorically, “Sankofa” expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present in order to make positive progress. “Through synthesis, manipulation, and abstraction, [Scott] reinterpret[s] these traditional forms and ideas and bring[s] them into a modern context.” Scott’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Visit “Akua’ba Invocation Figure” in front of the King Arts Complex."

"The “Baobab Tree” is one of two of artist Andrew F. Scott's contributions to the Kwanzaa Playground. According to Scott's artist site: ""The Kwanzaa playground was developed in 1995 as a joint effort between the community and the city of Columbus. Seven local artists and sculptors contributed to the design and construction. The park is designed in the shape of a human, which represents a first ancestor. The park focuses on positive African-American images based on the concept that, it takes a whole village to raise a child.""

Andrew F. Scott is an artist that works with multi media. His work falls at the intersection of digital fabrication technologies, traditional fine arts practices, and collective cultural ideals. He finds inspiration from African-American art and culture and views his work through the spirit of Sankofa, a word in the Twi language of Ghana that literally translates to ""go back and get it."" Metaphorically, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present in order to make positive progress."

"“Helping Hands” by Omar Shaheed depicts a family gathering together outside of the Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. The figures are faceless, however they look toward one another and engage in a loving embrace. One figure holds a newborn in its arms, while three other figures hold each other. “Helping Hands” was given to the medical center by Dr. Craig W and Deborah Anderson and their family as a gift representing the importance of family. The dedication plaque reads, “This limestone work is dedicated to the families of the Grant Medical Center - the caring staff, the patients, and those who support them.” This sculpture is a visualization of Black family, love, comfort, care, and the community itself.

Omar Shaheed is a Columbus native who works primarily in stone and bronze. Shaheed’s abstract sculptures often reflect the life of African Americans with themes such as family, love, musical influence and the “ghetto.” Shaheed has expressed that he began his career as an artist by using his work as a means to leave behind his early struggles with poverty and today his large scale work can be seen internationally across the US, in Negril, Jamaica, and in the west African nation of Burkina Faso. Each piece vibrates with pride, comfort and awareness to the Black experience and expands upon the themes of love and community.

Visit “Helping Hands” outside of the Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.

Dimensions: 9ft x 4ft x 4 ft"

"“Jazz Duets” by African American sculptor Omar Shaheed depicts a male saxophone player back-to-back with a singing woman. “Jazz Duets” pays homage to the great influence of jazz music and its importance to Black culture as well as referencing the Jazz Era in Columbus. Though many associate the Jazz Era with its origins in New Orleans or major cities where it flourished such as New York and Chicago, Ohio was also influential in the development of Jazz music. Many artists would stop through Ohio on their way to play in other parts of the country. Jazz musicians such as trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison, instrumentalist Roland T. “Rahsaan Roland” Kirk and bandleader and singer Ted Lewis all have ties to the Jazz scene in Ohio. Tenor and alto saxophonist Royal G. “Rusty” Bryant and keyboardist Hank Marr were celebrated specifically in Columbus because of their regional connection having grown up in the area. Jazz music was based on Southern African American musical practice of singing away one's sorrows but was soon co-opted by white musicians and white audiences. While this sometimes allowed for social mobility of African American musicians, the popularity of these performers within predominantly white spaces brought about many racial conflicts. Despite these challenges, Jazz lives on as a celebration of African American pride and culture.

Artist Omar Shaheed is a Columbus native who works primarily in stone and bronze. As he explains, “When you carve different stones, it generates a rhythm — music. It’s like you’re dancing with the stone, and you and the stone become one,” bringing even more life to his piece, “Jazz Duets.” Shaheed’s abstract sculptures often reflect the life of African Americans with themes such as family, love, musical influence and the “ghetto.” Shaheed has expressed that he began his career as an artist by using his work as a means to leave behind his early struggles with poverty and today his large scale work can be seen internationally across the US, in Negril, Jamaica, and in the west African nation of Burkina Faso. Each piece vibrates with pride, comfort and awareness to the Black experience and expands upon the themes of love and community.

Feel the music and visit “Jazz Duets” across Long Street from the Lincoln Theatre. "

"“Nkondi Invocation Figure” is one of eight Invocation Figures by Andrew F. Scott. The nkisi nkondi is a figure made by the Kongo people of Africa. A nkisi nkondi can be used as an oath taking image that is brought in to resolve disputes, heal the sick, avenge wrongdoing, or act as a guardian if evil sorcery has been committed. The nkondi is a protective force that will use violence to hunt and punish their offenders. Nkondi figures are recognizable by the many sharp objects inserted into their skin. Traditionally, a blade is driven into the figure to ask for help. Impaling the figure is thought to activate the nkisi and enrage it into performing its duty to protect. Scott’s “Nkondi Invocation Figure” is pierced with a series of nails. Nkondi figures are also known to have reflective surfaces attached to their bellies. The reflection represents the ‘other world’ of the dead. In this culture, the dead live on as spirits who can look through the reflection into the living world and keep an eye on potential enemies. Scott’s figure holds a reflective box near its abdominal region. In addition to representing the “other world,” the reflective material also acts as a storage unit for medical substances.

Andrew F. Scott is a multimedia artist and sculptor whose work falls at the intersection of digital fabrication technologies, traditional fine arts practices, and collective cultural ideals. He finds much of his inspiration from African American art and culture and views his work through the spirit of “Sankofa., “Sankofa” is a word in the Twi language of Ghana that literally translates to ""go back and get it."" Metaphorically, “Sankofa” expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present in order to make positive progress. “Through synthesis, manipulation, and abstraction, [Scott] reinterpret[s] these traditional forms and ideas and bring[s] them into a modern context.” Scott’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Visit “Nkondi Invocation Figure” in front of the King Arts Complex."

“Out of the Struggles of the Past to a Brilliant Future” by Melvin Edwards features a large abstract metal structure composed in an arch formation including flat pieces of metal and oversized stylized chain links. The piece was Edward’s first large major public art commission, though he is best known for his ongoing series of small-scale reliefs, “Lynch Fragments.” He began the series in the 1960’s as a way to express his concerns about racial violence and the civil rights movement. The series continued as a response to the Vietnam War and has since developed to be a more personal exploration of Edwards’ identity and past. “Lynch Fragments” features amalgamations of brutal tools used for torture, often featuring chains which are strongly associated with captivity and oppression of African American people. “Out of the Struggles of the Past to a Brilliant Future” also features imagery of chains, yet it holds hope for a brighter future. Its title seems to echo the sentiment from the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” which was adopted by the NAACP as its official song and often called the Black National Anthem. The second verse of the song reads as follows.

“We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.”

Like many other works in his practice, “Out of the Struggles of the Past to a Brilliant Future” reflects Edward’s “engagement with the history of race, labor, and violence, as well as with themes of the African Diaspora.”

Most of Edward’s work is in metal. His background as a metal worker is significant to the stories he tells through his work, with chains being a common motif, and his own ancestry. Edward’s great-great-great grandfather had been a blacksmith in Africa when he was abducted and brought to the United States to work as an enslaved person making metal things on a plantation near Tuskegee. As Edwards states, “you go into your profession because it’s an extension of your family, or you go into it because you’re called to do it, as it turned out, it was both for me.” Melvin Edwards (b.1937) is highly respected as a pioneer in the history of contemporary African-American art and sculpture. His work has been shown nationally and internationally at a variety of major galleries and museums including his 1970 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which was the first solo exhibition at the Whitney to feature an African American sculptor.

Visit “Out of the Struggles of the Past to a Brilliant Future” in Mount Vernon Plaza off Atcheson Street.

"“Pythagoras Theorum” by Chief Baba Shongo Obadina is a series of copper rectangular geometric shapes that form a triangular void, referencing the mathematical rule. Pythagoras' theorem, also known as the right triangle theorem, states that the length of the two legs of a right triangle can be used to find the length of the hypotenuse. Though the theorem is named after the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, there is evidence that suggests ancient Egyptians and other Mesopotamian societies had discovered the right triangle theorem long before Pythagorus was born. Chief Baba Shongo Obadina's sculpture touches on the whitewashing of academic achievement in Eurocentric mathematics. Evidence shows that people of color were using these mathematical principles long before the Greeks, yet the Greeks were credited with their discovery and continue to be praised for their scholarly endeavors.

Chief Baba Shongo Obadina is an artist, curator and founder of the William H. Thomas Gallery and Urban Cultural Arts foundation. This Columbus native used his arts and culture to not only inspire those around him, but to make a change in the inner city of Columbus. In 1976, he founded his gallery, affectionately known as the “art gallery in the hood” as a space “for artists to showcase and appreciate cultural expression without being limited by ‘mainstream’ galleries.” All of Chief Baba Shongo Obadina's work reflects his love of African culture and art and his dedication to the Yoruba tradition of telling stories of important events, places, and time throughout history. The William H. Thomas Gallery still stands proudly at 1270 Bryden Road in Columbus.

Visit “Pythagoras Theorum” in front of the William H. Thomas Gallery."

"Omar Shaheed’s “'The Family” is a limestone sculpture featuring an African American family engaged in a loving and protective embrace. This sculpture shows Shaheed’s continued appreciation of the black body as a faceless mother, father, sister and brother turn to each other holding hands and forming an abstracted rectangular shape together. Shaheed explained that this sculpture refers to the black family in the ghettos as the ""cornerstone of our community."" The symbolization of a black family shows the power of love in this community.

Omar Shaheed is a Columbus native who works primarily in stone and bronze. Shaheed’s abstract sculptures often reflect the life of African Americans with themes such as family, love, musical influence and the “ghetto.” Shaheed has expressed that he began his career as an artist by using his work as a means to leave behind his early struggles with poverty and today his large scale work can be seen internationally across the US, in Negril, Jamaica, and in the west African nation of Burkina Faso. Each piece vibrates with pride, comfort and awareness to the Black experience and expands upon the themes of love and community.

Visit “The Family” outside of the King Arts Complex in Columbus, Ohio.

Quotes from a 2019 interview of Artist Omar Shaheed by Curator, Destyni Green."