Sonya Clark: 1-877-OUR-CURL

Opening on Wednesday, October 28, Sonya Clark: 1-877-OUR-CURL will present Clark’s print series 1-877-OUR-CURL in its entirety for the first time.

1-877-OUR-CURL (1-877-687-2875) features seven Black femme poets whose voices can be heard reading in chorus or individually when the phone number is dialed. Their poems are transliterated into Twist, a custom digital typeface Clark developed with a graphic designer to mimic the natural curl patterns of Black hair. Named by Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Twist centers African identity and challenges the historical erasure of indigenous scripts by the Roman alphabet. The 128 printed poems exist individually and in every possible combination. The poems are accompanied by a key and a period/hairball made from an overprint of each Twist letter.

Artist and educator Sonya Clark was born in Washington, DC.  She is the Winifred Arms Professor of Arts at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Previously she chaired the Craft/Material Studies Department at Virginia Commonwealth University for a dozen years. She holds four honorary doctorates and is a graduate of Amherst College, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Clark was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2026 and has received awards from United States Artists, Pollock-Krasner, Trellis Foundation, Art Prize, and Anonymous Was a Woman. Clark has been granted residencies and fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, Indigo Arts Alliance in Maine, Yaddo in NY, the American Academy in Rome, and Black Rock in Senegal, among others. Clark’s work has been exhibited in more than 500 museums and galleries worldwide.

Sonya Clark will give an artist talk at the exhibition’s opening reception on Wednesday, October 28, at 5:00pm in Phelps-Stokes. All are welcome; no RSVP required. For more information, visit our Events page.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the William A. and Leola Piper Boyce Art Exhibition Endowment Fund.