MEET THE CRITICS

VISUAL ARTS CRITIC: Christopher Blay

Christopher Blay is the Chief Curator of the Houston Museum of African American Culture. Also an artist and a writer, Blay was the News Editor at Glasstire Magazine from 2019 - 2021 and served as curator for the Art Corridor Galleries at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth for the ten years prior to Glasstire. Blay has been a guest lecturer at the University of North Texas, Texas Christian University, Tarleton State University, Sam Houston State University, as well as the University of Texas at Arlington and Stephen F. Austin university in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Blay has spoken at length about his work at the Dallas Museum of Art, The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, and the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. His public lectures and panel discussions also include a 2022 conversation with Mark Sealy of Autograph London, and Witnessing Worlds in Transition, at the Menil Collection in Houston. Blay’s engagement in conferences such as the Texas Society of Architects convention in 2014, and the New Cities, Future Ruins presentation in Dallas in November 2016 are a few of several in a diverse scope of conversations.

A list of awards Blay has received for his work includes the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier travel grant from the Dallas Museum of Art, a Nasher Sculpture Center Artist’s Grant, and Critics Choice awards from the Dallas Observer and the Fort Worth Weekly.

Blay has served on jury panels for the Nasher Sculpture Center, Southern Methodist University Meadows Museum's Moss/Chumley award, Big Medium’s Tito’s Prize, as well as numerous University gallery exhibitions including the recent student exhibitions at Texas State University in San Marcos, and the Juried Members exhibition of the South Central Chapter of the Society for Photographic Education in Dallas.

The artist also hosted a panel discussion on the mural boom in Fort Worth at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in September, 2021.

As an artist, Blay uses photography, video, sculpture, and performance in exhibitions, and his work considers the Black experience in America. His exhibitions and public art projects follow the themes of the Black experience and include the ongoing East Rosedale Monument Project in Fort Worth, Texas, and Dindi (for Annibel) in Dallas' Coombs Creek park near Oak Cliff. His most recent exhibitions include Christopher Blay: SpLaVCe Ship, at the Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas, and Power, Traps, and Targets: New Work by Christopher Blay at Big Medium gallery, Austin, Texas. Blay was also included in the Amarillo Biennial-600 in Amarillo, Texas in 2022. The exhibition’s focus was on justice, equality, and race.

Blay’s work is in several private collections and at the Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Texas.

Blay is a 2003 Graduate of Texas Christian University with a BFA in Photography with a minor in Art History.

PERFORMING ARTS CRITIC: Eva Raggio

Eva Raggio is the music and culture editor for the Dallas Observer. For over a decade, she has covered art of all kinds and written about subjects from social justice to pop culture for publications such as D Magazine, Playboy and Nylon.

LITERARY ARTS CRITIC: Sanderia Faye

Sanderia Faye serves on the faculty at Southern Methodist University, is an instructor at the 2017 Desert Nights Rising Stars Conference at Arizona State University, and a professional speaker and activist. Her novel, Mourner’s Bench, is the winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in debut fiction and The Philosophical Society of Texas Award of Merit for fiction. She is co-founder and a fellow at Kimbilio Center for Fiction, and her work has appeared in the anthology Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas. Faye moderated the grassroots panel for the Arkansas Civil Rights Symposium during the Freedom Riders 50th Anniversary and is coordinating the first AWP African Diaspora Caucus.

Her work received “Best Of” honors at the 2011 Eckerd College Writers’ Conference, Co-Directors Dennis Lehane and Sterling Watson, where her winning excerpt from the novel was published in SABAL Literary Journal. She received grants and scholarships offers from Hurston/Wright Writers Conference, Eckerd College Writers’ in Paradise Conference, Callaloo Writers Workshop, and Vermont, Writers Studio. She attended The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow and Martha’s Vineyard Writers Residency.

She holds an MFA from Arizona State University, a MA from the University of Texas at Dallas, a BS in Accounting from the University of Arkansas. She is currently a PhD student in English at the University of North Texas.