‘A Luvnote 4 Art.’
That was the theme of ArtFest 2025, a four-day celebration marking the grand opening of Aleathia Brown’s new studio in Mount Vernon.
My own ‘luvnote’, though, arrived not as a letter, but as a statement coined by French painter Georges Rouault, who once wrote that art is “a universal language, a bridge between cultures and generations.”
I’d followed Aleathia across those bridges before. The Middlemost Stage during A Great Day in Harlem was one of them, where she celebrated 13 years of expression through Unveiled Unlocked, her movement honoring freedom in hair.
I’ve seen her stand before the memorial of Ulysses S. Grant, and later, under the canopy of Gracie Mansion during this year’s Juneteenth celebration.
Now, traveling beyond the five boroughs, over the elevated tracks of the Metro-North and into Mount Vernon, I wondered what this next act would reveal.
After witnessing her art reach hundreds in heavily populated public spaces, could this new, more intimate setting accomplish something even greater?
Rouault’s idea of art as a “bridge” lingered with me. I began to wonder whether the purpose of an artist is only to be seen and reach as many people as possible. Is there a kind of closeness that can’t always happen in a crowd?
If art does truly offer a thread of connection, perhaps it does so not through sheer scale. For now, I let the thought dissolve into the motion of the train and waited to arrive to see once again how Aleathia’s art would find its way across.
Act II: The Phantom at Work
Aleathia Brown is really hard to catch during the preparation for an event.
She seems to whizz past with quiet steps, despite safeguarding items of importance: a frame of art, a foldable round table, or a handful of supplies. I didn’t catch a glimpse of her face through the first whizz, only noticing by the patented knitted hat adorning her head.
The brim is stitched in a forward fashion, contrasting the horizontal stitching leading up to the crown. The threads were camouflaged, with only two stripes of bright orange knitting separating the slightly different camouflage hues.
I knew it was her from the single cowrie that swayed ever so slightly upon her turn into her art studio.
This was my first interaction with Aleathia during ArtFest, and it didn’t last long. Even around 3:45 p.m., less than an hour before ArtFest: A LuvNote 4 Art Day Three began, she could be seen carrying yet another item to be placed before whisking off to the next.
I’d come to recognize this pattern as something deeper than habit; it was her way of being subservient to the process itself. While others tuned their instruments or found their rhythm, she was in constant motion, ensuring each space was ready to accommodate what the day would bring.
It’s a quiet reversal of what’s expected of artists who take center stage.
Act III: The Open Sanctuary
I decided to emulate Aleathia’s phantom presence. Instead of jumping right into conversation and fraternizing with other guests in the main hall, I walked slowly around the stage, tracing the corners of her world.
Aleathia’s artworks were positioned between every crevice of the hallway: paintings, sculptures, and somehow a boundless combination of the two. Some three-dimensional sculptures stretched through their frames like abstract thoughts made tangible. Paintings were reborn as prints of every size, each one breathing in a new form, yet grounded in the same current that’s guided her decades-long journey as both artist and teacher.
I stepped into Aleathia’s main studio, the space where I’d first sat down to understand her character.
Back then, the studio was closed in. Every corner was alive with works in progress — sketches, brushes, and canvases that spoke of an artist clawing her way through the next idea. She’d once described it as an incubator, a place for hatching new visions through hours of work and revision.
But walking in that day, I noticed a change. A fresh carpet now ran further through the studio, nearly three-fourths to the back, where her selected pieces hung freely on the walls, welcoming anyone who entered.
It amazed me; this willingness to open what I’d once seen as the artist’s private sanctuary, the equivalent of a bedroom, to the public eye.
After taking everything in, I drifted toward the kitchen, where a tall tank of mango-ginger sea moss stood.
The taste caught me off guard. It reminded me of my Caribbean roots: the clash of sweet mango I’d wait for my mother to cut open and share during mango season, and the sharp ginger my grandmother would boil into tea when I fell ill, balanced with brown sugar and lemon.
I sat down beside people I didn’t yet know, but somehow, I felt at home among them.
[Click on the video to watch the full reel from ArtFest Day 3, featuring Dr. Barbara Bethea, Kaitlyn Smith, Blisvisions, Amani Sutherland, Mama D, and more.]
Act IV: The Akoma Frequency
Day 4 opened slower, with local helpers pouring pretzels into snack-sized plastic bags beside prepackaged Lays chips and small bottles of water.
On the adjacent table, Aleathia’s used paintbrushes stood like relics of past creations, soon to be borrowed by whoever dared to join in.
The room was denser than the center stage, which was fitting, since today wasn’t about performance. It was about participation.
Aleathia was leading the art workshop. As the only veteran in the room, she naturally took the reins. She lined one table with her brushes, alongside primary and secondary paints in recycled jars.
The space itself was smaller, intimate — maybe a dozen people could fit. That closeness felt intentional.
Today’s project centered on Akoma, a heart-shaped Ghanaian symbol for love, celebrated in the same week as Valentine’s Day.
I’d heard Aleathia speak more this day than the last. She showed us how to use our whole arm, not just the hand or wrist, to paint a straight line.
She reminded us to dip our brushes all the way down, but not to stir too hard. “Treat it like your hair,” she said, “you wouldn’t pull or push too much.”
At first, I joked silently that maybe she just wanted to protect her brushes. But as I followed her lead, painting downwards, breathing into each stroke, I realized it wasn’t about preservation. It was about connection.
She was guiding us toward that thin line of frequency that creatives join when they’re fully present. I like to describe it as a flow state, so addicting you can’t help but want more.
By the time we finished, our interpretations of Akoma lined the table like a chorus of beating hearts, each one slightly different, yet bound by the same pulse.