J. Otis Powell

Artist Profile
J. Otis Powell! Love and revolution became primary motivation for instigating and signifying change in a world not yet large enough to welcome me. I carry issues like back packs full of the things I am, all the injuries, scars, cultural habits, class characteristics, gender and religious orientations that shaped me into the work of art I am. I'm an artist because I want to live in another world. That means making it up, living radically and revolutionizing ideals of family, society and tribe. When I make it up it comes true, when I don't other's do.
J. Otis Powell! is a founding curator for Bridges - a performance arts program with Pangea World Theater. He has been a recipient of a Loft Creative Nonfiction Award, a Jerome Travel and Study Grant, Jerome Mid Career Artist Grants and Intermedia Arts' Interdisciplinary McKnight Fellowship. He was a founding producer of Write On Radio!, the Twin Cities literary connection, at KFAI-FM while working as Communities' Liaison and Program Director for Interdisciplinary Collaborations at The Loft Literary Center.
J. Otis' poetry, essays and articles have appeared in two books of his original work: THEOLOGY (Traffic Street Press) and My Tongue Has No Bone (Porter Publishing), and numerous anthologies, newspapers and magazines. His words have been recorded and released on several CDs: Twin Towers with Chastity Brown for e.g. bailey on TruRuts, The 2nd Annual Chicago Calling, The Ghost Dog Tour with Stir Trio and Forward Energy, his own DVD titled News as Abstract Truth, Unsentimental with Rene Ford, THIS CAT IS OUT, in association with The New Day Blues Band, independently produced THEOLOGY: Love & Revolution and TruRuts/Speakeasy Record's Words Will Heal The Wound.
Profile: http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/jotispowell
Blog: http://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/jotispowell