Elevate: CC Mercer Watson

Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the Northwest Arkansas community.

The program provides hotel guests and visitors with unique access to the work of notable regional artists, while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.

CC MERCER WATSON

CC MERCER WATSON is a magnetic gem from The Natural State. She has a kaleidoscope of talent that includes being a Textile Artist, Actor, Activist, Poet, Playwright, Published Author (A Love Story Waiting To Happen, Butterfly Typeface Publishing, 2018, and From Cotton to Silk: The Magic of Black Hair, Et Alia Press, 2021), Found(her) and Executive Director of A BLACK SPACE, a nonprofit that serves and liberates Black folks through culture bearing, oral tradition, ancestral craft, design and consultation, and Lead Designer and Merchant of Mercer Textile Mercantile, a fiber business that merges farm-to-fashion and fine art which expresses current and evolving Black culture… those passions being a conduit for uplifting voices of color and making marginalized populations visible. She holds a BA in Theatre Arts and Dance from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and is a graduate of the Clinton School with a Master’s in Public Service. Watson, at her core, is a storyteller and keeper of culture. She is holding the belief that Arkansas can be a cultural Mecca of The South, universally unifying our history and healing, and that she can be a keeper of that story, too. In every thread of her being, she is weaving a tapestry of her ancestors, draped in Afro-futurism.

About BLACKPLANTED 

BLACKPLANTED is a body of hand-stitched mini quilts and original poetry that celebrates the rich relationship between Black bodies and their home soil. With an emphasis on Arkansas, from the fertile shoals of The Delta to the mountainous hilltops of The Ozarks, Fiber Artist and Poet, CC Mercer Watson, a gem from The Natural State, made this work to be a rooted expression of culture. She is eternally inspired by her late father, Attorney Christopher C. Mercer, Jr., who was one of The Six Pioneers. They were the first six African-American students to integrate the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville School of Law. Mercer entered the institution in 1949, becoming the third of the six to pursue his legal education. Despite the harsh treatment that he, and the others, received while enrolled in law school, he planted seeds of radical justice that are still blooming until this day. His daughter, a proud Afro-Indigenous Arkansan, returns to the hills where her father paved a path with artistic pieces that represent a people tied to their land, their spirit, and their bold imagination of where they can seed, maturate, and blossom next. 

CC MERCER WATSON Artist Statement

“Southern Black womanhood is the lens that I conjure and create from. I utilize theatre, poetry, and textiles to communicate cultural messages geared towards justice led work to be an example of survival, liberation, and healing for any who bear witness. I make beautiful things because I am a beautiful thing. The core of my work explores the origins of Pan African textiles, in their raw and processed forms, and how each cord connects to the historical context of African peoples and peoples of African descent.

When stitching, I prefer to work by hand, gestating a garment or quilt in real time. When writing, poems, books, or for the stage, I like to use rhyme, free verse, and various literary structures to generate labyrinths of curiosity about the characters and their world … which is most often my own, paralleled to my lived experience, or an empathic call and response to the lived experiences of others. In every facet of my existence, my craft plays a critical role in relationships and how I document the epic history of humanity through my art.

Identity is a key factor in my storytelling, too. My mediums translate my draw to culture, activism, and narratives of class, gender, and color. My work is radical, raw, painful, provocative, while simultaneously appealing and inviting to the senses. My joy is resistance, too. Every iota of my being honors current and evolving Black culture, and the long spiritual memory of my ancestors. I am a dream preferred.”

– CC Mercer Watson