Tyler Jenkins (also known as Tyler Goldchain) is a New Haven based musician/composer whose artistic journey began with the vibrant music he experienced in his grandmother’s Jamaican storefront church in Bridgeport. At age 4, he was playing drums at church. By 4th grade, he played multiple instruments. He then continued to soar musically through high school – studying at both Neighborhood Music School and the Educational Center for the Arts — and achieving acclaim and awards. One example: A protest song against gun violence he wrote in his senior year was included in an album of student protest songs produced by a Grammy-winning producer.
Tyler continued to expand his creative reach while at Wesleyan College on a full scholarship. While there he scored several short student films, one of which, Graveyard, won multiple national awards including “Best Original Score” by the Los Angeles Crime and Horror Film Festival.
Since graduation, his upward trajectory has continued. He sang background on Alicia Keys’ 2022 World Tour and founded a music composition company, Goldchain Entertainment.
Also quite significant, especially in terms of the Bitsie Fund: He composed music for the award-winning play, Death by a Thousand Cuts, written and directed by fellow Bitsie Fund awardee Steve Driffin. Tyler is currently composing his first feature length film and composing for an experimental dance film. He has also received his first orchestral commission from the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, an arrangement for its 2025 family concert based on Anansi the Spider.
Tyler’s project for the Bitsie Fund is an original composition written for New Haven musicians. He describes the piece as an “introspective meditation of love and healing.” It “articulates the semi-autobiographical perspective of a black boy experiencing love in his life” and “purposely differs from the trauma-based storytelling that is very popular in the media.”
Damali Willingham is a conductor, composer, multi-instrumentalist and educator living in New Haven. They started playing saxophone at age 9, bassoon at 11, and when 13, began to compose, with some of their compositions performed by youth orchestras and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. At age 14, they began conducting; and by age 17, they had received major recognition in the conducting field.
Damali’s upward trajectory continued at the Berklee College of Music, where they served as music director and guest conductor of numerous ensembles, including the Berklee Motion Picture Orchestra, the college’s largest student-run ensemble. Since graduating Summa Com Laude, Damali has continued to garner accolades and awards, including a prestigious conducting award at the 2023 Aspen Conducting Academy.
They are currently working as a teaching artist and conducting fellow with the Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestras, fulfilling a passion for teaching and working with youth.
Although clearly destined for a distinguished career as a classical conductor, Damali realized that to be true to themselves, they had to change direction. “The confines of classical music,” they explain, “don’t provide the space for all parts of my artistic identity to be expressed, and I know that there is a tremendous potential for me to grow into the parts of my artistry that have been neglected by the classical pedagogy.”
Damali’s new pursuit, which the Bitsie Fund will support, includes exploring the music of their ancestors, focusing on various genres within contemporary music and bringing that into “conversation with their classical music education.” “Rounding out my skill sets in this way,” Damali explains, “will bring joy and honesty into the work I do which I want to be the basis of the career that I build.” Damali is also committed to collaboration with some of the extraordinary musicians in the New Haven area, and through that collaboration, to bring life, health and spiritual vitality to the community through music.
Hamden artist Linda Mickens reveals that she started creating “in some form” when very young. She eventually became a sculptor — mostly self-taught — who created in clay, then produced final products in bronze. She focused on the rich history of African American culture, influenced, she says, by “the sounds of black folk and my Southern roots. The blues, jazz, gospel – the familiar sound of cloth scraping across a washing board, and Grandma’s laughter.”
After a hiatus devoted to family and to a Neonatal ICU nursing career, she returned to sculpting in 2020. As she delved into the “rich tapestry of African American history, traditions and experiences,” she also revealed, through her powerful and moving images, the contemporary challenges of Covid, LGBTQ prejudice and police brutality, and the struggles and triumphs in the continuous African American fight for equality and justice. Mickens became an activist, collaborating with other individuals and organizations to host exhibitions, workshops, and dialogues on these issues. She was an artist and an activist committed to social justice.
Mickens is now moving from emotionally weighty subjects to joyful ones. With her Bitsie Clark Fund for Artists grant, she will create a group of life-size, mixed-media dancing figures who are, as the project’s title indicates: “Celebrating the Contributions of African Americans Through Dance – The Joy of the Second Line.”
The artist will explore the rich cultural heritage of the “second line”, a popular tradition in New Orleans parades. The first line consists of the parade’s sponsoring organization accompanied by the iconic music of a dynamic brass band. The second line consists of lively revelers who dance to the music and engage with the community, spreading joy.
Jeff Ostergren describes his work as focusing on “the intertwined histories of pharmaceuticals and color.” He notes that the origin of the Greek word “pharmakon” meant simultaneously “cure, poison and paint,” and that in the late 19th century, companies such as Bayer produced both pharmaceuticals and colors from the same chemical processes. Ostergren, who has worked in painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, and video, has explored these interconnections for almost two decades.
Ostergren became an artist rather late in life. After graduating from college, he worked for years in museums, then earned an MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His decision to pursue the complex issues of drugs grew out of a gag gift he received while there — a Zoloft (an antidepressant) promotional clock — which he later incorporated in to a larger sculpture he exhibited.
It was then that he realized the complexity and power of prescription drugs. For some, they are lifesaving, for others, addiction, and even death. For everyone, they are ubiquitous.
In Ostergren’s recent paintings he has used his innovative “pharmaceutical pointillist” style, building images with layers of meticulously rendered pill-shaped dots corresponding with a drug’s shape and size. And unique to him, he also infuses the pigment with actual crushed pharmaceuticals and chemicals. He often bases his compositions on Impressionist paintings or commercial advertising, both genres specializing in scenes of nature and leisure activities. The end results are colorful, vibrant, mesmerizing scenes of pleasure.
With this grant, the New Haven artist will take his explorations in a new direction. Titled “Reverse Engineering the Un-Advertised,” the project will focus on the ugly reality of the misogyny and transphobia in our culture and reflected in advertising – “a world in which Viagra is marketed with abandon and covered by most insurance” but other drugs, like abortion pills and hormones for gender therapy, are not.
Ostergren will collaborate with a graphic designer who will design “fake” pharmaceutical ads for the un-advertised products, which he will use as templates and transform in his usual pointillist way. He will ultimately exhibit them side by side, enhancing awareness of the political reality.
New Haven artist, Isaac Bloodworth, has been intensely interested in art since kindergarten. His interest never wavered. He eventually entered the University of Connecticut’s prestigious Puppet Arts Program to pursue his skills in visual arts and storytelling. He succeeded in both areas, and he learned much more. “Being on a predominately white campus made me reckon with how the world saw me as a Black man.” The realities Isaac faced inspired him to build a world in his art where Blacks could find comfort and affirmation. He combined this goal with his gift for creating original characters that “evoke a sense of wonder and liberation.”
Isaac describes one of his most popular original characters, Joy Da Black Boi: “Joy is a young Black kid who is sweet on the inside, like candy, and who loves going on adventures.” Isaac created art installations featuring “Adventures of Joy Da Black Boi”, exhibiting them throughout Greater New Haven. After witnessing their positive impact on Black kids, Isaac now plans to create something “tangible, joyful and comfortable for Black kids”.
“Black kids need hope,” he explains. “Too many Black kids do not get the chance to be kids; they must mature too fast to survive in a world that currently sees them as a threat. I want them to play with a toy of Joy with his lollipop staff and feel like there’s a place in this world for them.” With his Bitsie Fund grant, Isaac will create Joy da Black Boi toy figures.
Alexandra Diaz is an individual who “has always had a passion for social justice and community engagement.” She found her creative voice in college when she picked up a camera and discovered the power of the still image. “I am determined to build a bridge between my passion for social justice with my love of art,” she says.
While building this bridge, Alexandra is crossing to a new frontier, called “Mapping Puerto Rican Identity in New Haven.” As a Puerto Rican who grew up in New Haven, Alexandra will study how Puerto Rican identity intersects with being a New Haven resident.
“Puerto Rican people add so much culture to New Haven, yet we are never at the center of any conversations about New Haven or even Connecticut. Through my art I produce and reproduce images of people that society tries to forget about. I want to create beautiful art about the New Haven community that finally centers on forgotten identities.” The Bitsie Fund grant will provide Alexandra with the resources she needs for her photographic exploration.
Even as a child, Steve Driffin had an intense interest in writing. When he later attended college, he wanted to be a journalist, then a novelist, then was so inspired by the emergence of Black Filmmakers that he decided that screenwriting and directing was the path he wanted to take. But filmmaking was expensive. Filmmakers needed connections and money. Steve had neither.
After graduating, he moved to New Haven to Newhallville — next to a spot called the ‘mudhole’. Steve reports that New Haven was a different place back then. He witnessed the impact drugs had on his community and didn’t like what was happening to people. He decided to speak of these ills and wrote his first play entitled, Yo’ Street.
Thirty years ago, he gave the first public performance of Yo’ Street on what he describes as one of the most notorious streets of New Haven. “With the help of a community church,” he explains, “the street was closed off, a thrust-type stage was erected, and the play was performed by a cast of volunteer individuals who believed in the script. The community had never experienced guerrilla theater and the impact was beyond incredible.” Other street performances followed.
Today, Steve is an accomplished playwright, but his journey was not easy, as he explains. “I have experienced many failures, doubters, saboteurs, flat-leavers and enough writers block to rival the Great Wall of China. I have risen from being admitted to college on a conditional basis because my academic scores were sub-par to becoming a graduate. I have strengthened my writing skills after being told I could not write to publishing articles; I have been told to give up on my dream of becoming a writer…to winning a writing competition and selling out shows that I wrote, directed, and produced. All of this came to fruition because I remained true to my craft, and I NEVER QUIT. I had moments where I stopped, but I never quit.”
Several of his screenplays have received accolades in different competitions; his most recent entry a screenplay for animation, Butterflies, won the 2021 Big Apple Film Festival and Screenwriting Competition.
The stage-play Steve is working on now, which our grant supports, is Death by a Thousand Cuts: A Requiem for Black and Brown Men. Steve describes: “Death by a Thousand Cuts: A Requiem for Black and Brown Men is an original choreopoem voicing the pain and microaggressions Black men have experienced and the impact it has on them. It is vulnerability personified and peels back the layers and allows the audience into the deeper feelings of Black men who are often silent and do not articulate their pain. This play is based on true accounts from a group of New Haven men who experienced losing their children to gun violence and how they dealt with their loss and handle life in general. This play attempts telling our story with truth and authenticity.”
Other Steve Driffin Projects:
Posthumous: Written and directed by Steve Driffin
Midnight Marauder: Written by Steve Driffin
New Norm: Written by Steve Driffin
Running Out: Written by Steve Driffin
When asked for biographical details, Jake-Gagne (they/them) offered the barest essentials: “I was born in 1994 in Charlotte, N.C., and I’ve been based in New Haven since 2019. In the day-time hours I work as an arts administrator at Yale.”
To flesh things out a bit, Jake is also a Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Columbia University with a degree in Art History, who received a Masters in Art History from Williams College. They are now a Program Administrator in Public Humanities at Yale.
Equally impressive, and more relevant for this grant: According to a publication entitled wait, what? magazine: for Connecticut underground: “what you have to know is, Jake Gagne is a legendary experimental electro punk artist living in New Haven, Connecticut.”
Jake describes their project, Test Tube Mirror Dialectic. “The project is about a search for extrasensory clues within a spiritual mystery. It incorporates video and some 3D animation, and the music was composed on a new Moog analog synthesizer that I was able to purchase thanks to the support of this grant! It’s a new direction for me and I look forward to building my craft in filmmaking and animation. Eventually, I would like to create a longer-form music video that explores a reconstructive middle-ear surgery I underwent this summer, in relation to gender, sensation, and faith.”
Sample of new work: https://vimeo.com/653844993
Test Tube Mirror Dialectic (Parts A/B/C), 2021
The Bitsie Clark Fund for Artists is pleased to announce that Hip-Hop artist, poet and playwright Aaron Jafferis is the recipient of this year’s $5,000 grant.
The awardee’s name was revealed at a virtual Celebration of Bitsie and the Arts on October 30th, Bitsie’s 89th birthday. The pre-recorded event also included a re-visit with the 2019 awardees, Adam Matlock and Harold Shapiro; and an introduction of six extraordinary finalists: Allan Appell, Stephen Dest, Rebekah L. Fraser, Dana Elizabeth Fripp, Dr. Tiffany Renee Jackson, and Martha Willette Lewis.
To view the 45-minute celebration, which is both playful and deeply moving, click Bitsie2020.com.
The grant will support Jafferis’ continued development of Smooth Criminal, a Hip-Hop play, which he says “are the art forms he grew up with”. Being the only white boy in his Hillhouse High School class, he learned Hip-Hop at the same time he learned theatre at the Educational Center for the Arts.
Jafferis poses this question regarding Smooth Criminal: “As a white dude, is it criminal, or simply smooth, for a white playwright to use a Black/Latinx-born art form to try to undo white supremacy?” After spending years, as he describes, “talking smack” about privileged white guys in his work, he investigates whether he may, in fact, be one.
While unearthing the history of the two sides of his family, Aaron is exploring their different relationships to race, class and money. “A hundred years ago, one great-grandfather was dying in prison after trying to murder the foreman who denied him work, while the other was running the country’s largest banking empire. Their ghosts mud-wrestle in my body,” he says, “blood-writing this play: about them, my family, me. This play’s been writing me all my life.”
Aaron Jafferis has toured his productions extensively across the US and Europe, many of them garnering awards. He has performed at the Kennedy Center and Madison Square Garden. His poetry has been performed by the esteemed dance company Urban Bush Women. He was also an Open Rap Slam Champion at the National Poetry Slam Championships.
What is more important is the focus of his work. With Collective Consciousness Theatre, Jafferis has worked with refugees from around the world to create the play, Stories of a New America, which is now touring. His collaboration with Chinese American composer Byron Au Yong explores Asian American resistance to American xenophobia. He is also passionately devoted to improving the futures of youth by fomenting their voice and leadership. He has taught at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, where he was a poet-in-residence; and in middle and high schools in Greater New Haven. He shares his belief that word-based poetry and Hip-Hop helped liberate and inspire him, and can do so for others.
Adam Matlock is a local musician/composer who is a greatly loved teacher at Neighborhood Music School, Foote School and Hamden Hall Country Day School. His talents have been described as “frightening” – in a positive sense. His accomplishments are equally frightening (meaning extraordinary), as are his passions and goals.
Adam has the Herculean plan to create a full-scale opera. Entitled The Greenwood Opera, it will focus on the little-remembered but still historically relevant (and appalling) massacre of African-Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. Over two days, a white mob set fire to 100s of black-owned businesses and homes in Greenwood, a business district so prosperous it was dubbed “Negro Wall Street.” Estimates are that between 100 and 300 black people were killed by either gunshots or fire; hundreds more were hospitalized; and more than 8,000 left homeless.
An opera is a project on a grand scale. The Bitsie Fund is honored to support the first segment of Adam’s opera, providing him with some concentrated stretches of time to compose, and the funds to secure an ensemble of instrumentalists and singers for dedicated rehearsals and performances. Adam will be working in collaboration with Neighborhood Music School.
Harold Shapiro has been a professional photographer for over 30 years and has mentored and inspired countless photography students as a master teacher in Guilford, Milford and New Haven, especially at Creative Arts Workshop, his partner in this project, where he’s taught for 35 years, and heads the photography department.
In his photographs, Harold can bring out the poetry in the most ordinary of images. When photographing power plants for United Illuminating, for example, someone noted: “Harold is able to make pipes sing…” Harold’s ability to make inanimate objects sing soars to new heights in his project, “Luminous Instruments.” In these extraordinary black and white photos of musical instruments, his mastery of both the technical and creative aspects of his craft allows him to produce images that evoke movement and music.
“Luminous Instruments” exquisitely merges Shapiro’s two lifelong passions of music and photography. The grant will allow him to complete his project, then share his breathtaking imagery with our community and others around the country.
