eARTHtones Art Collective

This article originally appeared on pages 92-93 of the Spring 2023 issue of Coulture Magazine.

If you are an artist at UNC-Chapel Hill, you probably know about the Art Studio on the first level of Morrison Residence Hall or the 17,686 square feet Art Lab of the Hanes Art Center. If you are an artist of color on campus, you also know that these spaces can be very white.

Earthtones aims to correct that.

The brainchild of its sophomore founder and co-Creative Director Aisha Baiocchi, Earthtones was created in the spring of 2022 as a collective for artists of color of all skills and mediums to grow and practice their craft together in an atmosphere responsive and flexible to their needs.

“Our goal is really just cultivating and building whatever type of community artists of color on campus need,” Baiocchi said.

Ways this community is built include biweekly general body meetings at the Campus Y Anne Queen Lounge — which Baiocchi admits tend to run way longer than they are supposed to — brainstorming sessions, sip-and-paints or collaborations with other artist groups on campus.

Baiocchi knows being labeled an artist can be scary. Art is culturally associated with art school, fancy supplies and studio classes, which rely on financial security and access. But Baiocchi wants you to know that art expressed by people of color, without fancy supplies, is just as culturally important.

You might see Baiocchi on campus, carrying around a sketchbook full of poetry and narrative-style personal essays; Anant Malpani, co-head of Earthtones’s music committee, curating playlists for his friends with the Bill Evans Trio, Vince Staples, Japanese violinist Midori and composer Johannes Brahms; co-Creative Director Ama Boahen, crocheting the next piece of her clothing brand, Hooked.AA; or Safa Tonuzi, head of Earthtones’s multimedia department, getting inspiration for a jacket design from the black spikes of a caterpillar.

“To be an artist of color, it feels like a lot of the time we are locked out. The crazy part is we’re locked out of spaces, communities and groups that our art has created,” Baiocchi said. “Like style of writing, so much of that is traced back to different groups of people of color. At the same time, despite all that history, it’s still really hard to get into the rooms where it’s written.”

Baiocchi, a self-proclaimed voracious reader, highly recommends the originally Spanish-language novel “Mona” by indigenous Argentine writer Pola Oloixarac, a “bizarre and violent” novel about a Latina woman on a writer’s retreat. And thanks to the support and community of Earthtones, Baiocchi now shares some of her own artistic writings with others, such as a personal introduction to Earthtones’s first published summer zine.

“Sharing that was terrifying because people only saw it when we started publishing the zines. I had people come up to me afterwards and be like, ‘Damn, I didn’t know you did that type of art, too.’ It was like, ‘Ah, you see me,’” Baiocchi said.

The zine launch party in September of 2022 was Ama Boahen’s introduction to Earthtones, which she now describes as her “little family.” As a crocheter, art is a stress reliever for Boahen, a coping mechanism for depression and anxiety and a way to find the essence of happiness (and if you ask her, this is especially true when her work is aesthetically pleasing and fits right). Her favorite piece is a brown cowl-neck top and ruched skirt set she crocheted in Ghana.

Like Baiocchi, Boahen attributes her newfound confidence in her crochet work to Earthtones. Soon, she plans to implement workshops for students who are interested in learning to crochet. 

“I can just walk up to someone and be like, ‘Hey, you like crochet pieces; I crochet. Do you want to get some?’ I could never do that before,” she said. 

For Safa Tonuzi, who has been head of the multimedia department since Earthtones’s founding in 2022, art means a sense of validation. Being able to share her fashion and textiles work with Earthtones is something that she considers “intimate.”

“Especially when it comes to street fashion and shoe customization, I feel like I really get to express myself and my culture — Black culture — and then even trying to get into representing the other part of me: Albanian,” Tonuzi said. “I don’t even really like sharing my art like that, but it’s like you really get to be in my mind.”

Art has always been a part of Tonuzi’s life: as a child, arts and crafts and Rainbow Loom bracelets were omnipresent. 

“I felt like one thing that I was lacking on campus was space to find motivation and inspiration. Being a part of Earthtones, it gives me that space and also holds me accountable,” Tonuzi said.

Anant Malpani, a music leader within Earthtones, believes that his job is not to enforce rules or impose certain musical styles, but to facilitate ideas and encourage members to express themselves. 

Alongside the other co-head of Earthtones’ music committee Lokumo Eteni, Malpani is responsible for planning events around music-making and promoting musical artists of color in the Triangle area.

“We were just kind of working together to try to create a space where all students of color feel represented, where we can create — no judgment, no pressure — and just be creative individuals.”

Malpani himself has been a classical violinist since he was 5-years-old. 

He told the story of going to a music shop with his parents, wanting to play the drums —“They were like, ‘Absolutely not.’ A 5-year-old just banging around all day?” — seeing a violin on the wall instead, and thinking it had a “really cool shape.” 10 years later, Malpani made his Carnegie Hall debut as a solo violinist, describing the experience as “kind of surreal.”

“What I really love about violin is it’s a really great way to represent my artistry as an individual. There’s such a complex level of interpretation you can use the violin for,” Malpani said. “In the last couple of years, I’ve been getting more immersed into using the violin in non-traditional or non-Western classical settings.”

A lover of sharing music and playlists, Malpani recommends French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy, who is “very easy to get into” if you are not very knowledgeable about classical music. 

But if that is not your style, the Earthtones Spotify playlist for early January features songs from the likes of Solange, KAYTRANADA, The Internet and Kali Uchis.

“Everybody’s coming from the heart, no matter the technique level or experiences that you may have had; everyone’s coming with the same goal that they’re there to work with other people,” Malpani said. “They want everyone to have a collectively good experience. I think that kind of encapsulates Earthtones as a whole.”

This community feel is why Baiocchi stresses that Earthtones is not an organization. As a former member of the Young Lordes — an artist-activist collective fighting for equity in NYC — the distinction is important to her. While some decisions might be delegated to individual heads of subcommittees, every member of Earthtones has equal say and importance.

Especially voices of color, Tonuzi said. 

“Part of our collective is that while we are inclusive, we also hold the responsibility of uplifting minority voices,” she said. “We were just kind of working together to try to create a space where all students of color feel represented, where we can create — no judgment, no pressure — and just be creative individuals.”