Shawana Brooks is the Arts and Culture Developer for the Jacksonville Public Library. She professes to be both muse and nuisance, a Musiance, and is the founder of the Musiance Artist Alliance (MAA), an organization designed to support minority artists in our community.
She is one of the most knowledgeable people our city has with regard to local art as well as one of the best dressed people you will find anywhere.
What six of your neighbors had to say about Shawana
“Shawana is a treasure to Jacksonville’s creative community and to the city at large. She is a poet, a storyteller and a staunch advocate for the arts.”
“Shawana works tirelessly to bring a fragmented and dysfunctional art scene together, as one community. She has big plans for art in Jacksonville. When she says “We’re going to be as major as any other art city” you just know it can happen, and will.”
“Shawana is full of energy and light, from her creative, gorgeous and one-of-a-kind wardrobe that matches the creative, beautiful person on the inside who puts her whole self into every project she works on.”
“Shawana is an inspiration! Her passion for the arts and our city is contagious, you can’t be near her and not get excited. Excited about art, excited about Jacksonville, excited about life!”
“Shawana will tell you how it was, how it is, and how it is going to be. She is a fighter, especially for those without a voice, without representation. She wants big things for Jax, good things for Jax, and she wants them for all of Jax.”
“Shawana is bold, creative and passionate. She uses Art to promote inclusion, both within the community as a whole as well as within Art itself. She wears beautiful clothes but those clothes pale in comparison to the beauty of her heart.”
And the one that started it all;
“She is the kind of neighbor Mr. Rogers would have wanted in his neighborhood.”
Shawana Brooks, a neighbor to know.