JT Photo & Design

Timeline Cleanse ✨ World Autism Acceptance Day, April 2nd, 2021, we decided to be a little punk rock and take up space via CNN.com and spread some Autistic Joy. We appreciate them showing us some love. This is a reminder that the conversation begins and ends with Autistic folks. We’re out here, we’ve been here and come find us in the future.

Main image description:
This image features a screenshot of a CNN article about World Autism Awareness Day. The screenshot is framed by a background of vibrant yellow forsythia flowers against a bright blue sky.

The article details are as follows:

Headline: “World Autism Awareness Day 2021: What you need to know”.

Byline: Written by Matt Villano, CNN.

Date: Updated 7:24 AM EDT, Fri April 02, 2021.

Featured Photograph: A portrait of a young Black boy named Knox and a Black woman. The boy has curly dark hair and is wearing a green shirt with a paper chain around his neck. The woman has her hair styled up with blonde highlights and is wearing a light teal sweatshirt that says “It’s cool to be kind”.

Text Excerpt: The article introduces Kevin “Knox” Johnson III, describing him as an 8-year-old who enjoys building marble runs, telling knock-knock jokes, and excelling in math and languages. It also mentions his love for singing along to musicals and making beats in GarageBand.

In honor of Everyday is Autism Acceptance Month and the Artemis II Launch 🚀 around the Moon, I’m remembering in 2021 when our family and a few amazing women artists had the pleasure of creating artwork for NASA! The Artwork marked the naming of the NASA Headquarters building in DC in honor of hidden figure no longer, Mary W. Jackson, NASA’s 1st Black female engineer! It was a dream come true to have Knox’s portrait showcasing him as a Black AfroNaut discoverer!

Main image description: A close-up, profile shot of a young Black boy looking upward while wearing a white NASA astronaut helmet. The image is saturated with vibrant purple, pink, and blue lighting, creating a dreamlike, cinematic atmosphere. (all lighting and art direction by me and Knox)

Atmosphere: The lighting and reflections give the photo a futuristic, ethereal feel, suggesting a sense of wonder, exploration, or a scene from a science fiction story.

Thankful to the team for keeping the doors open for the community ✨🫶🏽✨ the prints looked so beautiful adorning the space! Often when I’m traveling I miss out on hanging with the homies! It was good to finally see some beautiful Baltimore homies in real life 👏🏾 .brancato and many others! ✨✨✨ community over everything! It was also dope to rock our revolutionary artist swag in solidarity with our design homies holding it down in the Twin Cities, MN!

We’ve been rockin with for a minute now! Language justice and the art of language as a tool to preserve the voices of our ancestors, children and communities is central to my mothering as an of resistance design practice. I created this collection for Black Disabled Lives like myself who have been watching their history and futures being silenced and erased.

This collection is dedicated to the heart work of Black Mothers and Black Woman like Fannie Lou Hamer, Lois Curtis, .rikiesha .and.fries .functioning.autism and so many others who have poured life into my practice over the years.

powerful phrase of joy, acknowledgment, and reclamation ‘There Are Black People in The Future’ inspired the intersection and weaving of Blackness and Disability in my phrasing ‘There Are Black Disabled People In The Future’

This collection calls to the heartwork of Black Disabled Mothers like Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, and Black Disability Justice activists like and many more who I want to feel seen through the phrasing ‘I am Manifesting Black Disabled Joy and Justice!

The support this week for my Black Disability Joy and Justice collection has been so amazing!! Please support the heartwork as 10% of the proceeds go to my disabled friends at ✨✨ link in bio!

While this collection was envisioned for Black History Month, the work of Black disabled creators doesn’t stop when the calendar turns. We are more than a month of remembrance; we are a future of persistence. ‘There are Black Disabled People in the Future’ is an assertion that our lives, our disabled joy, and our humanity demand celebration every single day. We aren’t just making history, we are building what comes next. Black Disabled Joy in its truest form.

Black disabled creators are busy shaping the world. ‘There are Black Disabled People in the Future’ is more than a collection, it’s a declaration. We’re moving past the ‘month’ and into a permanent era of celebration. Our history is deep, but our future is even bigger. Join us in honoring Black disabled lives today, tomorrow, and always.

The photos for this collection were taken by us as a family :) we captured our beautiful identities showing our baby boi what it means stand in our authenticity.

Disabled Voices Declare Ice Out! Thank you to my homies at for helping us print our revolution in time for this weekend! I can’t wait for y’all to see my latest adaptation of my Black Disability & Neurodiversity Solidarity symbol in print this Saturday

Repost Via
Event Info Below:
✨ Making Space Is the Place ✨
Saturday, March 28 | 4 to 8pm
709 N Howard St.

We’re officially relaunching Making Space Bmore and you’re invited.

Join us for an art filled, music fueled, community powered gathering celebrating the artists and organizers who shape this space.

Featuring:

🔆Live DJ set with Valentina
🔆Live Print Making / Bring Your own garment/item
🔆Collage Making with of
🔆Kids Arts/Crafts Making Table 4-5 pm
🔆Artist talks and performances
🔆Food and drinks
🔆Limited edition prints for sale

At 5pm we’ll gather for a short program featuring our Artists in Residence and sharing what’s ahead this year.

Whether you’ve been part of the journey or are just discovering us, this is your invitation to connect, create, and help shape what comes next.

EVENT ACCESSIBILITY:
🫶🏽MSB is on the ground level and the space is
accessible by a ramp.
🫶🏽Bathrooms are wheelchair accessible and gender neutral
🫶🏽Masks encouraged. We Keep Us Safe.
🫶🏽Kids are welcome.
🫶🏽Make something.
🫶🏽Support local work.
🫶🏽Find your place in the space.

Main Image Description: This is a high-contrast, black-and-white vector illustration featuring a powerful protest-style graphic.

Central Imagery: At the top, a thick, black raised clenched fist is held high. Inscribed in the center of the wrist/arm is a white infinity symbol (♾️), often used to represent neurodiversity.

Typography: Below the fist, the text is arranged in a stacked, bold layout.

“DISABLED VOICES DECLARE” is written in a clean, serif typeface.

“ICE OUT!” follows in a much larger, heavy, Western-style “slab” font with decorative notches.

Framing: The entire graphic is surrounded by stylized black flames or wavy, blade-like shapes that curve upward, giving the piece a sense of urgency, heat, and grassroots energy.

While watching my friend and frequent creative collaborator celebration of life via stream today, I noticed the yellow Forsythia flowers blooming outside my window especially brighter today. I know it was Alice, she came to say hello to me though the bloom. I quickly printed out a collage I had begun to remix for Alice that I’m thankful she was able to enjoy and see before she passed, I then ran outside to capture her image within the blooms! 💛🌼🐯if you knew Alice personally or through her stories, she always had a way of showing up to remind you to keep blooming and growing. I really don’t have the words to continue memorializing her memory, I stay connected to her though the art we made together. Blooming to Rebel, sacred to all of us. Our Disabled Oracle.

The main image shows a vibrant, layered collage held up against a backdrop of bright yellow forsythia flowers in full bloom. The sun peeks through the branches at the top, casting a warm glow over the scene.

In the center of the collage is a photographic portrait of Alice Wong, a disabled activist and author. She is shown from the chest up, angled slightly toward the viewer with a thoughtful expression. She has short, dark hair and is wearing a colorful, striped garment in shades of red, green, and blue. A thin blue strap and her ventilator tube are visible near her neck.

The portrait is framed by several stylized, concentric layers that create a “halo” or sunburst effect:
* Immediate Backdrop: A large, orange-petaled flower (resembling a zinnia or dahlia) sits directly behind her head.
* Middle Layer: A sharp, teal-colored “starburst” with jagged edges radiates outward behind the orange flower.
* Outer Layer: Large, soft purple floral shapes fill the upper corners of the print.
* Bottom Corners: Two more orange flowers anchor the bottom left and right of the composition.

The collage is a physical print with a white border, held by a person’s hand in the lower-left corner. The hand has a medium-to-deep skin tone. The contrast between the saturated colors of the digital collage and the natural, textured yellow flowers in the background creates a striking, celebratory visual.

So amazing to spend yesterday staying curious with student leaders and advocates from across the country. At the 48th National Grassroots Legislative Conference (LegCon26).
Hosted by the United States Student Association. The best way to stay curious is to facilitate agency and openness as a collective!!! ✨

Nothing beats watching advocates, some of them first time zine makers exploring access through craft, using zines to map out the intersections of disability justice and public policy. Thankful to and for thinking of me for this ✨✨✨✨

Radical Accessibility: A Zine-Making Workshop! Through collage, creative writing, and Zining had a dialogue exploring:

✨ Policy as Care, redefining inaccessible spaces and legislation through the lens of collective
access. Paying homage to the work of Lois Curtis, Anita Cameron, Brad Lomax, my comrade Alice Wong and more. 🙏🏽

✨ The Ecology of Disability: How anti-racist environmentalism and disability justice share a common root in rejecting “disposable” bodies and lands. Celebrating the work of Daphne Frias, Fannie Lou Hamer and more ✨✨✨

✨ Visualizing Belonging: Translating complex policy ideas into accessible, grassroots art. Showing love to Crip wisdoms, Finnegan Shannon, Blackbird Revolt and more!

Accessibility is the artform. Disability cultural education using zine making has turned into disability zine making labs - stay tuned to how I’m planning to archive over 400+ zines I’ve collected and made with the community centering disability Justice, culture! ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Many of us in cultural, activist and movement work spaces spent the day mentally and physically fatigued at this newly released news. At nearly 96 years old, my heart is heavy that our elder and comrade, Dolores Huerta has carried this weight for decades while pouring so much into the labor community. Dolores has my continued respect for whom she chose and still chooses to protect in the name of justice. For decades she has served as a Mother to her community in so many ways. I stand on her shoulders. SA survivors are sacred. May they find peace, rest and strength during this dark time of revelation.

From

“The silence she kept for 60 years was not weakness. It was the impossible weight that survivors of sexual violence are forced to carry—often to protect others, often at profound cost to themselves. That she carried it while simultaneously building one of the most important labor movements in American history makes her courage almost incomprehensible. “We also believe the women and girls who were harmed by Cesar Chavez. They deserve to be heard.”

I’ve always loved how Dolores was captured in visual justice campaign a few years ago, this photo says so much and I wanted to use it in my collage tribute of her.

“That’s the history of the world. His story is told, hers isn’t.”
- Dolores Huerta

Wow 🤩 Little Jen would be proud that her curiosity brought her to this space! Honored to be included in this year’s ✨ ✨ from the Eames Institute. Grateful to be part of a community of curious problem-solvers using creativity, design, and collaboration to tackle challenges of all scales. Explore the full list of honorees at the link in bio.

A bit about from curious100.org

‘The Curious 100 is a celebration of courageous leaders and creative minds across the United States who are harnessing the transformative power of curiosity to solve today’s most pressing problems. While honoree’s individual fields of expertise vary greatly, spanning arts, design, technology, community-building, social impact, food, and more, all honorees are united by a belief in curiosity to understand and address societal challenges.

Selected from a broad spectrum of disciplines–spanning food, arts, design, technology, community-building, and social impact–the selected honorees represent the transformative impact of curiosity across ten dynamic categories: Builders, Caretakers, Connectors, Creators, Curators, Explorers, Makers, Protectors, Reformers, and Storytellers.’

Thankful to:
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Sharing a little Black Autistic Joy for you to cleanse the timeline a bit 🙏🏽 BTS from yesterday’s photoshoot! I have a new project brewing that I’m excited to announce this month. With today being Disability Day of Mourning I’m manifesting Black Disabled Joy and Justice for families impacted by oppression. Stay tuned in for how you support Black Disabled artists and designers!

Main image description:
A full-length, medium shot shows a Black/Puertorrican woman and Black teen male standing outside on a patch of grass in front of a light-colored wall and a white door. The woman, on the left, is looking towards the boy and smiling. She is wearing a black leather beret, a green cropped hoodie with text that reads “I’M MANIFESTING BLACK DISABLED JOY AND JUSTICE,” black and white patterned pants, and grey and white sneakers. She is holding a camera in her right hand. The boy, on the right, is looking towards the camera and laughing. He is wearing a black t-shirt with text that reads “THERE ARE BLACK DISABLED PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE,” a colorful patterned bomber jacket, grey pants, and black and white sneakers. The woman is holding the boy’s left hand with her left hand. The lighting is bright and sunny, casting a shadow on the wall behind them.

For Iran: “They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”
War is never the answer. 🇮🇷
Lyrics by Tupac “Keep Ya Head Up” 🙏🏽🇮🇷🙏🏽

I Invite you to create your own message of solidarity using the blank template in the next slide and tag your Iranian comrades! All inappropriate comments and messages will be reported and blocked! Only love exists here 🇮🇷🫶🏽🇮🇷

Image Description: digital collage on a black background. At the top and bottom are vibrant clusters of flowers, with pink, red, yellow, and orange snapdragons. A textured rectangular paper panel is placed centrally, covered with a heavy, realistic dark red bloodstain that drips in several streams from the top towards the bottom of the panel. Below the bloodstain, the text “They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.” is written in a black, hand-drawn script. The signature “Tupac” is directly beneath the text in a similar font. A vintage film grain filter has been applied to the entire composition.