Collette

Hope to see you there🫶🏾

Stop by🎶🎙️

A buffet of my Gemini thoughts, keep only what feeds u 🍲

I’m gonna need my folks to pull up on me for this one💯🤞🏾🎙️

See you there? 🤲🏾🤞🏾

Blink and you'll miss it...Pause for gratitude😌

Event: First Fridays at Phoenix Art Musem

Frameworthy captures by O'Shea Tometi ()

My name is Collette, and I used to think I was a singer.

But the truth is—I’m anti-binary, uncontainable, a multidisciplinary spirit with divine assignments. I’m here to organize, gather and ignite my people.

A few years ago, I co-founded a creative studio and collective called Black River Life. And just a few months back, we transformed the garden at Phoenix Art Museum for First Friday.

That night, I presented my first-ever visual art installation: Temple of Traveling Mercies—a piece birthed by my heart and hands, with the brilliant hands of my fabrication team. I was nervous as hell. What will they think? I’m a singer, not a visual artist. Do I belong here?

But then I remembered: This isn’t about me. As my line sister and sister friend Nubia often says, “Ain’t nobody thinking about you.”😂

It’s about the story.

The story of my people. Of Black people. Of all oppressed people whose movements are surveilled and policed. Temple of Traveling Mercies was a rebuke and a sanctuary—a place where we named the violence and transformed grief into joy because we are actively co-dreaming a new future abundant with the healing we deserve.

Deepest thanks to KapSol Afro-Jazz Band, DJ The Illest Period, and the incredible BLK RVR Artist Collective—Felicia, Didi, Jae Beau, Sean, Trinity, and Ebone—for raising an unforgettable vibration that night. Watching our community engage, reflect and rejoice in the space we created filled my spirit beyond measure…

My name is Collette—and I don’t make art. I use my ancestral gift of story and song to gather folks for the holy undertaking of collective repair. When I see people dancing, I know that it’s working, so I hope to dance with you one day soon.

📸: O’Shea Tomet

I don’t know what heaven looks like, but if I had to guess… it might look like this.

Black joy, good food, sunshine and soft clouds overhead.

Lately, I’ve been recommitting to my path—singing, writing, dreaming, creating. That also means showing up here more. But as a deeply sensitive soul and a communicator, I feel the need to share what’s real for me.

Right now, I’m grieving. I lost my uncle a few weeks ago and last week, a dear friend and colleague passed way too young. And honestly, losses these days tend to plunge me back into my feelings about the passing of my mom. Weird, I know. Grief is a wild ride. I hope you never have to know. Unfortunately it comes with the territory once you allow yourself to love anyone, any place, anything.

Anyway I'm okay and also things are heavy. And like most people, I’m still moving. Putting one foot in front of the other, trying to make the most of each day. Don't worry: I have support, I have a therapist. So this isn’t a cry for help. Just a moment of truth. I'll probably delete this at some point cuz that's my business. But in the meantime...

I took this photo and thought, I hope their spirits are somewhere like this. Safe. Radiant. Full of ease. Full of joy.

That day was a good day. We deserve those.

📍