Michelle Obama for US Vogue, December 2016

On the cover of it's December 2016 issue, Vogue magazine calls Michelle Obama "the First Lady the world fell in love with," and that's no lie.  Michelle Obama has caused a stir from the moment she took center stage on election night in 2008, next to President Barack Obama and her girls, Malia and Sasha.  She was poised, confident, radiant.  She broke barriers by baring her arms in her official portrait, causing controversy and admiration for our physically fit First Lady.

Over the past eight years, she has embodied her phrase, "when they go low, we go high," by taking on each challenge and criticism with extreme class and determination.

Michelle is the entire package - smart, compassionate, strong, wise, kind, with an amazing sense of humor and self-assurance that many First Ladies never accomplish under the shadow of the "Leader of the Free World."

It was wonderful to follow the causes she has championed, to eagerly await her sartorial choices, and to simply bask in her Black Girl Magic.  She will be greatly missed as First Lady of the United States, but I am looking forward, with much anticipation, to what's next for her.

Whatever it is, I know the world will continue to follow and love her with all the devotion as when she was our First Lady.

Artist Obsession: Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall - Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1955, now living in Chicago.

He is largely influenced by his time spent in Watts, Los Angeles, California, where he witnessed the Watts rebellion in 1965, and the Black Power and Civil Rights movements.

His signature style is the use of extremely dark figures, which is said to represent his perspective of African Americans with separate and distinct inner and outer appearances.  His work confronts racial stereotypes within contemporary American society.

Marshall is known for large-scale paintings, sculptures, and other objects that take African-American life and history as their subject matter. His work often deals with the effects of the Civil Rights movement on domestic life, in addition to working with elements of popular culture.

In a 1998 interview with Bomb Magazine, Marshall observed,

“Black people occupy a space, even mundane spaces, in the most fascinating ways. Style is such an integral part of what black people do that just walking is not a simple thing. You’ve got to walk with style. You’ve got to talk with a certain rhythm; you’ve got to do things with some flair. And so in the paintings I try to enact that same tendency toward the theatrical that seems to be so integral a part of the black cultural body.”

Kerry James Marshall’s work will be exhibited October 25, 2016 to January 29, 2017 at The Met Breuer in New York City, New York.  The major monographic exhibition is the largest museum retrospective to date of Marshall’s work. The exhibit will feature nearly 80 works—including 72 paintings—that span the artist's 35-year career.