African Americans of Excellence celebrates the rich contributions of African Americans from Frederick, MD. The yearly event pairs local professional artists, high school and college artists, photographers, videographers, and ceramicists with each of the year’s honorees, and the art is auctioned to raise money for the honoree’s charity of choice.
It was SUCH an honor to be asked to paint another honoree portrait for this year’s African Americans of Excellence event on February 4th, 2026 at the Weinberg Center (to see the portrait I painted for last year’s event, click here. It was SUCH an honor to see my name listed as one of the Professional Artists on stage at the event. PROFESSIONAL ARTIST. I am laughing at this while I’m typing it. I love it so much.
See. I have a self complex -that I’ve been spending a lot of time with over the past year or two- about being taken seriously. Like… the gifts that I bring to the table are not… adult enough? to qualify to even be at the table. Like my insights and my talents are… for fun and not for serious. Not for actual.
I do understand how this is not true. I know that I am very insightful and very talented, and I LOVE to contribute with any of my many gifts that fit a situation as often as I can. But knowing that and believing it 100% of the time are two very different things.
I say all of this because while I LOVE (love, love, love) my style of portrait painting, I am sometimes surprised when other people do too. When my bright colors and energy dots and alien-esque vision is TAKEN SERIOUSLY enough for me to be asked back to a very respectable event for a second year in a row.
Speaking of my artistic style – here is my very energetic portrait of Colonel Thaddious Goodman!
Among his MANY accolades and exciting life events, Col. Goodman was assigned to Fort Detrick and moved to Frederick with his family in 1974 – which is the inspiration for the electric map background of the painting. The lime green lines represent the roads of Frederick City and the purple lines are the streets of Fort Detrick!
Col. Goodman is also a very proud member of the Alpha Lambda Lambda Chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc, and their colors (and his FAVORITE colors) are purple and gold (with some hints of green) – which was the motivation behind a lot of the portrait’s color scheme.
All proceeds from the auction of this painting are going to The Black Advancement.
Check out my Instagram post about this event here:
