Alma Roberts, senior program manager supporting Kaiser Permanente’s Community Benefit work in the Mid-Atlantic States, has worked on several major initiatives for the organization. Most recently her work in the city of Baltimore, her home town, regarding the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Equitable Leadership, and her support of the organization’s flu campaign to encourage more Baltimoreans to get the flu vaccination through the KPMAS Barbershop Initiative has Roberts helping to build a healthy community, as well as inform residents about Kaiser Permanente’s mission and vision.In addition to educating communities and promoting preventive health, Roberts is also an artist. She is a painter, performance poet, and playwright. Her paintings are currently on exhibit in the Call and Response: Art between Artists exhibition at Baltimore’s Eubie Blake National Jazz and Cultural Center from May 7 through June 24, 2017.
“Although I am new to painting, I am not new to a love of art. I paint abstract interpretations of how the world looks to me from a social justice, equity, and quality of life perspective. I paint to express emotions and to voice my positions on the way things are and the way I think they should be.”
The exhibit shouts and whispers messages between Roberts’ paintings and ceramics artist, Sallah Jenkins. The two artists collaborated to bring fresh interpretations to the “call and response” idiom of musical liturgy. The interplay of their artwork creates a contemporary discourse deeply rooted in the African American experience.
For more information about the exhibit and a sneak peak at Roberts’ and Jenkin’s artwork click here
