New resident and artist Joshua Whitaker will debut his art show, “Peace, Love and Perfection,” at Crome Architecture on July 3. (Photo by Jessica Thomas)
‘Peace, Love and Perfection’ at Crome Architecture
- Published: July 2, 2025
When Joshua Whitaker and his family decided to make the move to Yellow Springs from the Bay Area of California, he knew the move would have dual meaning — leaving the west coast and returning to his family’s roots in central Ohio.
This sense of merging the past and present shows through the collection of pieces Whitaker will debut on Thursday, July 3, in a new installation at Crome Architecture, located at 604 Xenia Ave. in Yellow Springs.
Whitaker, a self-taught artist, musician and DJ, said one of his goals with the show and with his art is to merge several of his interests — music, art and history.
“I am a child of the golden age of hip-hop,” Whitaker said. “Artists like KRS-1, Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest were informing us of Black culture, Black liberation, and Black liberation consciousness. It set the stage for what I was destined to do in my music and my visual art.”
As a newcomer to Yellow Springs, Whitaker said he is excited to debut his art to the community, and especially grateful to showcase his art in Crome Architecture, which was formerly the First Baptist Church. The church was founded as the Anti-Slavery Baptist Church in 1863 by members of the Conway Colony, a group of about 30 formerly enslaved people, who moved into the building in 1869.
“There is a symbolic nature of the building that’s perfect for me. My art is rooted in the Black experience,” Whitaker said. “I use these old artifacts because they hold time and history in their patina, the wood. To put it in a building that also holds so much history and meaning just made sense, and I’m really looking forward to seeing these pieces in that building.”
Whitaker also said he wanted to create pieces that would create positive energy during a time fraught with wars, genocide and civil unrest.
“We have so many things laying heavy on our spirits right now,” Whitaker said. “I spent some time asking myself, ‘Who are the people who historically have pushed our culture towards resistance, love and justice?’”
Several of the pieces feature artists, poets and musicians who Whitaker said helped create a “higher vibration.”
“These are the ones for me: [John] Coltrane, Nina Simone Prince, Jimi Hendrix and Amiri Baraka,” Whitaker said. “I wanted my art to be a subject where we could talk about what these iconic musicians and poets and writers and thinkers were doing in their time to push that needle towards love and peace.”
Meditating on the work of these change-makers, particularly John Coltrane, led Whitaker to the title of his show: “Peace, Love and Perfection.”
“There’s this chant that Coltrane uses in some of his songs that goes, ‘May there be peace, love and perfection throughout all creation, oh God’ that’s very poignant,” Whitaker said. “I wanted to do a show of images I created while meditating on Coltrane’s mantra.”
Asked about the techniques used to create his pieces, Whitaker said he has always been interested in mixed media, but has focused on reclaimed and repurposed items as part of his collage work for this show.
“I definitely have an addiction to found wood and reclaiming or upcycling,” Whitaker said. “It feels like my duty to take stuff that might be in the landfill and make it into art.”
After sanding, planing and cutting the wood down, Whitaker said he decided who would be featured on each piece. Once that decision was made, he found other materials that would help shape each piece into a unique collage.
“I’ve been doing a kind of assemblage with artifacts that you might find in an antique shop or some small, curated antique piece of something,” Whitaker said. “I’ve been grabbing chairs and buttons, metal and other vintage pieces of wood.”
All of these elements give the pieces a sense of familiarity that Whitaker says came from one particular piece, which is dedicated to his great-grandmother, “Mumsy.”
“She’s our family matriarch, who rests in Columbus,” Whitaker explained. “The piece I did for her represents the full circle of me returning to Ohio, where my family was from and where some of my family currently exists.”
Coming to Ohio, Whitaker said, was a surprise, but the decision to move was rooted in the intentions of his ancestors. He and his family — wife, Sheena; and daughters, Jimi and Rubi — moved to Yellow Springs in April after visiting the area last summer.
“We were in transition, and I had a lot of questions that weren’t answered, as far as what California represented for us as new parents, the job situation, the inflation situation and cost of living,” Whitaker said. “I asked my ancestors to give me an answer, so when we got the call to come visit Yellow Springs, I said, ‘I think we need to go to Ohio and just see what’s out there.’ And a year later, we’re living here.”
Trusting that guidance and letting the will and wisdom of the ancestors lead are themes that Whitaker conveys through his art. He said that he hopes each piece can spark conversations about what brings about a sense of love, peace and perfection for both the individual and the collective.
“I think of peace and perfection as something we are striving for, and love as the glue that holds everything together,” Whitaker said.
“Peace, Love and Perfection” will remain on display in Crome Architecture through the fall, and Whitaker hopes to collaborate with Crome to open the space for events.
“I would love to do a community talk or have some social gatherings so people can see the art and create a space for more connection,” Whitaker said. “In the end, I just want to do my little piece at moving us towards peace.”
*Jessica Thomas is a mother, a villager and a teacher at Thurgood Marshall HS in Dayton. She can be reached at jessicathomasraska@gmail.com.
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