Dear Mazie,: Sanctury, Speculation, and Sky

Edited by Amber Esseiva

Dear Mazie, Sanctuary, Sky, and Speculation is an experimental reader that explores the work and legacy of Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), a trailblazing artist and educator who became the first known Black queer woman to practice as an architect in the United States.

The publication accompanies the eponymous exhibition at ICA VCU, which takes Meredith’s expansive letter-writing practice as a conceptual framework for epistolary responses in the present. Dear Mazie, plots Meredith’s life and work within themes of placemaking, gender, sexuality, and Black love, with a special focus on the ways she built sanctuaries (from homes to institutions to communities) for herself and other people of color to foster rigorous artistic pursuit, free of persecution.

The fully illustrated publication features previously unpublished photos, blueprints, letters, and scrapbooks from Meredith’s archives and an annotated timeline of her life and work. Newly commissioned essays from architectural scholars, and oral histories with former students, colleagues, and friends explore her significant legacy in public education, the arts, modernist architecture, and the built environment in the context of school desegregation, civil rights, and land and property rights. Contributions from a diverse group of contemporary artists respond to Meredith’s legacy, offering a note to the past from the present.