Artist

Bio

Tish Jones is a poet, emcee, and Hip Hop Theater artist from Saint Paul, MN, with a deep and resounding love for Black people. Her work explores themes of Black love, liberation, politics, and Afro-Futurism. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and abroad as a public performance artist committed to the power of narrative change through the arts.

Her writing can be found in We Are Meant to Rise (University of Minnesota Press), A Moment of Silence (Tru Ruts and The Playwrights Center), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press) and more.

Currently serving as a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Tish is grateful to have been supported through numerous grants, fellowships, and awards throughout her career. That generous support has allowed her to excavate the kind of stories that chart new worlds. She also serves as the Founding Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks, and for all of it, she is eternally grateful.

Press Kit

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Leadership Bio

Founder & Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks, Tish Jones is a poet, narrative strategist, cultural producer, consultant, and educator from Saint Paul, MN, with a deep and resounding love for Black people, arts & culture, youth development, and civic engagement. With over 15 years of experience in the classroom as a teaching artist,  Jones is  passionate about the arts as a tool for education, community building, personal and professional development, and social impact.

Former Brave New Voices Festival Director, Tish has a breadth of experience with large scale cultural production that include managing teams of 75+ people, managing budgets of over $800K, securing corporate, government, and philanthropic partnerships and more. She has developed curriculum, published books and articles, served on panels, lectures and more. She has partnered, collaborated with, consulted with or facilitated leadership activities with and/or through The University of MN, The University of Wisconsin Madison, Words, Beats, & Life, Youth Speaks, The Kennedy Center, The Loft Literary Center, The Minnesota Department of Education, The McKnight Foundation and a host of other entities across the nation.

As a performance artist her work has been shared in venues throughout the United States. Her writing can be found in We Are Meant to Rise (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), A Moment of Silence (Tru Ruts and The Playwrights Center, 2020), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015) and more.

Currently serving as a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Jones is grateful to have been supported through grants, fellowships, and awards from The Intercultural Leadership Institute, Springboard for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board and more. The generous support that she has received over the years has allowed her to excavate the kind of stories that chart new worlds— she is eternally grateful.

  • I believe that Spoken Word allows me to be in Tha tradition of Black literary artists before me, who chose to wield their axe toward change— now it is my turn.

  • Artists are pivotal in all social movements, history has proven that. We are the messengers, the storytellers, the story shapers, and the story keepers.

  • My ancestors, my family, Black people throughout the diaspora, and children. Children continue to inspire me.