The Artist Shonna McDaniels is the Founder and Director of the Sojourner Truth Art Museum (founded in 1996). McDaniels is a professional artist/teacher/muralist and community activist, she has an extensive background in art instruction and mural designs. She has studied under some of the finest professors in the Los Rios Community College network and master artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. While residing in Germany, McDaniels instructed art classes for two years on military bases as well as organizing art exhibitions and programs.
Prior to 1996, Shonna McDaniels was one of the co-founders and artist of the Visual Arts Development Project (founded in 1988), McDaniels taught art classes, conducted workshops, and organized art exhibits throughout the Oak Park and Del Paso communities. She has donated art to various organizations as well as helped raise money for charitable causes throughout the Sacramento Region.
She has over 25 years of community involvement, with various organizations that support the arts through exhibition, artist residences, community activism, community murals, and organizing community-based festivals in South Sacramento.
For this project statement, Shonna McDaniels chose the title, Black Lives Mattered than and Black Lives Matters now. Her project depicts the essence, strength, beauty, and power of the Black woman. Ultimately, Shonna reaffirms, the Black Woman Is God!
