Title
Dartanya Croff Oral History
Files
Description
Dartanya Croff: Fiber Artist Dartanya Croff is a fiber artist and a member of Krewe of Goddesses. She reflects on how the pandemic shifted her focus and identity herself from aficionado to artist. Learning about the pandemic and grasping the fact that we live in a time where this can exist was a hard reality to accept. But within the last two years, she found solace. Ms. Croff is originally from Flint, Michigan, and moved to New Orleans in 2016. In 2020, she participated in the 2020 Mardi Gras with the Krewe of Goddesses and created a costume based on Josephine Baker. When the pandemic developed, she was hit by a car on her way home from working as a tour operator in the French Quarter. As part of her recuperation and healing journey, she began crocheting fanciful bike helmet covers, designed to increase biker visibility. As the pandemic took hold, and she was still recovering from her injuries, she was experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome and stopped crocheting. She began to paint and sculpt. Many of her paintings featured her new dog, in various settings. Now she is creating paintings of nature scenes, in which depictions of Black women are central to the scene. Ms. Croff was in a unique position on this panel, as she is a recent transplant to New Orleans. She noted the difference in cultures compared to Flint, MI, where she would not have seen, for example, musicians parading through a neighborhood. Her overall theme is how she took difficult events and created something positive and beautiful out of them. For Carnival 2022, she wore a hand-crocheted “mother earth” costume for the Krewe of Goddesses parade on Friday, February 11, 2022.
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Publication Date
Fall 2021
Publisher
Xavier University of Louisiana
City
New Orleans
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Vaz-Deville, Kim, "Dartanya Croff Oral History" (2021). Oral Histories. 1.
https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xula_tgl_oral_history/1
Comments
Video by Lexcie Thomas.