Art and Artist
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally known writer, educator, activist, and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Houston, Texas. Formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Poet in the World, Her work has appeared in Houston Noir by Akashic Press (2019), Black Girl Magic by Haymarket Books (2019), Fjords Journal, Crab Orchard Review, and on such platforms as NPR, BBC, ABC, Apple News, Blavity, Upworthy, and across the TedX circuit. She serves as a contributing writer to Texas Monthly and Glamour. Her most recent poetry collection, Newsworthy, won honorable mention for the Summerlee Book Prize. A German translation, under the title SayTheirNames, is set to be released in Fall 2021 by Elif Verlag.
Reginald C. Adams is a public artist, social entrepreneur, and community developer. He is best known for his award-winning public art projects, which are strategically located in some of Houston’s most historic and under-served neighborhoods. His creativity and approach to his artwork is inspired by travels to more than 40 countries around the globe. Adams fundamentally believes that everyone deserves access and exposure to the arts and strives to engage the public in the design and production of his public art projects.
Over the past 20 years Reginald has facilitated the design, coordination, and production over 350 public art projects and sacred spaces across the Houston area and abroad. These projects have been co-created with the involvement of over 50,000 area youth volunteers, 100’s of artists and thousands of community stakeholders.
The designs, motifs, and imagery, captured in my work, is a direct reflection of the communities and public spaces that the work is designed to serve. This expands the style, social context, and technique for the execution of Reginald’s work into broad and diverse territory. Each project is unique unto the community itself. By placing the public in public art, Reginald works to represent the culture, heritage, history and social context of communities and shared public spaces. His intention is to transform these environments into cultural and artistic destinations.
Reginald is a Senior Fellow with the American Leadership Forum (ALF) Class 24 and Community Development Class 1, an alumnus of Leadership Houston Class XXVIII, Graduate of the Center for Houston’s Future 2013, and Past-President of the Rotary Club of Houston Skyline.
In 2010, the Houston Press honored Reginald with their annual Mastermind Award, an honor recognizing creative professionals that are making a significant impact on the city of Houston through the arts. He was recently honored by the Houston Business Journal as one of Houston’s 2012 top 40 Under 40 business executives.
In his personal time Reginald is an avid runner, he enjoys Salsa dancing, photography, traveling and spending quality time with his family.