person we're doing something a little bit different this time because we're actually broadcasting via skype so the gentleman that is my guest today his name is joe barton denson he's a recent graduate from howard university in the theater art and he was a major and theater arts he's a model all he's an artist he's just an incredible human being and one thing that he's going to share with us is a nonprofit organization that he's just about to launch so hey jill barshay how's it so that's been lovely and is that smooth sailing literally all week so oh good good no i so why don't you start off by introducing yourself and telling the audience a little bit of more about who you are ok this and i'm originally from atlanta georgia and i've been in d c for almost five years now i was getting my bachelor's in fine arts yes i did major in peter art said howard university which would is one of model a actor a writer visual art is all of those things and a lot of my networking and a lot of the skills that i acquired came from howard university so i have to course  e up to my alma mater yeah let's see i i love to love to write i'm working on one of the projects right now including two plays and one  memoir in terms of drawing i have been working closely with miss russell to do the illustrations for her book so i have some of that artwork up here with me right now including some of my original works as well   how did you end up at howard university so what's the back story behind all day i i was working at the federal trade commission this summer before i went to college and that's when i got to c and i fell in love with the city i'll also got a little taste of corporate america which was really cool kind of seen the hustle and bustle of d c was the thing that really an inspired me to come back so when i found out about how were i was able to actually go see howard like a day after i did like an actual tour but like when i walked on campus i just knew that this is going to be the school that i wanted to be at so  apply i didn't get any scholarships but i've been able to acquire some finances along the way just keeping my grades up and being active on campus and things like that so that's how i got it that's how i got through that though because so many people start so young and i start a little later then some people were saying and in movies today but yes on it in seventh grade i did a little math project where we had to incorporate different aspects of art and that i'm from the south by the way i speak i speak very slow very slowly compared to a lot of people up here in d c i've met a few rude people here and we don't really meet a lot of people were  know it's like a rare thing down down south but i think i was the biggest like transitional challenge that i had was that i had to find a way to  maintain a level of like a maintain a sense of respect that people had half of me and also understand that people are always you know being rude they just bestest you know best is kind of like a d c culture everything's very fast everything is very much so capitalistic and money driven so people saw it differently and they talk fast and they can be rude sometimes but i think other than that the transition itself like so can you talk a little bit about your visual arts ok sure i started drawing when when i got here on this planet like i think that was the first thing up picked out of all of the arts  with my first thing over the course of my senior year i was working on a print i'm still working on this project but i was working on a project that was heavily influenced by humanism in the film this new movement i wanted to do something that i incorporated you know african american ideas yeah african american cultural ideas and empowerment so i am working on getting a photographer to do some statue work so i want to get a few models and i have to just call people that i work with it's a symbolic statue statue e positioning so i can get some ideas of cooperating with that but i have a art exhibit coming up hopefully before i leave d c in august i want to have a collection of all of the work that i park so that's the plan are to talk to the person that manages that that area so it should all work out but things hit the fan as soon as i graduated and i had to kind of put that project to the back burner for a little  bit another thing miss russell and not talk about this before was that i when i was when i was growing up i used a lot of a lot of color like i did a lot of painting more so and then as i've been in college i've done mostly  black and white and i've now i'm now gone back to using a lot of color so i now have pieces that have charcoal and so i like the best of both worlds like putting them both together and it's been really  liberating for me because i feel like i was limiting myself a little bit by only like i literally was like no i don't use color i've just you know black and white but is that so that's been a great experience i have gotten into caricature art to after using color because it just you know pops out so looking forward to seeing where this this newfound color usage is going to go because a saw far so good oh excellent excellent so now that you've graduated what are some things that you have on your horizon oh ok let's see right now i'm working three jobs because i am trying to move to spain when i get to spain i'm going to be doing a teaching abroad program so i me of course money to live comfortably for my first few months before i start my job so before i leave the city my organization and he uses art artistically influence events to fund projects that help the home help feed the homeless cold and housed the homeless as well so i did a food drive not too long ago and what i did was i did a two week period where i was doing caricature are for like twenty five dollars each just to raise money for the food drive that do so i went out got some food and it was living that much because i was kind of working by myself at the time because the other friends that i would meet they had a lot of stuff to do but it was very successful i got some of the contact information of some of the individuals that live  this community and a lot of them don't have phones but one of my one of my first tasks with the nonprofit was i get a lot is to see if i can find a project that puts a phone and every one of their hands as many how i think the most important thing is that we we realize that they're not too far away from us in terms of finances in terms of situation itself because you can be you can have a job one minute and then be without a job the next minute myself being a student having just graduated college i don't have a place to stay that's consistent right now so you know things like that and it kind of it kind of opens your mind up so that so the first thing i want to do is make sure tax documentation and those are the things that i'm trying to do before i leave in august and how i thought of that oh what's the name of your organization you're not old enough that's important it's call out finding phoenix i got the name one day because i had a friend who's singing name was phoenix and we used to do like a lot of music and stuff like that together so that's kind of where the name came from and i also just find being just like when i go out i'm always meeting saying that the fact that you're young young person and you can see the value in giving back already so that i definitely commend you for all of that so like so what else do you have going on  it's backwards on the on the camera but this one took about a week and it was the first one that i completed i also have this one miss russell and she was like  three that i had completed so far i'm still working on the rest of course but i want to show those when they're completely done yeah just while we're on the subject this is one of the pictures that's definitely going to go into the art collection that i have coming out so this is a photo of you don't say you might get into this competition for our dead so i kind of changed the theme of which she was wearing which was like the right now that i would like to show today how excellent axl and i and i have said to say to the audience it's been quite a pleasure getting to know this young man here and i feel quite honored frankly to have him the illustrator for my book so i'm just kind of really really excited about all of that so he's so here is going to spain right you're going to say this year but you've been abroad before so can you tell us a little bit about you program last year i studied at oxford university of studying shakespeare the coolest thing i've ever done and every time i talk about it my heart just starts beating rules fast my get really excited that was the first time i was ever out of the country so to be out of the country and studying at oxford in the same month was just so much i met a lot of beautiful people i travel to london and like we would go to london just on the weekend it wasn't like a let's go down the street like we would literally go to london and stratfor the most amazing production of what was it was hamlet i saw the most amazing production of hamlet at the royal heavily involved with theater it was a very diverse community to many people and when i say diverse i mean i met people from france and i met people from egypt and i met people from so many different continents and comic con trees and now it called cie teacher broad i think that's the full name of it but the website is c i dot work and i got involved with that back in january and i won it so i wanted to find a way to get how of the country and possibly do some work some fellowship work so my friend jasmine she's actually in spain right now doing her second year teaching so i spoke with art and she sell you should definitely a no second to this so can i got my except as letter in house so happy because i was just like ok now i have at least two years after graduate you know post graduation all planned out so when i do get out get out there i'm going to be teaching english in english language i'm going to be trying to incorporate as much arts and artistic principles as possible because the soon as that i'll be teaching are going to be  thing and i had never talked before but i really loved it i took the kids out to go our shopping so i showed him the different artistic tools i think i did four or five projects with them over the course of the summer and they all turned out well and it was just amazing to have to teach somebody something that wasn't taught to me in understanding what i'm talking about was absolutely amazing and the thing i liked about it was that they are added their own life you know bit of uniqueness in everything that we do and i'm excited to see how the spanish kid is going to be teaching can teach me wonder language culture or any you know their their their daily ins and outs you know as a as a first grader in spain you know saw i'm looking forward to that too but it was a great summer when i did i i worked  with different parents so we were all like collaborating they did different things some of them work for the government so it was also a great networking opportunity to that's wonderful so how does your how does your acting fit into all of that i know you are already mentioned that are also more thing into a playwright but from a stage perspective do you plan to do more in terms of acting as well oh yeah i'm actually i was thinking about my lesson plan that i'm going to try to of the things that i wanted to do see incorporate art as well so right now i did i did one acting gig since i graduated only because as soon as i graduated i just wanted to hit the ground running and make as much money as i could so i mean you know be comfortable in spain however i think i'm becoming more of a writer than an actor for the moment i'm acting takes a lot out of you motion g to be a student from howard university and i actually program as well it's really it can be very very draining to you as a person because you're consuming and absorbing so many different elements of acting so many so much information and so i'm really just taking this time in spain to really just kind of you know relax and get some writing done writing that i've been pushing off for years now you know get that done so so that when i do come might you know get back into the industry more professionally in it's funny because i've had this conversation a lot with people who are confused or concerned sometimes when they say oh you went to howard's four years studying acting and they're like it's a waste of know it's not because acting was literally i probably acted maybe r d percent of the time and the rest of it was just knowledge about other elements and other avenues of art so i got the whole  and i'm using everything that i got from howard university to sort to keep going straight yeah that and that's wonderful because you know education and lifelong learning is really all about there's no limits to what you know what you learn so just because you were a acting major that does not limit you to just doing state acting zax l l of the pouring into that you received by the staff they are definitely take you way beyond just doing yeah it was because in a way that could be perceived as being very narrow you know but you i mean i'm listening to you and plus i know you personally you're a very well rounded individual and you absorb and you love to and that's mind you i said of you that you truly love to learn and that's one of the things that i just admire about individuals like that in general so and speaking now the acting piece of it though i think i've read somewhere on your website that you mentioned something about an august wilson oh yes yes on the website i do like weekly blog i actually missed one week but don't tell nobody look that that my second time working with the year and i think it was it was a round i want to say around december of last year and up the year before that i wrote a well i started my play and memorizing lines and it was very very liberating for me to do that oh thanks for the lead excellent that's wonderful so is there anything else in particular you would like to say about the audience i mean you're just like a treasure trove of fact that no matter how they seem to us as far as like graduate like this the things that happen and it made me second guess of being able to graduate in maybe second guess being able to go to spain to do the things that i'm doing right now that it wasn't even a discussion at that you just maybe three months ago so i want to talk about the fact that i went to church and i talked to the right people and they got me spiritually  strengthen and i prayed about it and i got through all of those thing you know i'm here today and i'm glad to be in pursuit of the things that i would not have had the opportunity to do so you know my relationship with god was not perfect but i'm getting there as much as possible and i think that with everything that's going on like you know i have a lot going on obviously but i can't do anything without putting god yeah i think that's the