Owner A'Driane Nieves says the new Tessera Arts Collective owes a debt to her great-grandmother, Addie B. Lily, who owned a North Philly candy shop.
A'Driane Nieves, founder of the Tessera Arts Collective at 2568 Frankford Ave., is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist, writer, speaker, and maternal mental health advocate know in the art world as Addye B.
Both her alias and her commitment to women of color pay homage to her great-grandmother, Addie B. Lily.
Nieves also carries slogan T-shirts by Eyrn Amel, youth books, and the Asian American Literary Review's Book of Curses, an art book and Lunar New Year advent calendar that calls out colonialism, partner abuse, the poaching of elephants, and other injustices.
The 'Tessera' in the gallery name refers to the Tessera Collective, a mental health group Nieves founded to educate women and girls of color about mental health, offer community and peer support, and encourage their creativity.
In artspeak, a tessera is one of the broken pieces of glass or other materials used to construct mosaics. "Nothing that's broken is disposable", Nieves says. "I want the name to give hope and change the stigma that having a mental health disorder means you are broken."
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