About Me
Artist Statement
Mo Fleming has followed a circuitous journey through artistic expression. At ten years old she was creating doll clothes from her mother’s discarded fabric scraps. Decades later she would circle back, transitioning to creating multi-media quilts and wall hangings.
As a teenager, she performed as a dancer in the Stageworks production of The Wiz, and with the youth theatre group, “Of, By & For” based at Long Island University in her hometown, Brooklyn NY.
At age 31, her deep love of African American literature and history inspired her to start a book company out of her home. Diane Deblois and Robert Dalton Harris, dealers in rare books and ephemera, provided early encouragement. They brainstormed the name for her business, Black Community Arts (BCA Books) which she would run with her late husband, Marty Berg, for over 10 years. Together, they sold at spaces in The Crossroads Theatre (New Brunswick, NJ) and Freedom Theatre (Philadelphia, PA), as well as festivals and other venues.
She published in Crab Orchard Review and wrote reviews for QBR: The Black Book Review, in the early 1990s. She would later contribute articles to Lilith Magazine. A couple of Ms. Fleming’s incidental pieces appeared in The New York Times. She has plans to republish her memoir, “Seasons in Sheol” in the upcoming year.
While actively running BCA Books, a lap quilt made by her grandmother ignited a new interest. The first quilt she made sold shortly after she put it on display. She would go on to exhibit her quilts, wall hangings and prayer shawls at Plainsboro Public Library (NJ), Weeksville Society (Brooklyn, NY), The Jewish Center Princeton (NJ) and other venues.
Since leaving her birthplace, Greenville SC, as a toddler, over the course of her life, Ms. Fleming would live in San Francisco, Tampa, FL, Springfield, MA, Los Angeles, and New Jersey in addition to shorter residencies in Idaho Falls, ID, Allentown, PA, and McClean VA. In 2019, her family settled in Bear, Delaware. She has traveled extensively in Europe, to Australia, Asia, Israel and Morocco visiting museums, ruins, markets, and monuments.
Through travels and sojourns, Mo Fleming witnessed the rhythm, culture, and soul of place, in architecture, cuisine, attire and transportation. This mélange of contributions, as well as her experience fusing Black and Jewish cultures reveals itself in the breadth of her mixed media collage. Collage is a vehicle for Ms. Fleming to process grief over the death of her husband. For her to reference race memory, to make political statements, or tell symbolic stories. She has experienced the boundlessness and vagaries of the world. In late-stage life, Ms. Fleming embraces the freedom to express herself nakedly.
Our Clothes Upcoming
Our Events
Discover our upcoming clothing collection where art meets fashion. Each piece is inspired by collage and fabric artistry, bringing unique textures, cultural influence, and creative expression into wearable form.