About Us
Soular Renaissance is a company that encompasses art, poetry, photography, literature, music and fashion. It is the birth-child of photographer Jason "Flash Gordon Parks" Woods and poet Eric "Equality" Blaylock who both felt a need to build upon the foundations laid by the ingenuous artists of the past while carving a name out for them in the future. Both artists are motivated by the rich cultural heritage of the Black arts Movement in Harlem commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance as well as the divine order of nature and how humans are in perfect balance with the universe hence the term universal or UNI-verse-Soul. Uni meaning one; verse being attributed to the power of words or art; and soul being the innate force that manifests as consciousness, thought, feeling, and will, regarded as distinct from the physical body. Soular is also a reference to the solar aspect of how we are intertwined with nature as being one with the sun or using the sun's radiation as a source of energy. Every per-sun is a sun personified to radiate or bring light and we chose our art as a way to bring light along the path of the ancestors who used art before us.
Eric Blaylock was brought up on the north side of Houston. After listening to Gil Scott-Heron and reading works by Sonia Sanchez, both powerful voices in the African-American community in the 1970's, his journey towards becoming a poet and an active revolutionary began. From then on he followed his passion and began writing. Later he started performing his poetry at venues in the Houston area. As a student at Prairie View A&M University, he enriched not only his intelligence, but also his soul, mind, and spirit for poetry.
Jason Woods, born and raised on Houston's south side became interested in photography while attending Jack Yates High School. Under the influence of Ray Carrington he began learning the history of photography and started taking pictures of the things he saw in his neighborhood and surroundings. "I was fueled mainly by my experience in the darkroom," he states. Jason believes making a print is like watching a baby being born. When asked which photographers he admired the most, his response was Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, Earlie Hudnall and Jerry Uelsmann. Jason received his Bachelor of Arts in Photography at Sam Houston State University.
