Decked Out

It seems as if curator and activist Kimberly Drew ’12 has been everywhere since appearing on the cover of the Fall 2016 Quarterly, when she was social media manager for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Her first book, This Is What I Know About Art, written for teens and blurbed by singer and actor Janelle Monáe, was published in June by Penguin Random House; her second, Black Futures, co-authored with New York Times Magazine staff writer Jenna Wortham, is due out later this year. A Hulu podcast hosted by Drew, Your Attention Please, debuted in February. She even collaborated with Reebok on a sneaker.

Now, Drew’s likeness can be found on a deck of cards that doubles as an objet d’art. “Pur·suit” is a limited-edition pack of 54 playing cards featuring photographs of queer, transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people. The deck was created by Drew’s friend the photographer Naima Green (whose mother, Zenola Harper ’78, is a Smithie). Released last year, the cards have found an appreciative audience during stay-at-home orders. “People are tagging me in pictures of them playing solitaire with the deck,” Green says. Originally $65; now 15 percent off with code SMITHIE15.

PUR·SUIT
Naima Green featuring Kimberly Drew ’12
naimagreen.com/new-products/pursuit

This story appears as part of the Smithies Create column in the Summer 2020 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.