For the more than twenty years that J’miah has been performing, his work has not gone unappreciated and unnoticed. With co-founder Marie Faulkner Brown, he received a proclamation from the City of Miami (Dade County Florida) for perpetuating family traditions across all sectors of Miami neighborhoods through collaborations and by forming the William J. Faulkner Friends of Folklore, Inc.  In 2006, www.evoca.com nominated J'miah for a National Storytelling Network (NSN) ORACLE Award, for which he did receive for Leadership and Service, Southeast Region. A 2007 NEA-supported Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) Traditional Arts Apprenticeship (TAA) grant was awarded to J'miah as a master artist; this also won him a nomination and acceptance into the Southern Arts Federation’s Artistry Registry in 2008. With just four years into his craft as a professional storyteller, J'miah's very first proclamation came with great surprise while touring his Wood Makes Music! (WOOD!) program that was created for a Franklin Institute Science Museum (Philadelphia, PA) national exhibit, "What makes Music?" to underserved rural communities. In the middle of the program at one of the schools where he was presenting with his core group of children, a Pennsylvania House of Representative rep, along with the school's principal and school Superintendent, a proclamation was announced and given to J'miah, citing his Community Storycloth Project and Wood Makes Music! for their merits in education and multicultural inclusiveness and for bringing them programs to the underserved rural communities of the Blue Mountains in south central, Pennsylvania. J’miah’s professional theater experiences began with Tony Award winning writer, director and producer, George C. Wolff (The Colored Museum; Bring in the Noise/Bring in the Funk; others) as an ensemble member in Wolff's "Summer Sun Tales of Fun" when Wolff directed the Los Angeles Repertory Workshop. J'miah's spontaneous play with storytelling dynamics, character voices and voice talent got him the part as "Uncle Asa" with award-winning play-write Rufus Caleb (My Dungeon Shook; Benny's Place) for Caleb's WNYC Radio Stage play, "The Devil and Uncle Asa," winner of the 1993 National Federation of Community Broadcasters' Special Achievement Award.  

I use Akan storytelling dynamics in the persona of anansesem (the telling of Ananse stories), contemporary life and accompanying folk-tale songs (mmoguo) as a jumping off point to initiate and facilitate up-beat social in-gatherings for children, youth and family audiences. This also works very well for adult audiences, encouraging them to play more (Play to Learn, Learn to Play). Whenever I am asked, “What type of stories do you tell?” my simplest answer to that is “the highly engaging participatory ones.”

For the past 20 + years, my audiences have primarily been children, K through 5 with middle, high schools, senior citizens centers and university settings added to the course along the way. Apart from the traditional and contemporary stories that I do, I occassionally get to tell stories to remind local businesses, arts agencies and presenters of annual events and festivals to be mindful of their "local artists" in times other than "annual events." I truly enjoy telling stories that encourage teachers, principals and school administrators and the BOE's to make decissions that "support the arts" in ways that bring artists inside their schools and classroms; that perpetuate light on the empowering value of arts integration and its relevance to student academic achievement and the professional learning community.  We (artists) are productive citizens that are often under-utilized within our own communities. As professionals, we too have a valid fee-based profession that include schedules and payment-upon-completion-of-services plans and invoices that need to be honored just as they are honored (expected to be) in the professions of dentistry, educational consulting, plumbing, automobile servicing, beauty salons, etc.  Storytelling propels me onto the wings of childrens hospitals, family-care centers and walk-in clinics, houses of detention, shelters for battered women, public parks and river walks, the concert stage and cross country traveling visiting multiple of neighborhoods in a brightly painted RV's and public libraries "bookmobiles"  transformed and openly identified as a "storymobiles."  For me, staying connected with the way of words, people and communities, no matter where they may come from or how they show up and which language they speak,   keeps the profession of storytelling eternally alive, doable, and valid. Now, having said all of that, Kenyan poet Sheikh Shaaban Robert summarizes it all and in the briefest form of my statement.

“Nashikilia ukale ambapo hapana budi

   Na huacha vilevile iwapo haunifidi.

   Nitabadalili milele siwezi kuwa abidi,

   Wa kutenda yale yale kuzuia juhudi."

   (I hold to tradition when there is no choice

   And I abandon it when there is nothing to be gained by it.

   I will always change. I cannot be a slave

   To doing the same thing all the time and holding back endeavor.)