Virgin Islands Artist La Vaughn Belle Named Finalist for Billie Holiday Monument in Queens

Virgin Islands artist La Vaughn Belle has been selected as a finalist to design a new public monument honoring Billie Holiday in Queens, New York, with a proposal that focuses on the legendary singer’s interior life, self-possession and emotional authority before performance. Belle’s proposal, Billie Holiday: Still, at the Crossing, presents Holiday emerging from the ground at the edge of a reflective pool, occupying a threshold between public and private self, memory and presence. Rather than centering Holiday in performance, Belle’s concept shifts attention to a pre-stage moment. The proposal imagines Holiday elegantly dressed for a public appearance while wrapped in a private garment, a figure held within herself. At that threshold, the monument honors the interior life, self-fashioning and emotional authority that shaped her voice and artistic legacy. Belle said her proposal was shaped by archival images that revealed Holiday away from the stage, in moments where her private wor...