ABOUT
The First of Many Series (TFOMS)
A Platform for Presence. A Movement for More.
TFOMS is a heart-centered storytelling platform founded by Jasmine Washington, built to honor the people behind the practice. We exist to celebrate artists, creatives, and visionaries not just for what they create—but for why they create and who they are beyond the work.
Because you are more than your output. You are a whole person—with memory, complexity, joy, longing, lineage, and dreams that don’t always show up in your portfolio.
TFOMS sits at the intersection of art, community, and care. Through portraiture, podcasting, storytelling circles, writing prompts, live events, and resource-sharing, we offer tools for reflection, visibility, and collective healing. Every offering is rooted in the belief that presence is enough. You don’t need to perform, polish, or prove. You already matter.
At its core, TFOMS is about making space—real, intentional space—for creatives to tell their stories on their own terms. We amplify the often-overlooked: the messy middle, the becoming, the silence, the soul.
We source our venues with deep care and intention—prioritizing local, underrepresented spaces that are often overlooked, yet deeply rooted in community. These are places that deserve to be seen, celebrated, and sustained.
Each activation becomes more than just an event, it’s a creative offering, a collective act of care, and an opportunity to honor the spaces that hold us. It’s also a commitment to reimagining what’s possible when we gather with purpose, creativity, and intention.
We believe space is sacred. And when we gather with intention, we’re not just hosting events—we’re helping sustain legacies.
TFOMS is a Movement—An appreciation and realization of self centered around 50 artists, makers and visionaries.
At the heart of TFOMS is a belief in representation without tokenism. It’s not about checking boxes, it’s about building bridges: between creators and community, between visibility and voice, between cultural impact and long-term infrastructure.
Too often, the artist is overlooked, even as the art is celebrated. When the artist is the art.
TFOMS seeks to shift that narrative, emphasizing that the artist and the art are inseparable. By centering community and collaboration as essential to the creative process, TFOMS celebrates the collective strength of Baltimore’s artistic ecosystem. Through dialogue, shared practice, and mutual support, it empowers both artists and audiences to reclaim their voices and reimagine what’s possible. In doing so, TFOMS offers a renewed vision of Baltimore’s creative potential, one rooted in connection, care, and cultural abundance.
TFOMS is more than a showcase, it’s a platform, a practice, and a promise:
To reimagine what’s possible when artists are centered not only in celebration, but in structure, strategy, and sustained care. It offers an infrastructure for belonging, creative visibility, and reciprocal support, where artistry is honored as both individual expression and collective legacy.
Core Values
• Representation without tokenism
• Collaboration over competition
• Joy as resistance
• Art as a tool for healing, storytelling, and community empowerment.
• Storytelling as legacy
• Infrastructure that sustains artists, not just platforms them
Our Vision
To create a cultural series that does more than highlight artists, it invests in them, documents their journeys, and builds a future where their stories and work are seen as essential to the fabric of our cities and communities.
• • •
MEET OUR FOUNDER AND VISIONARY
JASMINE WASHINGTON (b. 1996, Baltimore, MD)
Jasmine is an Interdisciplinary Artist, ART-ivist, Status Quo Disruptor, Curator and Writer.
Born and raised in Baltimore, Jasmine Washington is the living embodiment of many lineages—African American, Cherokee Indian, Jamaican, and European.
Her practice exists at the sacred crossroads of identity, memory, and belonging—serving as both sanctuary and megaphone. It is a space to hold what’s been silenced, to name what’s been stolen, and to celebrate what persists. She does not create to be seen alone, but to make visible those the world too often refuses to look at.
Through TFOMS, she created an opportunity that brought together various voices and communities that might have never crossed paths otherwise. It wasn’t just about programming, it was about intentionally curating moments that bridge gaps and open doors. She welcomed people into spaces they may have never known about or considered stepping foot in, expanding access and redefining what’s possible. This is more than just community building; it’s legacy in the making.
Jasmine is deeply committed to the radical act of amplification. Her work challenges dominant narratives while inviting tenderness, reflection, and accountability. Through storytelling, curation, and convening, she builds platforms where marginalized voices are not simply included, but centered, honored, and held.
As an Interdisciplinary Artist and Curator, she designs exhibitions that carry emotional gravity and urgency. As a conversation facilitator, she curates spaces of truth-telling and deep witnessing, where dialogue becomes a form of healing.
Jasmine's love for literature is both a sanctuary and a source of endless inspiration. Her journey as a bibliophile informs not only her curatorial lens but also her writing practice, which she often describes as a form of release—a sacred space where she can process, question, and go deeper. Through personal essays, reflections, and storytelling shared on platforms like Substack, Jasmine uses language to excavate the emotional and ancestral layers of her experience. Writing becomes a ritual of clarity and connection, where vulnerability meets critique and memory meets meaning. This devotion to the written word spills into her curatorial work, where she brings literary rhythm and emotional resonance into the spaces she builds—creating exhibitions that feel like living archives: stories that breathe, remember, and resist.
Rooted in empathy, intention, and ancestral knowing, Jasmine’s practice is a vessel: for remembering, for rupture, for restoration. She believes art is not only a mirror, but a tool for transformation. A way back to ourselves. A way forward, together.
She is currently pursuing a MFA in Photography and Media Society at The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and is a recipient of the Leslie King-Hammond Graduate Fellowship Award.
In addition to her own creative and community-rooted work, Jasmine serves as the 2025-2026 Academic Year Guest Gallery Curator at Notre Dame of Maryland University, where she shapes inclusive, intergenerational experiences centered on community, legacy, and imagination. She is a 2025 member of collectives for Our Art Room Agency (OARA) led by Savannah Imani Wade and OLEANDER School for Negro Publishers led by Mackenzie River Foy.
Her work is a testament to the power of art as both archive and act of resistance. At the heart of her practice is a desire to honor the past, disrupt the present, and dream boldly toward collective futures.
Photo Credit: Meaza Getachew, @mazanalog
Get in Touch:
Website: www.jasminewashington.com
Email: jasmine@thefirstofmany.org
Instagram: @thesourcher , @thefirstofmanyseries