A black wet nurse holds a white child in one hand and a book in the other. The nurse has a distant, wistful look in her eyes. She knows the baby she’s nursing today will one day own her.

This bronze sculpture, “About Journeys,” is one of Chicago artist Preston Jackson’s three works now on display in the “Mirrors of the Spirit” exhibit at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St. The exhibit features sculptures, paintings and ceramics by six Chicago-area black artists.

The exhibit, sponsored by the Evanston Arts Council, is curated by former Chicago gallery owner Isobel Neal.

“We tried to put something that would flow together with some abstraction and representation,” Neal said. “The main purpose was to show that good art is universal in appeal and that everyone can enjoy it and get something out of it.”

Neal said she hopes viewers will see the exhibit as more than a Black History Month event. Some black artists who display their work in Black History Month exhibits face the risk of being stereotyped solely as black artists, she said.

“They don’t like to do Black History Month events because it really is a pigeonhole that allows people to forget them for the rest of the year,” Neal said. “These are works by artists to celebrate black history. Black artists don’t do black history any more than white artists do white history.”

But the work is still representative of black experiences, said Elizabeth Ockwell, the exhibit’s tour guide and an instructor at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

“Their work is done for private reasons and is heartfelt,” she said. “But it speaks to the experience of all African-Americans. It’s artwork on a grand scale.”

Ockwell, Weinberg ’74, had high praise for Jackson’s sculptures.

“This is so hard,” she said, gesturing toward the detailed bronze sculptures. “Technically, it’s absolutely flawless. It’s just world-class and couldn’t be on a higher level than this.”

Several pieces in the collection employed scratching as an artistic technique.

Some of artist John Rozelle’s paintings featured a center square of musical notes with scratches over the entire painting. Artist Mary Reed Daniels’ work featured vibrant colors of paint that were scratched away with various objects to create a palette of colors set against a black background.

Hyde Park potter Marva Jolly has several “story pots” and “friendship bowls” in the exhibit. These are her own unique handmade pottery creations that tell stories through pictures on the outside and inside — combining her love of storytelling and her love of art.

“I think that people have to look at my artwork and identify something that’s near them,” she said. “I don’t think it’s what I say. I think it’s what my work reminds them of in their own lives.”

Jolly makes each of her works by hand rather than using a potter’s wheel.

“I wanted to do it that way because I wanted to be identified with the way the early ancestors did it,” she said. “That’s the real way to me.”

After Jolly finishes making the pots, she uses ceramic stains to create images on the surfaces. The process of making a pot takes her two to three weeks.

One visitor, Raynard Jackson, said he enjoyed the exhibit. Jackson, who has modeled for the sculptor Preston Jackson but is not related to him, said the artwork was Afro-centric in structure, attitude and even the hairstyles in the paintings.

“I think it does it in a classy manner,” said Jackson, a Flossmore, Ill., resident. “It’s not degrading people but depicts them in a classy way.”

“Mirrors of the Spirit” runs through March 17.