12: Clay Roots: Exploring Ceramics Across the Black Diaspora

0:00Welcome to NSEKA 360, a podcast that amplifies and uplifts the voices of the ceramic community. I'm Edith Garcia for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. Visit nseka.net to learn more about how membership cultivates a clay community and shapes content and opportunities for the field. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for the latest information about NSEKA.

0:30Today, we are featuring a conversation with Melanie Barnett, Lydia Thompson, David McDonald, and myself, Ashlyn Pope, about the rich tapestry of ceramics across the Black Diaspora. From the ancestral lands of Africa to the vibrant Caribbean and the diverse cultures of African Americans, join us as we explore the artistic expressions and design aesthetics that are rooted in clay. This conversation was recorded in person at the 2024 NSEKA Coalescence Conference

1:06in Richmond, Virginia. Special thanks to the Brickyard Network for co-producing this episode and supporting podcasting in the ceramics community. If you enjoy this podcast, please support NSEKA's programming by donating at www.nseka.net backslash donate. Hello, everyone. I am Melanie Barnett. I am a multidisciplinary artist. I recently finished a Fulbright in Jamaica

1:40where I was researching African Jamaican ceramics and the culture, the people who make the objects and the meaning behind those objects. And my work is really focused on creating a visual language that is influenced by art, objects, and architecture from Africa and the diaspora. And so today, I'm in the company of the like-minded makers who are creating work that is also inspired by Africa

2:11and the diaspora. And so even though we all have different approaches to our studio practice, we are aligned with our inspiration. And so I want to ground the conversation with the principle of Sankofa, an Akan word meaning you have to go back in order for us to go forward. And so we're going to talk about black cultural design, what does that mean to us, and how we incorporate the techniques and influences of black cultural design into our studio practice.

2:42So we're going to start with some introductions. And so I'll start with Lydia, who's on my left. And Lydia, say your name, where you're from, give us some background. Okay. And then what you make and where you're based now. Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm Lydia C. Thompson. I'm currently a professor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. I am a hand builder.

3:12I work with different types of building techniques. I do whatever I need to do to make the work. Currently, I'm working on two bodies of work. One is about the landscape. It's about the built environment. The other body of work I'm doing is a major installation. It's entitled Mumblings. And it has sound as well as these bird formations that I'm using that are a combination of using the environment,

3:44the built environment, and birds, ceramic birds that I place together. They are symbolizing the conversations that of African Americans who were part of the Great Migration or their parents were part of the Great Migration. And those are the stories that are in between. So we're not talking about those who might have participated directly in the civil rights, but those people who were steadfast in living during that time period and really learning a lot about what those other African American people were doing to keep their life going.

4:23Hi, I'm David McDonnell. I'm a professor emeritus from Syracuse University where I taught ceramics from 1971 to 2008 about. I retired then and I wanted to see if I could do what I had been teaching all those years. And so right now I'm a practicing studio artist and everything I make is centered around the idea of the vessel.

5:01And that's one of the things that really got me interested in ceramics to start with, with the idea of utility and the idea that you can take this material that has no intrinsic value and turn it into something that's not only beautiful, but something that's useful as well. And so my studio practice, I guess that's become the term that people use to talk about what they do in the studio. My studio practice is basically vessel making.

5:34I make everything from cups all the way up to three foot or taller vessels. It's very important to me that my work is a vessel.

5:48And so every morning I get up and I go in the studio and I try to see if I can fake it until I make it.

6:00Well, you are doing a good job faking it, I tell you. So Ashlyn. Hi, I'm Ashlyn Pope. I'm currently a professor at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, let me be clear. It is located about 10 miles away from Myrtle Beach, so very close to the water. So let's see, what else do you want me to share? What do I make, Kim?

6:31So I make work that bridges on the sculptural and functional. I make a lot of vessels or things that start off as vessels, but I disrupt that by changing what its content is. So if you spend time with my pieces, they can cross over into something that becomes a very deep conversation. And people tend to then push that into sculpture because they're like, oh, I don't want to use it.

7:04But I also do sculptural work as well, as well as installation work. It just depends on what kind of conversation I'm trying to have. I work in ceramics, but I also work with textiles. Textiles to me are very important. My people, I'm from the Gullah people, Gullah Geechee people, if you've ever heard of them. We are a coastal people. We are an indigenous group to America. We were born here. This is who we are. So my people came across the water in the transatlantic slave trade,

7:38just like many of the people in this room who have African ancestry. However, our people, the Gullah people, kind of stayed very central to the coastal regions of the south. So this would be the people from Jacksonville, North Carolina, down to Jacksonville, Florida, and about 60 miles from coast to inland. That would be where the Gullah Geechee people have originated.

8:08And so my work is steeped heavily in that understanding. I was originally born and raised in New Jersey, but my ancestry is from South Carolina. My ancestors came out of Georgetown, South Carolina in particular, which is only about 45 minutes now from where I'm from. So in a way, I've kind of returned home. And so my work also incorporates things that people understand as being Gullah,

8:39a.k.a. sweetgrass baskets. But because I didn't grow up in the culture, sweetgrass baskets were not taught to me, and that's because they are passed down through lineages. It is not necessarily taught outside of that. At least the secrets of it are not taught outside of that. And so I didn't find that to be an acceptable thing for me. I'm a little stubborn. And because of that, I went about developing a version of it that looked enough like a sweetgrass

9:13basket in clay that I could recall a history that felt like it always belonged to me and should have never been taken. Well, Ashton, you really touched on where we're going to drive this conversation to the why, and you really explained it. So David and Lydia, I would like to know, why is it important for us as black diasporans to even connect to our heritage? And could you share some of the parts of our heritage that are really dear to you and that

9:45you connect to most within your creative practice? I went through undergraduate school during the 60s, during the upheaval of the civil rights movement, and my work at that time reflected the frustration and the angst and the frustration

10:15of being a part of this country that espoused its democracy, its democratic ideals, but how they only applied to a certain class of people. And so my work at that time was very angry. I would deliberately look for things to be angry about, and that would generate some ideas. And so all through my undergraduate experience at Hampton, and all through my graduate experience

10:54at the University of Michigan, and when I was first hired at Syracuse University, my work was, I guess at that time they would call it political or social commentary or whatever. But one of the things that I discovered, probably after being at Syracuse for a couple of years, I was at an opening reception of an exhibition, a one-man exhibition that I had at a local art

11:27center in Syracuse. And I remember at the reception, there were a lot of people that were, you know, admiring my work and complimenting me. And I, and, but I, I noticed that out of my peripheral vision, I noticed that there was this little white elderly woman that seemed to want to approach me, but then I'd get involved in a conversation with someone else. Well, as the reception wound down and people started leaving, I guess she saw an opportunity

12:04to approach me and, and comment to me. And she started her comments with the usual, your work is very strong, very well made, and, and, and all those kinds of conversations. And I was just soaking it up, like most artists do at receptions. Uh, but then she said, uh, do you, do you mind if I ask you one question? And she, and I said, of course, and I thought it was the question, who do I make the checkout

12:39to? But, uh, the question was, um, your work is very powerful, but is there anything positive about being black in America or is it just one frustration after another? And, uh, I don't recall my response to that question. It's probably something flippant because it was a question that I had never, uh, thought about myself.

13:09And what happened was months after that opening reception, I started thinking about my work and about, uh, my work was about being a victim. My work was about anger, justifiably so, but still it was about anger. And I started thinking, well, is there anything positive? And then I remembered conversations that I had with my graduate professor at the University

13:42of Michigan, Robert Stull. And the thing was that, um, he emphasized the idea that, that African Americans were the, were the heirs to, uh, a civilization, a culture that existed thousands of years while Europeans were still living in caves, uh, various cultures in Africa had universities and libraries.

14:13And so I started thinking, well, maybe that should be the source of my work, that my work should be about, uh, about, uh, my African heritage. And that's when I started looking at African art and trying to read about African culture. Now, some people would say, well, well, you were African American. You mean you didn't know anything about Africa? Well, you know, I grew up in a situation where the image of Africans was these people running

14:47around in grass skirts that Tarzan would kick their ass from time to time, you know? And so I had to learn a lot about African culture. And, and I did that by consuming every book I could possibly find about African culture. And as a result of that, my work changed. Instead of being, uh, a chronicle of, of my anger and my frustration, it became a chronicle of my, uh, celebration of my African heritage.

15:23And, and so why do I think it's important that African Americans, uh, attach themselves or make an effort to understand where they come from? Um, partly because this culture has done a really good job. I, I mean, I must admire the, the people of this culture. They did a very good job of making African Americans, uh, seem less than human, less than worthy

15:56of, of respect. Uh, and so some of our younger people grow up and, and, and, and, and many times that programming is, it's very, very subtle. Uh, and a lot of times our young people grow up with this notion of them being less than, uh, than what they actually are. And I think it's important, not only the fact that white people should know a little bit

16:29more, I mean, black people know everything about white culture, you know, but I think, I think it's also important that, that African Americans, you know, uh, understand the rich heritage from which we come, we came. Um, and I mean, if you look at, even at contemporary culture, how many things do, um, are a major part of our, of, of contemporary culture that actually started in the black, uh, ghettos or

17:01neighborhoods or, or social circles, you know? And so we are, we're not better than anyone else, but we are most certainly as good as anybody else. Well, David, I can relate to the anger because I, I think as a black person born here and raised in the U.S., because our culture, just like we're anywhere in the diaspora, is intentionally it's been cut off from us, right? So we're all on this, uh, cultural journey of, of self-discovery. And I remember for me, it was after reading the autobiography of Malcolm X, that's what fueled

17:36me to really reevaluate what I was doing as a maker, as an artist. And this is in high school and, you know, understanding that all my classes had nothing to do with my community, but I use the art as a tool for storytelling, like we all do. And, um, you know, Lydia, I want to hear from you. I don't know if you, you had also, you know, what we call as the anger is also our awakening, right? We, we go through this awakening of period, period and awareness.

18:07And now as makers and artists, creatives, we get to use that to tell our experiences. So Lydia, what was it for you? And why do you feel it's important for us to connect? I just going back in time, thinking about my life, I never thought I was anything other than a hundred percent, the same as anybody else. I grew up in a very strong family of makers. My, uh, my grandparents were makers. My grandmother was a quilt maker. My grandfather worked with wood.

18:39My grandmother had a garden. My mother taught me everything I wanted to know if I saw her crocheting or knitting, which I see someone in the audience is doing. Thank you very much. You just keep those hands moving. Um, so I think what it is, is my, my family, they were always very generous with their time. They weren't just off doing their own thing. If any of us were interested in participating in what they were doing, then we participated. Um, I think I didn't realize how others felt that I was less than until I went to, um, Ohio

19:15State University. And I'm just sharing this with you. It's, it's my history. Uh, we had to do a report on ceramics, a culture, and I just naturally gravitated towards, uh, Nigeria. I wanted to do a report on the knock culture. And, uh, I just couldn't even believe, uh, what they said. I, I should have reported the faculty, but we didn't do those things back in them days. So, uh, you know, the faculty said to me, oh, Lydia, stop being so black.

19:47So I was thinking, okay, so what, how is it that a white student or, or that we have a lot of white scholars who are going to Africa during research, but yet, and still I want to do a report on something that is just a culture. It's, it's just like if it were from Peru or any other place. So already you're identifying me with being political or militant when I'm not. I'm just wanting to do a report on a culture that probably other people have done reports

20:20and research on. So I, I think I became more determined at that time to really identify more so with my African, African-American heritage and, and not so much that it was speaking about social justice or any of those things. We weren't even using that terminology back then. I just think that, um, uh, the forms and the images that are, I was looking at were just enormously beautiful. And when you think of these cultures, these ancient cultures who were making these really

20:53incredible forms and pieces out of clay, I think what happens is when you do, you know, art through the ages and you have a, you know, a lot of the architecture, all this stuff, and then you get this, and then they just run out of time to talk about these other non-Western cultures. I'm sure it's changed a lot. I went to school back in the early, late, well, 70s, somewhere around in there. Um, but I think what also helped me too, is that I had two African-American faculty whose

21:25work was really about the African diaspora, um, Fioris West and Carlisle Johnson. And I too had Bob Stahl. Oh, you did? I didn't know that. Okay. He was awesome. So I had those as role models. And so that to me just kind of gave me permission. If I wanted to make something very colorful or if I wanted to make something very, you know, kind of muted, if I wanted to do African figurines or anything like that, I felt very confident

21:59that I would get the support, and I did. So I think that helped, propelled me to really find my voice. And, you know, it's interesting. So, like, once we've gone through the awakening, we have some mentors in our life and we find our voice. So then the importance of storytelling comes into play, right? You know, we're all here looking at various aspects of Western, uh, West African art. Um, I like to also call the creative expression from the continent, whether it's textiles,

22:29architecture, pottery, um, you know, all forms are important for our sources of inspiration. So thinking about that and the symbolism behind, you know, all of these works and creative expression, how are you incorporating that into your ceramics? And, you know, what parts of, and, you know, how do you incorporate into your ceramics? And then what stories are you really trying to tell? Ashlyn, you're shaking your head. So you're like, yeah. Yeah. Um, so the way that I use or incorporate some of these ideas into my works, um, is in various

23:08ways. I'm someone who's a student of art history as well. I've always loved art history, but the thing about art history is like when you're taught it, we're taught, um, European, right? Um, we're taught something centralized in a world that's not of my people, right? Um, but I was still always inspired by it. Um, and it was more an inspiration from the fact that I wasn't represented, right? And less of like, I'm seeing myself reflected.

23:40And so, um, because of art history, what I did find really intriguing is this love, this idea of duality, right? Things can have multiple meanings. And so symbolism became a massive thing for me. Um, and every aspect of art that I've ever done, um, whether I was drawing and painting, because I was a drawing and painting major first, um, as many people have switched, right? We change a lot sometimes in college. Um, but I always knew that, um, being able to symbolize something could potentially, one,

24:16make my work stronger, but it made people dig, right? When you, when you allow someone to dig, the work becomes more important to you. And so that is how I began utilizing this idea or symbolism in my own work. And so, um, for example, um, my pieces, they, my clay body is brown. It is supposed to be the color of chocolate, right? It is formulated specifically to read and feel like black bodies.

24:47Um, and so the surface itself is a representation of black skin, right? Um, that's one way I use some symbolism. I also use it in the way that I handle my surface decoration as well. And so, um, right now I scribble multiple things across my surfaces, um, whether it's the cotton. Um, so sometimes I'll do that in Scriffito, um, digging into the surface, removing, um, in order to highlight the idea of having to dig for self.

25:21Um, I also, uh, slip trail where it is raised. And when I do that, I'm thinking about the way that black bodies have experienced trauma and beauty. And so in Africa, if you have, you, if scarification has become a thing, right? We've got tribes or people who still cut their skin in order to beautify themselves based on their ancestral, um, cultures, right? Um, so when I'm thinking about drawing across the surface as a slip trail and having these

25:57raised marks on the surface, I'm thinking about, um, the beautification of a body, right? But then at the same time, I think about my African-American lineage because although I am coming from an African group, I don't know who they are. What I do know is I'm American. And when I'm looking at America's history, I then can't disregard the fact that scarification exists something different here. It is not beautiful here.

26:27I look at the whipped backs of slaves. And so that raised surface becomes something different. And whether you choose to dig when you're looking at my work is up to you. I let you see the beautiful scribbles of a flowering plant. I let you see this cotton, but you have to sit with it to understand that it's cotton. It's not just a flower, right? And so it lets you spend time digging to understand that these things are all present.

26:58They exist all at the same time. One, it doesn't exist without the other. The beauty doesn't exist without the pain. And so I have moments in my work where that has become very important when illustrating as well. I also do that when I'm thinking about tattooing, right? And so if I'm thinking about tattoos, I'll just use underglaze to paint on my surface. So it's not raised. You can't feel it, but you can see it, right?

27:29You can witness it. And so my pieces kind of change in and out of that experience, whether I'm tattooing, air quotes, everyone, whether I'm tattooing on them gold, like crowns, right? Because you can't tell me that I'm not potentially royal, right? We don't know my lineage. You don't know my lineage. I don't know it. I could be, right? So why can't I embrace that? Why can't I take that as an understanding of potentially who I am as a person?

28:00I can. And so I let this kind of be moments that you can see it play out across my surfaces, especially if you spend enough time with it. They will become very present. Well, you touched on a really important point when we talk about, you know, black cultural design. The process is just as important as the outcome. Absolutely. Right? And so there's no hierarchy between the two. And, you know, David, your work incorporates a lot of these processes where you've developed

28:30tools to create the patterns that you are known for, your signature work. And I'd love for you to share more about why it was important for you to create the tools that you needed in order to express what it is that you wanted connecting to West African symbolism as well as the different pattern making that you've just, you've, you've connected to in, um, well, first of all, I'd, I'd like to, uh, make clear that, you know, I'm, I'm,

29:01I throw on the potter's wheel, which is not a traditionally African, uh, method of making things. Uh, but it allows me to get the shapes that I, I, I want to make as quickly as possible because I think like my, my undergraduate professor, Mr. Gilead, who used to do lots of glaze testing, he, he, he would say that the only reason why, uh, he made pots was so that he had something to test his glazes on, you know?

29:34And, and, and I think a lot of times the only reason I make pots is so, so that I have a surface that I can decorate. And one of the things that, that really blew my mind in terms of when I first started looking at African culture is the way they decorate everything. I mean, um, the textiles, the jewelry, the body decoration in East Africa, the architectural decoration, uh, murals in, uh, South Africa, all of these, uh, ways of imbuing, uh, a mundane

30:16object with a kind of spiritualism and a kind of extra added value, you know, is one of the things that really excited me about African culture and African art. And so I bring that to the work that I make, uh, and the interesting thing is that the techniques that I use to decorate my work are the same techniques that I taught for some 30 odd years

30:47to my introductory wheel throwing class. I mean, there's nothing really, uh, highly technical about it. As a matter of fact, uh, I kind of like the fact that it's kind of low tech and I'm not relying upon fancy tools or anything like that. But during the early part of my, uh, exploration and trying to, uh, transpose my discoveries in

31:18terms of my research in African culture into my own work, I ran across a photograph in a, uh, catalog from, uh, uh, a show that probably was somewheres around the 1940s, uh, all black and white images. Um, and, and, and the exhibition was curated by William Fagg and some of you who have studied

31:49African art are probably familiar. He, he wrote many, many books on African culture, but this book was a catalog from a, a show of Nigerian pottery and it showed, uh, uh, examples of, uh, uh, Nigerian, uh, pottery from the three basic ethnic groups in, uh, Nigeria. And, but there was this one vessel that, uh, had this kind of linear, uh, pattern on its surface that I just

32:27thought was so elegant and I was trying to figure out a way of, uh, of creating that kind of surface to, to create some of the patterns I was working with. And it just so happened that I had made a tool from, uh, uh, a piece of wooden rib. I had made a tool that I used to create a transition between the cup and the stem when I was working on a bunch of goblets and Robert Stull happened to be visiting me during, uh, one of the, uh, uh, uh,

33:07one of the Christmas breaks, he was on his way to Boston to see his sister. And he saw me working with that tool and he said, you know, that tool could be used to carve patterns into the surface of your pots. And, you know, many of us who work, you know, uh, and, and, and people will comment, you know, uh, and have this brilliant idea that, oh, you know, you should really do this, you know, and you say to yourself, well, if this is such a great idea, why aren't you doing it?

33:39But at any rate, uh, he said, you know, you should use that tool. And so, uh, oddly enough, I eventually started doing that. The tool had gone through, um, a number of variations, uh, and, and improvements, I hope, uh, over the years, but I've been using that tool since 1979. And, uh, when I do workshops, I give the tool away. You know, uh, some people say, why don't you sell it?

34:09And the problem with that is that if you sell it, then you put value on it. And then you're always afraid someone's going to steal it and make it, and make money from it. So I just give them away. But at any rate, I, uh, had been using this tool for a number of years. And one of my friends, Winnie Owens-Hard, who taught at Howard University, had just gotten back from Africa on, on a fellowship. And she said, David, I want to show you your tool and that this, this African woman Potter

34:49was using. Of course, it wasn't my tool. It was a tool that was part of her tradition. And so that made me realize, and, and, and this might be kind of la-di-da, but, you know, it made me realize that, that there is a thread, a thread that, uh, we carry within us. Uh, and sometimes it will manifest itself in very unusual ways. But to get back to the point, I think the singular aspect of my work, although the forms are very

35:26important, and I do try to be conscious of the forms I'm throwing, but what I'm most concerned with is how surface decoration changes the perception of the form. Um, and in past years, the sources of different kinds of, of, I, decorative ideas have come from African culture. Uh, uh, textile designs, um, from the, uh, a dinkra, um, a tradition and, and, um, body decoration

36:05or body scarification from, uh, from, uh, East Africa, um, architectural decoration, which oddly enough, I, I, I did a series of plates, uh, that were called the African mural series. And initially, they were inspired by the Indebelli women of South Africa and the architectural murals they do. But I started investigating other cultures that use architectural murals.

36:37And one of the things I discovered that that is primarily, in many cultures, a woman's art because it was considered part of the domestic chore in terms of maintaining a household. And so I use that as a source of ideas as well. And what has happened in my work is that so much of this investigation and research has been internalized that now I'm not actually looking at African art for inspiration.

37:20It's all inside of me already and it's being altered somewhat, but I believe you can still see the seed from which it came. Yes, because I feel like as black diasporans, we're constantly tapping into cultural memory. It's already in us. We may not always be able to make that connection. But as you said, David, it's such a beautiful thing when you're actually able to see it, the connection visibly.

37:53So Lydia, I want to talk about color, right? And the hand-building processes that you use in your work and the shapes. Like how does that play into the design and how do you connect that to our culture? I think what happened is when I was in graduate school and I was really thinking about the interior spaces of African-American homes. That's where I was. And even in my thesis exhibition, I was using furniture instead of pedestals for my work.

38:28And that was back in 1985. I just felt like the pedestals didn't really say what I needed them to say about what this work was about. But all the while I was in graduate school, I felt I needed to go on a journey. And the journey was I needed to see what life was like at the beginning. And the beginning for me was somewhere in Africa, particularly, probably West Africa.

39:04Just, I mean, back then they weren't doing the ancestral.com and all. They didn't have any of that. You're just kind of guessing. I probably came from there somewhere around there. And it didn't matter if I didn't have it nailed down. Because I've been thinking subconsciously about trying to get to West Africa to see something, to fill the earth, to be close to the equator. And I think for me, it wasn't so much the pottery that I was interested in researching. It was the adobe structures. I just fell in love with the architecture, that here this ground was actually used to form these homes and structures, these abodes.

39:47And that everything was taken in consideration in the traditional communities is what I'm saying. Because I think it's just like living in the United States. When you're traveling through the country, if I think about where my mother and grandparents were from in Cairo, Georgia, I actually, when I talk about my work sometimes, I see the architecture of maybe some images that I took when I was in West Africa or in Nigeria.

40:18And when I was in Cairo, Georgia, and I put those two houses together, they're almost the same. And what I found interesting is how even architecture ages. It ages the same pretty much no matter where you are, especially in the South. But the color for me, I just, at first I wasn't using a lot of color. And then when I started doing the more figurative work, I was really influenced by the heddle pulley, just that shape.

40:49Because that shape was used, it's attached to a weaving apparatus. And really, it's oral, telling these oral stories. So I kind of fell in love with that form, just what it was about. Because the only way you could get your history is through this oral interaction. Nothing was really written down or anything. And so I was using a lot of color because I wanted to really express what I was thinking and feeling and the joy and the excitement.

41:21And that this was live. So I think that's where I really kind of pushed that color. And then as I started moving forward and developing new bodies of work, I kind of pulled away from that and just are dealing with maybe one color and different shades of one color. So really dealing with that a little bit more. But I think what happened is sometimes you have to really stretch yourself. And maybe what you're looking for is in your backyard. I wrote an article about that in Studio Potter.

41:51But I think what happened is I had to go way out on a limb to kind of look behind me and say, okay, what I need is right behind me. And it's kind of like when you were talking about going back home. It's there. You just aren't looking at it, you know. I think it's the same thing. What happens is when you decide to go to college or graduate school and, you know, you're thinking, I don't want to stay home. Because your lens, you have blinders on. You don't want to see anything around you. You think you know everything about home.

42:24But you don't. But I think what happened is going to grad school and going to Nigeria and traveling when I came back to the United States, traveling around. And I realized, boy, I have this really rich history right here. So I think that's where I am now in terms of the work and the forms and the shape and the ideas of what I'm working on now. Can I read this? I'm just going to read something, and I'll just say this. What's great about working at a university sometimes is that you have access to all of these speakers from the different departments.

43:04And I'm in a college that consists of art and architecture. We have the performing arts as well. And I really relate to just architectural design and research and everything. And so we brought in a speaker, Walter Hood, and he wrote this book, Kim, and Grace Mitchell Tata, titled Black Landscapes Matter. And I just want to read something to you because I think it really touches on what we've done since the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd.

43:37It really is talking about kind of our environment. So I'll just begin with this. One, it says, black landscapes matter because they can be born again. They exist all around us and are continuously resuscitated. Doing so requires care in how we exhume and resuscitate these landscapes to ensure that the resonance and power are not lost. And I think, you know, we use gentrification. I mean, that's what we say. These neighborhoods have been gentrified and all that.

44:09And I'm just walking around Richmond, and I lived here for close to 20 years. And I can see that even though there's been some change down Broad Street, there's still things are being lost and found again. And so I think things are changing all the time. And as artists, you know, we may not be directly speaking about the culture in the way people are used to us speaking about our culture. I think everything is our culture. The built environment is our culture.

44:40Chairs and furniture are our culture. So when we say black art, people ask me, well, is your art, is it black art? I say, well, it's art, and it's made by a black artist. So is it black art? I mean, what difference does it make? The difference, there's nothing. I mean, we make chairs, we make everything. So I don't even know what that term means anymore as far as my work goes. I do understand what it means. I don't mean it in that way.

45:11It's just that I might not have kente cloth in my work, but I might have kente cloth patterns. If you see my piece at the Black History Museum and you see the way those strips are, it just, and it was subconscious. I mean, I didn't deliberately design it that way. I think when you start getting in your zone, like you said, that DNA, it just comes out in the work. And I think the beauty of it is that there's just so many ways to express black cultural design.

45:41It's not limited to pattern. It's not limited to architecture. It's not limited even to material. And I think based upon all our ways of approaching the ideas and the concept around what it could be, I hope that it inspires everyone. I just have one more question before we go into questions, and I'm going to ask Ashlyn. I was thinking about the future. You know, there are a lot of people who are like struggling to connect to their heritage, and specifically African Americans or people of the Black diaspora. That could be in the Caribbean. It could be Central, South America.

46:12They could be in Europe because the diaspora is everywhere. What advice or one book you would give, you would say, go read this or go to this place, just one thing that they could do that they could start that journey? So my answer is probably a little strange. My answer would be to go somewhere, and the answer would be to go to the water. It's not a place necessarily in particular, but to a body of water.

46:46So especially if you are African American, your people were bought over on boats, right? So many people were lost from those boats, and it is the thing that connects us back to Africa, right, is this body of water. It is a cleansing tool, and if you need to begin to find yourself, go sit in the peace and quiet at that beach or a body of water. It is where I go. I go, when I'm having the hardest times for myself, I go and sit on the beach as the sun rises, and I listen to the silence and the waves crashing.

47:26There's something very powerful about letting water cleanse you, and it is a tradition coming from Africa where you pour libations in order to cleanse, in order to heal. You set fire in order to burn away what is not necessary, all of the evil that exists around us, right? So it's not a place in particular. It is a resource that I will send you to in particular. Thank you for that.

47:57So now I'm going to open it up for questions. Okay, go ahead now. Ooh, I love it. A reaction to that. I've often been approached by people, especially African Americans, and they say, they ask me, you know, you navigated this academic world for over 30 years, proved to be fairly successful at it, and what's your secret?

48:30Can you give me some hints? And my response, not only to them, but to anyone who asked me, is that you do the damn work. As an African American, we were always taught that we had to do more than just enough. We had to be better than good. I remember a quote from an interview with Wynton Marcellus, and he said he went to his father, who was an exceptional jazz pianist, and said, Dad, what do I have to do to be the best?

49:08And his father's response was very simple. You have to be willing to do what no one else is willing to do. When all your friends are out playing baseball and hanging out on the block, you're working your craft. You're doing what's necessary to continue to improve. And that, I think, more than recommending a book, which is important. I have this disease.

49:38Whenever I go to a town, the first place I go is to a Barnes & Nobles or something, and I buy a book and add it to the thousands of books that I'll never read. But I think the important thing, I mean, Duke Ellington was asked about music, and he said there's only two kinds of music. There's good music and there's bad music. You know, and so I think for those of you who are emerging artists and aspiring to reach some level of recognition, which you hope will translate into some economic security, you know, it starts and it ends in the studio.

50:31You do the work, but you do the work, not because you want to make money, you do the work because you can't think of anything else that's more important than that. You have the passion, you have the disease, you're infected, right? Thank you for that, David. That's important, too. But I will say that we all need to make people realize our value.

51:01So when you go to, say, the dollar store and you want to buy a cup for a dollar versus buying a cup for $150, people love beautiful things. They just don't understand the value of them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What's the definition of a cynic? It knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Right. So I want to open it up. Questions. Anyone have questions? We have a microphone. Hello, thank you.

51:32I am a post-bac student at the University of Wyoming, and in February, we were fortunate enough to welcome Eko Namako as a visiting artist. If you're not familiar with him, he's a Ghanaian-Canadian artist, a sculptor who works in Lego. And he has coined this term speculative reclamation. And the way he described it was the idea of imagining that cultural touchstones, cultural icons that we understand to come from European traditions actually were appropriated by European traditions from African traditions.

52:11And the example he gave was Robin Hood, actually being an Arabian-African huntress, like warrior queen. And so he talks about this idea of speculative reclamation, and Ashlyn, you talking about feeling that learning to braid sweetgrass was stolen from you instantly made me wonder, and this is a question for all of you, where do you find in your work that you are trying to imagine an alternative history and then add that to the narrative of your work?

52:49I can kind of answer that, because I actually just stepped into that in my studio. It's kind of funny. So currently I'm working on a series that I'm calling Portraits of a Queen, and it is me repurposing images of Queen Marie Antoinette. In particular, the reason why I selected Marie Antoinette, one, because she's a fashion icon, and I mean hello, right?

53:19Also because I'm obsessed with fashion, I'm obsessed with textiles, but also because Marie Antoinette, if you didn't know this history, almost single-handedly kept the slave trade running. And so, and it's in particular because of one portrait. There's a portrait painted of her by Viggy LeBrun, where she's wearing a cotton chemise dress. It is when she's kind of sitting at her cottage, and she just happened to get this portrait painted.

53:51She didn't think she was doing anything. She was just getting a portrait painted, right? Well, when it premiered at the academy in a salon hanging, it became controversial immediately, because it's what people wore as undergarments, not what you wore as the dress, right? But it became extremely popular. And because of the demand of all these elites, all these people who want to look like Miss Antoinette, right,

54:23you end up in a space where the cotton trade now is tenfold immediately. And more slaves were transported to the Americas. Sea Island cotton was being now collected at unbelievable rates. And it almost all sparked from one portrait. And so this is now me reclaiming that history, right? Instead of it being Marie in her place, it is now a black woman who is beautiful and standing with her Africanisms in front of her.

55:00Wow. That's incredible. I'm sorry? A name. A name? Oh, of the portrait? I'm not basing it off of anyone in particular. She is all of us, right? Because we don't have images of a queen who looks like Marie and could be a fashion icon like Marie. Instead, I am making her every one of us. She is just a beautiful black woman.

55:30Thank you. I think what I've done is, as I'm, and I just think it's incredible what's happening now. It's just been a surge of African-American literature and writers. And I really locked into Octavia Butler just for now. Now, part of me is a little afraid to read her books. I mean, well, it's like looking at a scary movie for the most part, especially because, you know, we're visual people.

56:00And so I'm imagining what the streets look like, you know, she's taken these characters from Africa, parts of Africa, and then moving them to the United States and moving them across the different time zones. And so historical time zones. And so some of that work, some of those images get into my head and they come out in the work. They manifest itself in these kind of architectural Adobe soft forms that I'm doing.

56:31And I'm taking the work is taken off into a direction that the landscape is starting to reconstitute itself to create these images in these places for humans to live. So we're no longer in charge of building our own environment that the landscape is saying, since you're being irresponsible about what you're, what you're pulling out of the landscape, we will construct these forms and these, these houses and homes for you.

57:01So that's kind of where I'm going. I'm allowing myself to stretch a little bit that, you know, things can be kind of that in-between stage. I don't consider myself science fiction. I don't consider myself Afro-futurism. I consider telling just a different story and a narrative.

57:20Hello. Thank you so much for speaking with us. My name is Sasa. I am a senior ceramics major at Howard University.

57:28Yeah. And so I, I, my professor was a student of Winnie Owens Heart. And so I just, it's really cool to hear you speak as people who are contemporaries with some of my influences and elders. And so, okay, my question. Um, I think everyone on this panel has mentioned ways that, um, I think like the thread of our, um, ancestral knowledge has like shown up in, in their work. Um, and so I'm wondering as people who are immensely educated on, um, African cultures, um, across the diaspora and across the continent, how are some ways that your ancestral kind of like intuition and your knowledge show up in your work that are maybe disconnected or, um, existed before you knew any factual knowledge about, um, the places that you draw some of your inspiration from?

58:18Um, if that makes any sense at all.

58:22Well, I, I, I could, uh, I could actually, um, tap and answer this because I, I look back at my work from high school, um, and early, my early days of college. Uh, and even actually, uh, and even actually I could go back to like elementary school because I started painting when I was eight years old and color was always a thing for me. Um, my mother's from St. Vincent in the Caribbean and growing up with her, I was surrounded by, um, pattern and, and, and the colorful spaces.

58:53She would always re-decorate and change. And, you know, thinking about that idea where she would change by season, going back to the women of Casana or, you know, who were, who were the, who were the, the decorators of the mud architectural homes. There was a connection there that I would never think about. And they would only, the thing is they were painting those homes knowing that it wasn't permanent. So they had to come back and, and make a change. And so I could connect that to growing up and being in a space where, yes, we didn't have to change, but it was just part of what, what my mother did.

59:30And what I've also adapted that way of living in my own space. Right. And then also thinking about, you know, I think as black people, we are nomadic people, you know, we're, we, since we were forced to move into different spaces and constantly being challenged to quote unquote fit into different spaces, this idea of, of being mobile is also a part of, you know, how it could show up in our work. And it, not consciously, but it does, right.

1:00:00Cause I think it's not always a visual aesthetic that that's in the work, but I think we also have to look at our lives as part of the work too. You know, the making is one part, but then it's how we're living as well. And I could talk about aesthetically my work, you know, it was always very bold in pattern. It was always very graphic. You know, I had strong color palettes. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't, but why was I always drawn to these, these ways, these shapes, these, but then I, when I did start doing the research, I said, oh, wow, that kind of looks like what I made.

1:00:33Right. Now me not knowing anything about say the Katsana or the Bhamana people in Mali or any of the groups. Right. Then I was instantly saw this connection because it was not such a surprise because we're the same people. We're just, it's just a different time and it's such a different landscape that we're in. We're the same people. I told you, I started off, I spent 10 months in Jamaica. My father's Jamaican, but I never spent that much time there. It was always, you know, holidays, you know, you go to the beach, that kind of thing.

1:01:06But I went to different parts of Jamaica. I went to rural Jamaica. I was in the city. But I tell you, there were times when I was in Jamaica and I thought I was in Ghana. And I remember my first trip to Ghana in 1995, when I stepped down on the land, I thought I was in Jamaica. And so I went to, I spent more time in Ghana before I spent more time in Jamaica. And I looked at my diary, my travel diary, you know, recently, and I talked about that, you know, not knowing eventually I'll spend some time in Jamaica. But I'll tell you, these are all ways that we start to see the connections without even knowing.

1:01:43But once you do start to see, you can't ignore it. And I think that's the key on how we bring out these stories. It's not ignoring it. It's to embrace it and share it. I do think that we are also just storytellers. And that is a huge tradition as well. And I think that is at least my first encounter to not a non-visual, but an experience as well.

1:02:14I was just listening to everyone about how pattern, design, dress, anything gets to you visually. And I just think about that. Like, there wasn't the internet. You didn't have children or families coming from different parts of Africa, immigrating, that were going, I mean, I'm just speaking in general terms. They actually would migrate or immigrate to the larger cities.

1:02:45And so, you know, I can remember being in school where there weren't any other students outside of black students and white students. There might be one Vietnamese student and that was it. That was kind of what that was the definition of multiculturalism back then. So, I think just over time with immigration, migration, people moving, education, I think we're more in flux and we're more apt to pull some of that images and inspiration into our work before you had to really go and dig for it.

1:03:25And I can even remember, you know, you always, when you would see an African-American wearing African garments, you would think, immediately think they were militant. And so, you know, you're always very conscientious about how you wore your hair. That's where the Crown Act came from. So, I think all those things, they kind of have turned and turned and turned. And we're seeing that even in NSEKA. We're seeing more African-American, black and brown ceramic artists coming here because they feel liberated that I can do this.

1:04:03Like, I don't care if I'm dirty. I can remember leaving the studio being dirty and dusty. You know, it was cool back then, right, to wear all your dust on your clothes, you know, very bad health-wise. But, you know, you thought, you know, I'm cool, I'm cool. But that was very unhealthy. But, you know, you could be seen by other black students and they think, what are you doing? You look disgusting, you know. And I think that has changed. I think things have really changed. We wear it as a badge of honor. We're proud of being ceramicists, even though we are working with earth.

1:04:38And I'm just saying that's how I make those connections, too, because I remember that I'd be the only black student in ceramic class. And they say, and I could remember even a student putting newspaper down on the chair so they wouldn't get dirty. I was like, you just can't be in here if you're concerned about getting dirty. You just can't. But, I mean, I think that has changed. I think we're seeing ceramics as a higher art, too. And that's through by NSEKA. That's by people like David McDonald and Ashley and everybody.

1:05:09So, I appreciate that contribution. Thank you. So, that's how I think it's, you're seeing it more. I don't think it was in my work immediately. I had to find it and bring it into my work. There's time for one more question. There's three. So, can we kind of, like, combine them?

1:05:33Hi. Very appreciative of all your wisdom that you have shared with us today. And I just wanted to know how you go about archiving your work. How we go about archiving my work? I'm terrible at that. I let my daughter have to run of the studio.

1:05:55And she keeps all the good stuff.

1:06:01Photographs. You have to photograph everything. If you don't photograph it, did it exist? Right? Because sometimes it goes to a show, it sells, you never see it again, right? So, if you don't have a record of it, it's gone, right? And so, I think you've got to do that. I think one of the instances in my development as an artist,

1:06:31I had this part-time job in undergraduate school where I worked at one of those slipcasting establishments where you would slipcast frog casseroles and stuff like that, Christmas trees. And the gentleman that owned the facility was a retired lieutenant colonel from the Air Force Base near Hampton, Langley Air Force Base.

1:07:02And we were talking about art and such, as we often did, because he considered himself to be a very cultured person. And somehow, how our conversation came around to some of the political civil rights stuff. You know, and he was saying, you know, that he could not,

1:07:33he could not, being an educated person, he could not point to any meaningful contribution that Negroes, at the time they were being called that, Negroes made to Western art, you know. And I couldn't refute him, because one of the, unfortunately, the person that taught art history at Hampton

1:08:04was a white nun who was in love with Renaissance art, you know. But at any rate, so one of the missions of my life has been I photograph everything I make so that there's a record of it. I was at a workshop once demonstrating how to make large plates, and I flipped the plate over and I signed it with a big bowl, a signature,

1:08:36and one of the people in the workshop said, why do you sign your name so big, you know. And my response is that I want everybody to know I made it. And that there's a record of the fact that this was made by an African-American person. And so archiving, as she indicated, is important, you know. And once you sell a piece, you know, you lose control of it.

1:09:09And it can wind up in a basement in a museum and never be seen again, you know. And so as long as you have a record that it existed and that you made it, it's very important. And I'll just add, photographing the finished work is important and also photographing the process to make it. So any sketches, any writings, you want to document everything because one day you're going to get the call

1:09:39or you may not be here. Somebody will get the call and they want to do a retrospective. You want to have all the information around the piece. And I document everything that way. In addition, I use artworkarchive.com, which is a digital archive because it also tracks where the work is, whether it's in storage, whether it's damaged, who bought it, how much is sold for. Because I also think that's very important too because you want to keep track of all your work. Again, treat it like, it's like you always want to be prepared

1:10:10for the court case, have all your documents ready. But it's thinking about, again, because thinking about the work you're building, you're building an archive and one day someone's going to want to show it and you want to know which collectors you need to call to borrow. Because if you go to any museum and if you read, they'll say, courtesy of so-and-so family, that's because that person has kept track of their archive. I need to do better.

1:10:42So one more question. I know there was one person. Oh, we got it. Okay. If we could get the last two, that would be great. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Um, I personally just went through a similar experience that multiple of you have talked about already of being told there is no Black history in art or in design. Um, and Leah, I know you talked about going to OSU. I experienced this at the University of Cincinnati. Um, so I don't know what's going on in Ohio. But nevertheless, um, I was just curious, um,

1:11:15and wanted to ask you all, are there any action steps that you all feel is necessary to take to better the education system, especially in higher education, for African and African-American students? So this is something that I have worked on for years. And it's very hard for universities, predominantly white institutions to pivot. And that is to hire African-American faculty in tenure-track positions. Um, I think the universities have done better.

1:11:49I don't have any real statistics about that. I just know that when I served in leadership roles, it was always difficult to, um, hire, to make that final hire for African-American, um, faculty. So there's a lot of things playing against it. One is African-American artists, sometimes they won't apply for jobs because they've heard how difficult that institution is in the climate. So they may not even apply for the positions.

1:12:20Uh, especially if, and Bell Hooks talks about this when she was in Kentucky. Um, you know, you, there's microaggression that happens. Um, it's, and it's all about the writing. It's about trying to tell someone if their research is legitimate. So it's a constant battle and fighting. I think institutions do a great job in their visiting artist programs, bringing them in and, you know, saying this is wonderful and, but they're not staying.

1:12:50So those individuals are not developing a writing curriculum. And so, you know, the curriculum is really, that is what the faculty do. They write curriculum. So if they're not writing about black and brown people in the curriculum, uh, you don't have black and brown people teaching at these, these institutions where our students are in constant contact with the individuals. The Monday, Wednesday, if you're in a studio class, you're with, you're spending two and a half, three hours

1:13:22with the faculty, right? And so you're going to be inspired, impacted by that person, right? Um, and so that's how you start to build the diversity. That's how you talk about inclusion. When I do, when I give assignments, I include all types of inspirations. I'm not just have, you know, Peter Volkis, all, I have everybody in there. And so, but what, what has happened is it's systemic. If you don't make that change, then it's all, it's nothing's ever going to change.

1:13:53And I just really want to see more African-American faculty in these institutions, black and brown. I mean, look at the classrooms, look at who's coming to college now. You have to include them, Latinx students. You have to include them in the curriculum, but also on the faculty. So I just keep pushing. I just keep pushing. I used to go to CAA and, you know, I see what, what, what, you know, it's kind of like that. I'm hustling a little bit, you know, um, but I want to make sure

1:14:24if I bring somebody to my university that they're going to be respected and they're going to be able to do their work. Oftentimes their evaluations are lower than some of the white, white faculty. They can do the same exact thing, but their evaluation, same thing with women. And so after a while, you kind of get tired of that, you know, and you say, well, I'm just going to try to do my own thing. And, and what that does is it interferes with your 401k? I don't care what anybody says.

1:14:55Your retirement, your, you thinking that you would like to start a family, you would want to buy property. So that's, to me, that's where I see the deficit is. And I'll just add, like, as a student, while they are working on the structure, which we know will take a while, I think you have also have power. You have power in taking that time to dive into your own history and heritage and making every project about that. I did that when I was in college

1:15:26at Fashion Institute of Technology. I was the only black student in my class. It was half Asian, half white. But I made sure I took every project to focus on my culture. So if I had a floral design, I said, oh, go into the continent. Let's see what florals, flowers are indigenous. How to do something around clothing. I said, oh, let's see what. So it was always focused. So if a professor came to me and said, oh, well, you can't do that. I said, I knew I stood by my work. And so I think also as an individual,

1:15:57you have power. And then, of course, while you're in school is to connect with like-minded people to support those ideas. Because again, one thing is that we can't rely on an institution, any institution, to provide everything for us. But while, again, you could also put the pressure, but while the change is happening, make sure your work is centered on what you need to heal. Because all this work, I don't know, I'm going to speak for myself, but I think I can speak for everyone in the panel.

1:16:27This process is a healing process that we are all dealing with because there's been a lot of traumas that we don't talk about, but our art is healing all that trauma. I think students don't realize the amount of power they have. A prime example is my life.

1:16:48A couple of years before I was hired at Syracuse, the students at SU went on strike and occupied buildings. But what really made the difference was that certain members of the football team threatened to boycott the season