I’ve recently finished writing, drafting and compiling an essay collection. At this particular moment, I love the way the collection—of ideas, experience and emotions, of creative work, struggles and ongoing inspiration—has come together. I’ll see if it finds a publisher, an audience, and when I revisit my pages I will surely revise, reconsider, keep working. But for now, I’ve put it aside and called it something like complete.
Then we took a drive north, to Seattle and across the border into Vancouver, Canada, stopping in Bellingham, Washington, along the way.
When I walk a new city, I pause for every piece of resonant art on the street, to take in the ongoing cultural conversation of place.
Public art is such a gift.
In Seattle, we passed this beautiful painting. It’s a large-scale beauty with a radical title on the highly visible image of a book, and an incredible range of emotion and presence conveyed on the subject’s face, that perfect expression of interest and perhaps reserve.
I Googled the artist, Barry Johnson.
He is, it turns out, a major visual voice of the Black Lives Matter movement in Seattle. Perhaps you’ve seen his contributions, paintings and projects? I am so glad to have had a chance to pause on a sidewalk in the urban gallery of a city and get to know the artist’s work.
As the artist introduces himself in one article:
I’m barry johnson. I’m a self-taught interdisciplinary artist, author, and TEDx speaker based out of Seattle and from Topeka, Kansas. Being an interdisciplinary creative gives me the freedom and challenge to constantly find new ways to create visual narratives. I’m always in search of ways to take on new mediums to reach different audiences. My work is centered on the Black experience and the effect it had on the past and present. Working within this frame, it’s important for me to ensure the intent of my messages aren’t just defined to one medium. Understanding a painting might be difficult for some viewers, so I try to create in other formats reach them.
He states:
The idea of “real artists” is funny to me. If you’re creating, putting thought into your work and pushing out product regularly, you’re an artist. In a public forum, we’ve created a negative idea around an artist on their pursuit and we also pick-up and simultaneously put down, a working artist. People say things like, “Oh, you’re an artist, oh that must be really hard… You know you’ll be dead long before people respect your work… Oh, so you’re not living off your art, so it’s more like a passion…” I don’t like any of that shit. I’ve been creating non-stop for 4-years and have always treated it like it’s a real job and everything that I want to do because that’s exactly what it is. There’s nothing wrong with having a couple streams of income to provide yourself with the means to live so that you can continue to create. Creating from a place of stress and hurt can turn out some great work, it can also keep you not making anything because you’re in a constant state of depression. Do what you need to do to keep feeding your creative output and be cautious about taking comments from people. Many times someone can give you bad advice that they gave no thought to. Trust the vision.
Gah! So great! I’m here for it.
Please, stay safe in this heat, keep working, keep writing, drawing, painting, making art, speaking back to authority, building a better world, fueling the conversation, the humanity.
xo
Oh and i look forward to reading your collection…
I love your art posts! It's so integral to being a writer, and you took us to Seattle to see some. Thank you!