DA
Before we get too far into this. There was something that I discovered that I just had to shout out, and that was finding out that you were a part, or one of the folks involved with, the God City Arts Collective. And like seeing that, man, seeing that took me back, because I was like, “oh my goodness, I remember God City,” One, cause the name is just crazy, but like the stuff y’all were doing was really wild. I was driving back and forth to Charlotte to be a part of the poetry scene there.
AW
Concrete Generation?
DA
[Disbelief] Yeah, yes, yes! I was part of the first slam team down there when they were at the cultural center and then moved over to Blumenthal. So seeing God City I was like, “my goodness.” It’s one of those things where you had to have been in the periphery at some point in time, and it’s just wild to think about it.
AW
Yo! Okay, so first off, yeah, God City, that’s going back. Shout out to Marcus Kiser, Wolly Vinyl, and John Hairston Jr.—all four of us started at God City. Ah, yeah, Concrete Generation. It was so cool at that time, because you had all of these Black and brown artists in Charlotte, sort of like what I think Durham is. You had the visual artists, the graffiti artists, you had the poets, you had dancers. And it was this really cool cultural moment. And Concrete Generation, we looked at them like you all were just the poet versions of us, and it was such a beautiful moment, man.
You know where the name comes from? It’s just—like it’s not crazy deep—but it’s just the area code of Charlotte is 704 and G is the seventh letter then O and then D is the fourth letter and so I was like, God City.
DA
You know what? I would have never put that together man. But yeah, so I saw that and I was like “wow, that’s an amazing thing.” There’s so many things like that in the south. We hear so many stories about these movements and things in other major cities, but like, that was a major moment for God City and Concrete and there are these things that are happening across the state. There’s the same thing happening in Greensboro; there’s things that happen in Winston, in Fayetteville. And I just think somehow the story needs to be known. Like that same kind of feeling of artists finding each other and inspiring each other and building community happen here, man. I mean, I wonder if you, through all your travels and everything, that you’ve seen. Do you get a sense that, somehow, it’s not really believed that those kinds of things are happening here?
AW
Those moments happened all the time when we were in God City. I realized that you look at Tennessee or Mississippi and there were similar groups, right? They were out there doing stuff. Like South Carolina, there were some dudes in South Carolina who were doing very similar things that we were doing in Charlotte. And so you have all of these groups in these movements and these really beautiful cultural moments that take place I think everywhere, but specifically we’re talking the South. So for us, one, it was pre-social media in the way social media is today—that’s a thing, right? I think it’d be interesting if God City and Concrete Generation was “today,” the way we would use social media. But you have this broad narrative, if I’m talking primarily visual arts, where it’s New York, Chicago, LA, and that’s where the important stuff happens and then everywhere else we have to sort of got there to be a part of the important conversations and what happens is that, unfortunately, you can get absorbed into that, what’s happening there, rather than things being more unique and you have these small areas where people have their particular culture, ways of interacting with each other, that all affect the artistic movement. And I’ve seen it happen so many times and I feel that we just have to start telling our own story.
And I think during the time of God City, it was just like, “Yo, we want to do an art show. Yeah, bet, let’s do an art show.” And that was it; not realizing how you had this whole city…so you got the Mint, you got the McCall, you got all these big institutions. But underneath all of that, there was just this huge cultural movement that those places didn’t know about. And I feel like it’s on us, rather than always maybe leaning on bigger institutions, to tell our stories. I feel we should start doing that. But also, it’s important for those movements to sort of flourish and they die out and they flourish again. It happens all the time and it’s happening now, like you know you and I are probably older heads now, but there are some 23 year olds running around doing some amazing stuff that we don’t, that we’ll hear about in maybe five or six years. And I feel like now people have a better, because of social media, people are mo re savvy at sort of narrating, telling their story, which is actually great.
DA
You’re teaching at Guilford College? How do you handle both the good and the bad of your personal artistic experience and what does that mean for when you have these young budding students in front of you in the classroom and the kind of things that you want to teach them but also help them understand?
AW
I bring my practice into the classroom; the formal elements of art are very important to me and so when I interact with students, when I first meet them, we talk a lot about the formal elements of art. They understand color and all of that and then as they matriculate through a curriculum, content is extremely important to me and what’s going on in the world, and so I start to engage them in that way too, right? It’s like, okay, you learn color, so how does color relate to climate change or voter suppression? And then, as they get to the end of it, then I start to really talk about the realities of being an artist in the real world, right? I don’t try to shield them from it, I hate when academia or people just romanticize being an artist.
A lot of artists, honestly, are working class people. Because you get the few who are at the top, but the vast majority of artists are just kind of even small business owners the way they have to sell work and all. I’m really honest if I’m working with Black and brown artists, if I’m working with students or female students—I’m like “look, these are the realities”—or ones who are from working class backgrounds or working poor. But I’m like, these are the realities when you get out there, right? A lot of unpaid internships, a lot of things that don’t pay, or you’ll get exploited for your labor and I’m really upfront about, “Hey, you’re gonna go make some amazing stuff, but these are the realities of the art world and here’s some game from me and folks that I know of how you can navigate that.” So that you don’t make the mistakes that you make. How do you write a proposal? How do you write a budget? How do you deal with trying to make art and you and your partner are having an argument, or you can’t pay you know the light bills?
All those things are real, that’s the reality of being an artist. Or just getting rejection letters constantly and what that does to your mental health. I don’t shield any of that from my students. I think there’s certain times they need to know it. If I’m trying to teach them how to hold a pencil and draw, I don’t think we need to be talking about budgets for an exhibition. But depending on where they are, I bring it in, because I just feel like it’s really important. Because for most folks, academia is only four years, six if you go to a graduate program. You’re gonna be an artist hopefully for the next forty, fifty years, so I’m preparing you for that.
DA
Yeah that’s really, really important and it was kind of astonishing to me in some ways to find that that wasn’t common. But also, one of the things I came to understand about the academy is that a comfortable cadence to it, and you can kind of be removed, you can get removed from some of that tension that happens out there And so yeah, I just kind of feel a little extra kind of nudge to being able to say, as we’re gonna go through this process, like let’s talk about what this is gonna look like after this. Like you say, you’re gonna be an artist from the next forty, fifty years hopefully, so.
AW
Fred Moten was saying that your relationship with the academy should be a criminal one. I look at it like the academy has particular resources and how do we utilize those resources to benefit students and benefit people who don’t have access to the academy? Granted, I’m a professor, tenured professor, so I am of that world—but I always try to think of myself as one step removed, so that I don’t try to think that this is the way the world is, I understand that. As a professor who’s an artist, granted there’s drawbacks in terms of time, but most artists don’t have a steady paycheck with benefits, right? Most artists don’t have people who, if I say something out of pocket, will sort of come to my defense. I understand the position I hold, and I don’t try to take it for granted, and so I don’t ever want to be that professor that is completely out of touch with things outside of the academy. Because then I feel like, well, what’s my point? I mean, you can go online and learn how to draw and learn color theory. I mean if we’re being honest, it’s on you. All that stuff’s on Youtube. And so if I’m completely detached from what’s happening in the real world, all I’m doing is just collecting a paycheck. Like what’s my point, you know? So I think of it like that.
DA
You’re part of an exhibit at the Nasher, Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now. And so there’s a couple of things that I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. You are multidisciplinary and the works that are there are collage pieces, right? And the methodology behind approaching a blank canvas and building a collage, I’m just curious about because I’m always curious about process.
Two quick things I want to ask. What led you to that particular series and the concept behind it? But also, what’s the thought process behind looking at the canvas and starting to work your way through the collage?
AW
I’ll start with the second question first. So in terms of, if we’re talking specifically collage, right, because it depends on what type of work I’m making, but even for that I would say I’m interested in, like you, I’m interested in process. I think that’s what gets me up in the mornings: the process of making something, not the finished thing as much, but in regards to that particular type of piece that’s in the show, I love the fact that I don’t know what it’s going to look like in the beginning? And if you take it back to the teaching I teach that you don’t have to always know the answer once you start. I think a lot of students get caught up on that, or in life, I think a lot of people get caught up on “if I don’t know the answer, why start?” I don’t know where the endpoint’s gonna be. I actually think that that’s the fun part.
I have an ideal of what I would want, right? So if you’re just thinking formally, I’m like, well, maybe I want something that’s pink or bluish or I want to play with these colors. There’s certain Imagery I would like to play with, I would like to utilize, but I have a lot of material around me and then I’ll make a decision. So I’ll paint something a particular color and then put some shapes down and then take a step back and respond and sort of let the piece tell me where it’s going. So for instance, when I do these wheat paste installations and I do have to do these drawings for them, those drawings have to be pretty precise because I need it to fit a particular dimension. And so I know exactly what the drawing is going to end with the collages it’s “Oh, okay, I want this piece to be in the left corner. But it’s not working. Maybe I should put it up to the right .” And so it’s just an intuitive process where I’m just responding to the piece and sometimes I’ll finish out. I’ll get to a point to where I don’t really know, I don’t really have any things to add, and I’ll have to sit on that piece for a few days or even—depending on—sometimes like a few weeks or months and then the pieces will tell me whether or not it’s complete. Other times, I’ll make something and I’m like, that’s not right. I can’t tell you why, but it’s just not. And I have to just deal with that. I actually love that—where you hit this wall in the process to where nothing’s working.
Years ago, I would get frustrated, but now, I know that that’s just a part of the process. And so it’s just, you do something, you sit back, take a look at it, and then you react to it. And I’ve done it enough to where it’s pretty quick, how I’m doing it. I’ll put something down “no,” put something else down, move something he re, put that to the side, start on another one. And so that’s sort of the process with those collages. You can get into a zone just doing that.
With this particular series I’ve been doing those for a few years, and there is sort of, the title of the series is “There Would Be No Miracles Here.” This is the third iteration of these, so they’re all these small collages about 9 by 12. I started it when I read this book by the same name by this guy named Casey Gerald. And his books are sort of a coming of age story. He’s from a small town in Texas, he leaves a small rural town in Texas very much like where I’m from in Red Springs, leaves, he goes to I think either Harvard or Princeton, I can’t remember, he goes to an Ivy League school and then he goes to Wall Street and he’s considered—and you know, given your career I’m pretty sure you may have had similar or are aware of this—you’re that one from the community that makes it out and it’s like, oh wow, you’re gonna do big things, right? And so that was him, and then at one point, he took pride in that. Like, oh wow, I’m making out and I’m gonna bring things back and do all this great stuff. And then at some point he realized that like, wait, this is a part of the hustle. Those folks back in Texas are never meant to make it out. They’re never meant to do anything. I’m the one they let out, so as proof that the system works and that in and of itself is a problem. And so that is so much of my experience. You know, being from this rural working class predominantly Black town and I’m oftentimes that one. And it’s like, no, the problem is there is only one, it should be a very common thing.
Thinking about that in terms of these larger systems that are at play and individuals who are caught within that system. And so the first and second iteration was about that, essentially. I used imagery from family photo albums. Family, people that I knew, but within these larger socioeconomic systems, right? So this particular one, I’m still thinking about that: Black folks in these larger systems. But with this iteration, coming out of 2020, I’m thinking about COVID, I’m thinking about the uprisings in 2020. And so I was looking at imagery from the early to mid-twentieth century of Black folks—it’s rural working class Black folks—who are farmers or migrants, and them dealing with the issues that were taking place at that time. And so then relating that to Black folks in 2020, who were disproportionately essential workers who were put at risk and it’s like that same story—it’s a person waking up going to work, they’re living their lives but there’s this larger structure—anti-racism, capitalism—all at play that people day-to-day have to contend with. And so it’s not about the one, it’s about the masses of folks. Especially Black folks that live their daily lives, who deal, who have to survive in the system that we never hear of, that we never talk about, right? They’re not the Obamas, they’re not the Jay-Z’s, they don’t have those stories, they’re just they live their lives and they have to contend with this system.
DA
Oh man I love it, I love it. And it’s really great to hear, and that’s why I get so geeked out about process, because what’s interesting is, as a writer, the way that you talk about the collage is I write. And it’s because of that, I have a lot of things that are unfinished. Because there’s so many writers who have a certain rigor. So many, especially so many of the older writers, are like, “I write a certain amount of time every day.” But my process is very much the same as you talk about the collage. The piece guides me and so I have a lot of started things so that I’m continually progressing, but it’s done when it says it’s done. And then the artist in me then edits and massages and makes the decisions and adjustments. That’s sometimes kind of surprises folks for me to explain that ‘m not regularly cranking things out daily. But it’s the same kind of way, but also kind of leads me to have different genres of things going so that I feel that I can pivot. When I hit a particular point and I’m like, “I don’t know what else to do. I need some more pieces to come…I need more at my disposal to finish the piece.” And I just love, I think the more we engage with each other our toolboxes increase. As we just kind of can talk with each other about process. The concept around the piece—it’s one thing to read it, to read the description, it’s another to hear you talk about it. And I’ve been having a conversation lately, because I feel like we as artists on our way, no matter how established we’ve been in our career, there seems to be this period where we don’t get a chance to talk enough, either to each other or to the community about the process, the approach, the way concepts come and our experiences.
We do get to talk about the art and then, if we have the opportunity, to also be involved in education. We get to talk to students about their art. But to just in general have these moments, they just don’t happen. And too often I find that it ends up not always being about career but age, in terms of when we get to have the insight, our time passage, when we get to have these moments of insight and folks are interested in creating these moments, but I feel that we are missing so much possible information by not creating space for more of these conversations along the way, along the journey. So I just wanted to know how you felt about that, because that’s been heavy on my mind lately.
AW
Yeah, I think those are spaces we just gotta make ourselves. It sort of gives us autonomy to do that. There’s so many stories about poets getting drunk in bars and having these debates and stuff. And yeah, artists in the same way, right? You would hear about, in New York where de Kooning and all these folks, or Afro-Cobra and West Coast Black Art Movement. It’s just people coming together and having those conversations. I think they do happen a lot. I feel that in terms of visual arts, there is this tendency, because you’re working by yourself oftentimes, so you’re in your studio and you’re working and you have to make an effort to build that community. And depending on where you are in your career or just even geographically, it can be harder to reach out to folks. Or if you’re in a particular area and you don’t know who those artists are, so it takes a while to find your community. I think for some folks, I think social media helps now. It’s easy, a lot easier, that you can go online and find artists you really connect with.
There’s an artist I’m doing a show with, and we met online. I just saw his work and I’m like, “yo, this is nice,” and reached out. And we’ve never been in the same room, but we’ve done so much stuff together and we can have these conversations about art. So I feel like technology helps with that. We’ve all gotten our PhDs in Zoom in 2020. So you talked about god city earlier—I mean that’s what we did. When I graduated from undergrad at UNC Charlotte, I didn’t want to lose hanging out with folks I was cool. Me and John Hairston would just meet up and look at Blaxploitation films, and that led into something else. And so I tell younger artists and students: build a community, folks who can support you, because art—and I’m pretty sure poetry—it’s a hard world to live. A lot of rejection. And you need to know what other people are going through and having those conversations. And so I think that’s vital. And just sitting and maybe talking about process, talking about “yeah, this one line isn’t working” or “what’s the best brand of Ultramarine blue to use? You need those every so often. I think we do, because there’s a certain brain chemistry you have to have to do what we do because there’s so much rejection, but we constantly come back. Everything sort of shouts, “don’t do this” for your own sanity, but then we constantly come back and we do it. I think community is vitally important.
DA
You talked about being an artist, as you know, a sort of working class existence. In this particular series, the subjects and the intentionality around the subjects in these collages and that throughline to what we have seen with essential workers in the midst of this pandemic. And I thought that was really fascinating as well. And I wonder, as you were doing that—and being from Red Springs—how much of your life did you see in this process of doing these particular collages, this particular iteration of collages with these particular subjects?
AW
All of the folks in every one of those collages I look at and I’m like, “oh yeah, that’s my cousin, that’s my uncle,” right? I’m from a very rural working class and I’m from one of those places where people aren’t expected to make it out and I never lose sight of that. And they’re not expected to make it out not because they’re not intelligent or they don’t have what it takes. It’s because they live within a structure that’s not meant for them to make it out. I’m very aware of that. Me sitting here talking to you for what is probably one of the premier art institutions in the Southeast…that is always surreal to me. I understand that all it could have taken was the wrong cop to turn the corner. So many things had to go right for me to sit here. It’s not “oh you’re more hardworking” or “you’re more intelligent.” It’s like, nah, a lot had to go right. I had to have a lot of support. That for me is an issue, right? And so I’m always thinking about that, right? I’m thinking about the overall structure. I had drug dealer cousins that were way smarter than me. You know, I couldn’t be a drug dealer, I’m horrible at math. [LAUGHS] So I had brilliant people who, like you know, they sort of get lost to the system. And it’s just not unique to Black folks. Just socioeconomically and in terms of gender, so many people get lost to that. And so that is something that I’m constantly aware of.
In a series like this and I’m trying to highlight, right? And I feel like on one end it’s easy to get lost in the numbers, right? To say that Black people only make up this percentage or I think it’s if the average Black family were to catch up with the average white family in terms of finance, it would take 200 years. It’s very stark, but it’s easy to get lost in those numbers and then it’s also easy to single out an individual and I’m trying to always pair the two of “hey this is a person that’s living their life, but they’re within this larger construct that day to day you don’t really see.” I don’t know. I just feel like I’m something either really wrong or really right as to why I’m here. I associate much less with this “art world/academic” thing. And I associate much less with this art world academic thing. I always feel like a visitor within those spaces. Those people in that series and they’re people I’m very familiar with.
There’s a writer, Sadia Hartman, and she did this book “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval” where she’s talking about black women in early to mid-twentieth century New York and what they were going through. They just dealt with all this racism and stuff, but they just get overlooked by history and overlooked by so many folks. And that’s the stuff that I’m interested in. It’s not the Black folks that have “made it,” so to speak, it’s “what about all of us who get forgotten?” and that’s a recurring theme in what I do.
DA
I felt this way looking at the series. I had a chance to—I think it was 2018—there was a report that the national domestic workers alliance. In the midst of the report they did a photo shoot and it covered three cities and Durham happened to be one of the cities that they were focusing on. This did this beautiful photo shoot and then a road show and an exhibition of the photos and I happened to participate in and sort of a reception and they had art and in that moment just sitting with both being very familiar with the stories of the workers but also being captivated by the photos and I felt the same way looking at the collages, because I’m like, just like you say, “how many folks are creative?” Because I find that just even in my family, on my journey to find out how many folks at one point in time picked up a pen and wrote something, were painters that got set aside. Things didn’t go right for that. And so here I am as I’m going down this journey in finding out about all of the other artists that could have been, all of the other creatives, all of this other energy. And I felt that that night a room full of brilliant, resilient people. But also, I’m looking into the eyes of these portraits and I’m like how much else just wasn’t given room? And so you’re right, I feel like a lot of things have gone right at home for me to be able to have room for these other kinds of talents because I know, for me, what I’m doing now was never anything my family imagined being a thing to do. I don’t have a roadmap of my family. There’s not another—the only other lifelong artist is a painter, Michael Massenberg, out on the west coast—and so I never got a chance to grow up around that. And so there’s this thing of representation, I feel a responsibility; that and being Southern. There’s Southerness, there’s Blackness, and then there is coming from that working class upbringing that I feel is important to not lose, in not only the way that I create but also the way that I maneuver. And I’d love to know about your experiences as you’ve navigated the awards and residencies, these spaces that we’re supposed to maneuver through in our careers, and what that means, because you can get lost in it all, just like the academy, you can get lost in these things, it has to be an anchor. At least I felt like that. In any of the spaces that I’ve been able to be invited, or any of the opportunities that I’ve been awarded, I feel like I have to be anchored as I move into them, because you can really get lost in it all and it can really feel like you’re being pulled away from your roots. And I wonder your thoughts about how it’s been to navigate these kinds of these kinds of opportunities.
AW
I just think with anything in life, not even just art, you just have to know who you are and know what’s important to you. I think that’s the thing: “what are the things that are important to me?” And so when you do get something that you’ve been wanting, it helps you engage that space. And it’s a balance, right? I feel that I’m always open for growth and when I enter these new spaces, it’s like, ok, what am I learning? What’s the amazing thing about this? It’s amazing I can do a residency where I just get time and money to think about a work—that’s a great thing to do. But then also understanding access to that space doesn’t completely define who I am as a person, and then understanding realities of even getting access to that space. I don’t try to eschew all of that, but also it’s important—as you engage those spaces—what are the conversations you’re having once you’re there? And so all of that’s important. So I think it’s understanding who you are as a person and then as you maneuver through these things. So yeah, personally I love residencies (well I don’t want to say that I “love them”)…they’ve been very beneficial to my artistic career, right? In terms of me getting time and space to work. This series that’s in the exhibition, I was at a residency where I was able to just have a few weeks after the pandemic, well pandemics still happening, but after the quarantine to just focus on work and I’m really appreciative of that. But it doesn’t then mean I wholeheartedly don’t critique anything in the art world, right? I feel like that’s the thing.
So you mentioned anchor, I think the anchor is just having your core ideals, right? What’s important to you. And for me, family is important to me, but in terms of art, I want to make art that is culturally relevant, I want to make art that speaks to our realities, but also allows us to “freedom dream” and imagine. And so those are the things I want to do and then there are also spaces that I want to work with that I think do interesting things. And I want to have work that speaks to this particular moment. And I think about equity too. So those are the core things I think about when I enter these spaces. Am I able to do these things or are they leading me to a space where I’m able to do those things? That is part of the decision making as I apply to stuff, as I accept things. How does it allow me to do these things because at the end of the day? I want to make the weird stuff that I make because that’s who I am. I’m an artist at the end of the day, and that’s what I want to do. But I feel that I understand the realities of me being in a particular space, and so I don’t ever try to lose sight of that.
AW
Can I ask you a question? You do two different things, you write and you perform, right? You’ll write a poem and then you’ll perform it. I’ve done performance pieces before but primarily I make something static or I’ll make an object and it goes and lives somewhere for a few months and then I’m chilling, right? But when you’re writing, are you thinking of the performance or is it like you write something and then you think, ok, how do I perform this? Or is it all integrated and in with the process, or is it just, I’ll write something and maybe I perform it or not?
DA
That’s a very good question. I see spoken word as an intersection of two crafts, which is literary and performance. So for me, it’s what piece do I have and what can I do with it on stage? So it’s the finished piece that I consider when I think about what the performance of it is. That’s not a driving force for me for writing the piece. It’s more so of leaning into who can I look to and what can I put in my bag performance-wise that gives me room to be able to make any of these pieces possibly work. And then also in what rooms because different pieces work in different spaces, I’ve learned. Which takes you back to the lab—what don’t I have in my bag? I don’t want to compromise who I am for a room, but it not I gotta write more stuff. But another interesting thing is that my frame of reference is this idea of talking to be heard. And so growing up around that, what I also find that I end up doing is, as I’m writing a piece, I don’t think about performance, but I don’t just think about how it appears on the page, I think about how it sounds, which is how my works ends up having a lot of rhythm and pacing to it. Because I think about it in terms of conversation and what it means if someone’s reading it. I want them to not just be reading it, but I want them to feel like they’re entering a conversation. So that actually makes it easier when it’s done for me to think about performance, because there is a rhythm to it that I can use at my disposal that maybe not everyone has. And so when I work with poets, some of them have harder decisions to make about the pieces they perform because they don’t have as much part of the writing process to help them when that’s done. But for me, That’s a part of how I write.
AW
That makes me think about two things. Your audience, because there’s the immediate response from the audience or non-response whereas, for me, I couldn’t imagine making a work and an audience is there judging it. I was a part of this one residency and they had these big windows where people can come and watch you work. I hated that so much. And so when my piece is done, it’s up and I’m gone and so people have whatever interaction they will with it. But with you, you get an immediate response. And then also, dude, you’re a big dude. 6’7. Even that, right? The physicality of you saying something on a stage that’s already elevated, all of that is depth and texture. And so when you deliver a line, you’re getting that immediate response. But if somebody else who’s 5’2, 140 gives that same line, they might have to do something differently, right?
DA
You’re exactly right. And those were things I had to learn, which is why I always explain it as the intersection, because I had to turn to performers to get a sense of that. Chuck Davis was someone that I was glad I met, because Baba Chuck was a large dancer and there’s a difference in how his presence feels and the way he says things. It just feels different. It’s very real, shorter folks feel like they have to do more, or there are some who just really go the opposite and go inward and it works. But anything in between sometimes doesn’t work. There’s things I can get away with that they can’t and it’s a thing you got to work. Each moment in each room gives you a little bit more to work with until you get to the place where the piece is where it’s at performance-wise, so it becomes a part of the process. So there’s two processes—I have to go through a process to write it, but I have to go through a process to get it to where I feel it needs to be performance-wise.
AW
Yeah so that’s the thing right? Because you’re also performing it in front of non-poets. You’re out there working something out with an audience and you’re getting that immediate feedback and it’s not done. That would be the equivalent of me showing work, like going to the Nasher, hanging on the wall, and everyone being like nope. I’m like, alright, let me take it back. I couldn’t imagine myself doing that, right? It’s just a response to everyday folks, whereas I think for me oftentimes in the process I’m only listening to people I have trust in. I’ll ask a fellow artist, what do you think about it? I’ll ask people who don’t know, but it’s a difference.I Just think it’s something interesting where you’re working stuff out in public and that takes a lot of courage and resilience to do that, I feel, because it seems really tough to do that.
DA
It is, and we kind of lean into it even more because poetry slam is like you take the same folks who may and may not have ever read a poem or written one and then you give him a score card. Not only do you respond but at the end, tell them numerically how much you like it. And that drives some people absolutely crazy and they may do it once and they’re like I can’t do this. Some folks are just so opposed to the idea of it. And then there are those of us who are like, we’re totally okay with it because of what it gives us. Each time I do this, I am learning something about my folks out here and what my capacity is for reaching them. And I have the opportunity to come back with new pieces every time I do it. I can come back with pieces I know work. But if there’s money on the line to give me a couple dollars, I can come and I can bring whatever I want in here and I’ll know whether it works or not. And these folks are helping me shape and craft this work.
The process of it is a thing to get used to but it is a wild thing to think about. I enjoy it, that process. The idea of hanging and leaving also feels for me, the stakes are higher because there is no adjustment. The exhibit works or it doesn’t. And it’s up for a week or however long. So for me, that’s a different thing, because I would be the person who would be anxious after day one in the opening reception to be like “ah damn” and want to pull everything down but like, “I’ll bring all this back tomorrow.”
AW
So now that you say that it makes sense. I always ask myself this question with work. It’s not that it’s done. I could continue working on something, but I have to ask myself: is there anything I can add to this piece that’s going to help it? And if not, then I was like, alright I guess you can’t do anything to it right now. And so I look at it as those pieces that are in the show are pieces I made last year and that’s just where I was at that time. That is it. And if I took them all home, I could probably do different stuff to them, but I have to accept the fact that in the summer of 2020 or 2021 when I made them, that’s where I was. That’s what I could do at that time and so if I make a piece today, it’s sort of a timestamp of where I was. That’s why I’m okay with it being up. Hey, this is the art folks, that’s what it is. So in terms of you doing a piece and working it out, it’s, oh that’s where I was with this piece at the time and so that makes a little more sense to me that case.
DA
Yeah, Antoine. It’s been great talking to you brother. It’s been great for us to have this opportunity, so thank you very much.
AW
Yeah, I appreciate it. It’s been an honor to sit and talk with you, talk with someone who’s working in a different medium, just to chop it up about art. So that’s a good day for me. So thank you, thank you, appreciate it.
