TM
It should be some of your art.
CH
Yeah, when they told me that, I said “there’s no way I’m doing this.” So I actually ended up being a truck driver for like 10 years and then I got tired of that, so I moved into the management side, logistical side of truck driving. I did that for two-and-a-half years and it drove me crazy. Part of that reason is I moved to Clayton–I used to live in Durham–I moved to Clayton. Long ride, lot of car time to myself, and I thought, “I can’t do this the rest of my life.” Actually it was my wife who motivated me and pushed me into being an artist. So we went to high school together, School of the Arts in New York, and so she knew, you know, I had talent and over the years I did things here and there and she said, “Man, you can’t continue to go on like this. You need to be an artist.” And I don’t know where that was coming from because, you know, we never talked about me being an artist. But we had the conversation and she said, “okay, I’ll give you a year to get yourself together. And then, you’re gonna be an artist.” So for some reason I took it seriously. So over that year, I would stay up at night, painting and drawing and just going to talk to other artists. I went to a bunch of workshops, I was just doing everything I thought I would need to be an artist. So a year to that day, I don’t know if she set it on her calendar or what, she said, she was like.
TM
You know that she did.
CH
“It’s been a year.” You know. “What are you doing?” And I was just like, “Well, you know, we talked about it, but I didn’t really say, I’m not prepared for this.” And when she handed me my resignation letter, I’ll never forget it, I was just like, “Okay, she’s serious.” So I went to work.
TM
Wait, she drafted your resignation letter?
CH
She wrote it up for me. I didn’t even know she was doing it. When I was like, you know, trying to back out of it, she was like, “Here you go.” So funny enough, we had a manager’s meeting at work that same day and I was super stressed out and, you know, how you want to tell your boss something but you can’t. But I had the letter in my pocket. So you know, after a while, I stopped the meeting in front of everybody. It was super dramatic. If I ever get famous, they’re gonna make a movie about it, because it was super dramatic. I stopped and I said, “Hey guys, you know what, stop the meeting, stop the meeting. I can’t take this anymore.” And everybody was looking at me like I was crazy. And I pulled out the letter and I felt so relieved because, you know, I’m like, “I don’t have to take this, here you go.” And you know it was a shock and everything. But when I got to the car, I cried. You know how they say he’s gonna cry in the car? I cried in the car ’cause I had no idea what I was doing.
TM
It’s that adrenaline and then the crash after.
CH
Yeah, like oh my god, what did I just do? You know, like how am I gonna pay my bills? But I mean, that’s how it started. So you know, after I left my job, luckily I had a lot of vacation time saved up, because I was the employee who never took off, so I had a little bit of a cushion. But after that, man, I just started applying to shows everywhere. Anybody who would pay my work any attention, I would just get it in front of them. And that was about four years ago and I’m here now.
TM
Wow. I have two follow-up questions. So one is would you ever consider going back into teaching or trying to teach again? The salaries look a little bit better. Not much better, but a little bit better.
CH
No, actually, I think being an artist, it probably solidified the fact that I’ll never teach. One, I make more now than I did when I was working. And two, I get to go into places now and do workshops and things like that and I like that a lot better. I don’t have to plan out a year or activities. I can go in and say, “Hey, this is what I do and we can figure out something around what I do.” And, you know, I feel like I get a little more respect than the actual teacher because I’m the guest. So, you know, they’re always happy to see me. My wife’s a teacher, so I know how it goes. You know, when it’s the same teacher everyday, it’s like, “Oh you again. But when I come in, it’s special. So I’m like, “I’m here!”
TM
Yeah, I’m gonna have to use you strategically and have you come in and do a guest lecture in my classes. We just got a plan for it, so we can conjure up that respect. But yeah, absolutely. I think my second follow-up question, because you’ve spoken so much about your wife and her inspiration, and we talked a little bit about your piece in Reckoning and Resilience, the Liberty Enlightening the World piece. And so maybe if I could hear a little bit more about the inspiration behind that piece and especially as it relates to that story of your wife motivating you to do the big gesture of quitting your job, at a meeting no less, which is fantastic.
CH
Yeah, well I didn’t plan the meeting part, but it makes it better. So that’s actually a portrait of my wife, as far as Liberty Enlightening the World. I guess now that I think about it, it’s like more of a tribute, right? Because the Statue of Liberty is a beacon of hope and, you know, you look at it like that. So she’s kind of like my beacon of hope. I made that work for an exhibition I had, called the Descendants of Sire, where I was exploring what it means for me to be African-American and I was searching for my roots and trying to find a connection between Africa and America. So by doing that, when I was doing that, the Statue of Liberty kept coming up, because, you know, the immigrants coming into the city and all that stuff. So I was like, I just decided to reimagine the Statue of Liberty with my beacon of hope, which is my wife, and that’s kind of how I came up with that painting.
TM
What about the other piece that is in the exhibit, the PTSD piece. How is that similar or different from the tribute to your wife?
CH
Oh, well PTSD is more of a self-reflection kind of piece. So I made that piece right after seeing the George Floyd situation, and I started to imagine myself and what America means to me and my upbringing and how I was raised. And I kept going back to elementary school, when we had to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance every day. And I started examining it as an adult and I realized that Pledge doesn’t really apply to me and I was kind of indoctrinated to say it when I was younger. And it’s like riding a bike at this point, you’ll never forget it. But you never were taught to question why we were reading it or what it means to you. So as an adult, while I was revisiting all these ideas, it just didn’t sit right with me anymore. And it was just like, “Well, what can I say about it?” And as an artist, that’s kind of what I do, right? If I have a problem or I’m trying to figure things out, I make work about it. And I came up with that composition.
TM
One thing I’ve been thinking about, really throughout my teaching generally, is how we as Black people and myself especially as a Black educator, what’s the way to represent history that accounts for these absences, right? So the Pledge of Allegiance, but I’m not in it. The American flag, but I’m not in it. And I’m curious if you can say a little bit more about how these pieces or how your work in general tells a version of American history.
CH
I’ll say the work that I make today will be American history in the future. So I’m basically documenting, I’m pretty much documenting my experience as, you know, as an American now. So the stories are current and present, but in 20, 30 years, you know, my children will be able to go to the museum and they’ll remember these times, but my grandkids, who haven’t experienced this, these are all lessons to them, right? So they don’t have to look in the history books per se, but they can go to the museum and hopefully my paintings tell the stories that will be in the books by the time my grandkids are, you know, able to study.
TM
What are some lessons that you would want to impart to your children, but especially to grandchildren and thinking of future generations? Like if you were to put language to your artwork, what’s the lesson that you would like them to take away from them?
CH
That’s a good question. A couple things. I would tell them before anything, I want them to know anything is possible, right? Because to be honest, I don’t know how I got here. But I’m here. But then I would want them to know that they belong exactly where they are, right? So I had this thing of imposter syndrome as far as when my artwork started taking off. And I was like, “Man, how am I here? Why am I here?” But I think the fact of the matter is I’m here because I’m supposed to be here, right? My story connects with people in a way that has gotten me to where I am. And I want them to understand that. Just tell your truth, tell your story. And if you really want to do it, just do it. And you will end up exactly where you’re supposed to be.
TM
I feel like another lesson is to quit your job. I wish someone had told me that—at least once, like not all the time, right, don’t make a habit of it. But I do think there is something to be said about what you learned from quitting a job that’s not serving you.
CH
Well I teach my children—well, it’s gonna sound horrible—but I teach them that a job is not necessary, right? They are the job. So whatever you want to do. So like my oldest, she likes to cook, so she says she wants to be a chef. But then sometimes she wants to be a dancer. So I’m like well what would that look like? How would you make money? Like I’m not saying go get a job as a dancer, I’m saying if you want to dance, how could you use dance to live the life you want to live? So it’s not even about money right? It’s about being able to live the life you want to live. So I would paint if I didn’t make any money, right? As long as I could support my family in the way I need to. If I had to stand out on a corner and make and sell my paintings, that would be, you know, just as good as what I’m doing now as long as I get to support my family.
TM
I’m really excited to hear that those are some of the lessons that you’re thinking about for future generations. I think that’s so important. I’m thinking about my students, listening to you talk and the things I want them to know about the world as they sort of enter into it, especially, you know, after George Floyd, in the midst of a pandemic, and a lot of what I’ve turned to in my teaching has been visual art and—we mentioned this when we walked around the exhibit—that I’m always really fascinated about my students kind of looking at art pieces and coming away with completely different interpretations than I might have or that, you know, anyone listening to this might have. And I’m curious, you know, speaking to you as an artist and, you know, as someone who is bringing so much passion to your work that you would do it even if you weren’t paid for it, right? Which is what you just said. How do you feel about those different interpretations that circulate around your work? And maybe even going further, how does that relate to Blackness and how we perceive Blackness and Black artists.
CH
I feel so many ways about that, because sometimes people’s opinions can pigeonhole you too, right? Like sometimes I’m simply painting something because it’s a story. It might not have anything to do with it being political or trying to make a statement. It could be, you know? Okay, today my daughters made me pancakes for breakfast, right? I might make a painting about how that made me feel or the fact that they made me pancakes for breakfast, right? In my opinion, there’s nothing political about that. But because of a lot of the paintings I’ve done in the past, people will see that work and, I mean, sometimes they dissect it to the point where it’s laughable, right? “The pancakes, I don’t know, were originated by Black children on a farm…” They’ll break it down to the point where I’m taking notes, at this point, on my own painting. So that part to me sometimes it’s cool because sometimes it gives me, you know, different perspectives for an artist’s talk or a statement or something. But then I also like hearing, you know, different people’s point of views because everybody’s looking at it from their perspective too. So I like the fact that my art sometimes does speak to different, you know, groups in different ways and everybody has—I mean, it’s a conversation piece. To be honest, I don’t really have the answers in my work. They just, the work kind of just poses a lot of questions and depending on your experience is how you see it.
TM
Can you say more about the pigeonholing that either you experience or other Black artists experience and what are maybe some of the consequences of that?
CH
In a way, I get pigeonholed because, you know, people think all the work I make is political. But that’s in part due to the fact that a black body on a canvas is political, right? It’s fairly new and it’s not something that’s super common. It’s cool to be a black artist now, but ten years ago, it really wasn’t, right? I don’t know what other artists experience. I really just experienced that part, like people thinking everything is super political. At this point, I don’t think I can paint something that doesn’t mean anything to me. Well, that’s hard for me anyway. Because usually I’m painting it for a reason, right? I can’t just paint a rose because it’s a rose, right? I’m always gonna have some kind of meaning on what I’m doing, but I kind of want to define that meaning, I don’t want people to define it for me. It’s kind of like it’s difficult, because you want to leave things open enough for people to have their own interpretations, but then for the most part, you’re actually making this work for a reason, right? So I have a thought process going into the work. Okay I’ll talk about one painting in particular: the painting I made called Second Child. It’s on my website if you guys wanna look it up, but that painting really was speaking to the difficulties I was having with my second child, right? So we had our first and we thought we had it figured out. And then my second one came along and she’s super rambunctious, the exact opposite of my oldest daughter, so I made a painting about it. And at the reception, you know, I had so many people coming up to me because she has black and white stripes on her dress. They started talking to me about the history of child imprisonment and stuff that I had no idea what they were talking about, right? And I was like no, it’s just about my baby girl. So, I mean, I get a lot of stuff like that. So like the pieces I have in the show, like okay, it’s me in handcuffs, so it’s political, right? Pledge of Allegiance, that kind of stuff. It’s kind of obvious actually, right? But some of the other ones that I think I’m doing something simple and it’s not political, because people have experienced other works from me, they always tie it back to that. But, I mean, it’s also good to be known for something than not to be known for anything, right? So I guess I have to take it as a compliment—oh, you’ve seen some of my work, so you have an expectation. So, I mean, that’s one way to look at it. But, I mean, I do want to be able to paint, you know, a goldfish or something just for the sake of painting a goldfish.
TM
Can I ask, what did you say to the folks who perceived the entire carceral state because of the black and white stripes on your daughter’s shirt?
CH
The first person—you know, it was a reception so, you know, you got your wine glass and I’m just, you know, smiling and nodding. But by the third person, I’m like “okay look, this is what this painting is about.” I can’t say, you know, “it’s open for interpretation” and then say “oh I don’t like your interpretation,” right? So I can just say, “well this actually, this is what this painting is about.” And then, you know, then you get the “oh, I’m sorry” and like, don’t be sorry. I mean, that’s the way you saw it. I mean, that’s cool. But as long as you know what it really is about, then, I mean, that’s cool with me.
TM
You talked a little bit about your thought process and I wanted to hear about maybe other processes that kind of go into your creation of a piece. Specifically, what’s on your playlist while you’re creating, if you listen to music.
CH
You’re like the third person this week that asked me about my playlist. So, I mean, full disclosure, I’m from New York, right? So my playlist it’s kind of gritty. So I listen to a lot of Nas, there’s a group called Griselda. Don’t Google it if you don’t like explicit lyrics, right? But, I mean, sometimes I listen to R&B. So I listen to H.E.R, because of my wife, I listen to a lot of Jazmine Sullivan in the house, Jill Scott. But if it’s just me in my studio, it’s Nas, Jay-Z, you know, Biggie, like East Coast Hip-Hop
TM
What else goes into your process of creating pieces? So we’ve got Nas, we got Biggie.
CH
I try to think about it, I was talking to someone today. It’s really like a beautiful mind. It’s like so many things going on at one time. I watch a lot of news, I listen to a lot of podcasts. It’s just like everything. It’s always like I might hear a song title, right? And then I get a composition in my head. Or I might be watching the news and they say something that strikes a chord with me. I don’t do a lot of sketching, but compositions just come to my mind and they stay with me. It’s almost like how Jay-Z says he doesn’t write any of his lyrics now. I have all these compositions, they just stick in my mind and then I just go to the studio the next day and just start laying stuff down. I was just like, okay this is what I saw or this is what I want to speak to. It works sometimes and I have a stash of paintings that no one will ever see. [Laughs]
TM
Well, what’s on your mind now? What’s maybe an image or lyric or something that’s on your mind?
CH
So right now, I’m working on two different bodies of work. I guess I can talk about it here. So one body is, I’ve been ordering a lot of t-shirts. So I guess everybody’s on Instagram. I get a lot of pop-ups and ads with Black t-shirt companies with positive messaging and stuff. I wear a lot of them and my wife wears a lot of them. I have a sister-in-law who has a t-shirt company, she makes a lot of them. So I started thinking about how, in a way, these t-shirts are a form of therapy for Black people. I mean, I don’t know how many people are gonna see this podcast, so don’t steal my idea anybody.
TM
We’re copywriting it. We’re copywriting the t-shirt idea.
CH
I started making work around that, around the fact that, you know, clothing is therapy, especially for this generation. So that’s the newest thing I started working on. I’m only a couple paintings in on that. But then I had another series that I started working on a couple months ago where I was examining the relationship with black men and their hoodies, because I was listening to a podcast and one of the people on the podcast said Black men should not wear hoodies because they look threatening and I was like, “man!” So, I mean, to start, I just for some reason painted myself in a hoodie, right? I was just like, “take that.” And then through my research, you know, just researching other artists, I came across Titus Kaphar’s Jerome project and I saw the installation shot where he had a hundred paintings in the gallery. And then my goal was I want that shot, right? So once again, don’t steal my idea. Actually you can’t because I’m probably 10 or 15 painting in. But had the idea of finding every Black man I knew with a hoodie. All my friends own hoodies, right? So I’m pulling everybody, “hey, let me paint your portrait, let me paint your portrait.” And of course everybody’s like “what do I have to do?” I’m like, “however you want to look in this hoodie, just pose.” I’ve been getting images and I’ve just been painting them like crazy and then I’ve been doing some of my signature stuff with it, so you can’t steal my idea, right? And my goal really is, I want that installation shot, man. I want to be able to put this work in a museum or a gallery and you walk in and you see a room full of Black men in hoodies. So that’s the goal for that work. And I think the messaging is clear, but to be honest, my goal is really that installation shot. I’m so jealous of that show, like every time I’m making a painting in a studio, I’m like, “yo, this is gonna be in my shot.” So I don’t know where I’m gonna put the work after or when I’m gonna do with it, but, I mean, the goal for me right now—I mean, a hundred is, you know, I’m not gonna say it can’t happen, but so my goal is 50 but I want 50 of these paintings done and I want that shot. And I have one more painting to finish for my solo exhibition, but I mean, that work is already conceived and I’m just finishing up a painting.
TM
What would the lesson for the hoodie shot be? Because you talked about lessons you want to impart in your work. What would that one be? Don’t tell me what I can and can’t wear, obviously.
CH
Yeah, well one don’t tell me what I can’t wear. Two, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, right? So some of the people sending me shots are doctors, others are artists, teachers. I have a friend who doesn’t have a job, so he’s just a regular dude with no job. But you can’t tell who’s who, right? It could be a senator. So I’ve been researching this—I’ve found images of other people in hoodies where they’re like, you know, it could be the president, you don’t know. I mean, a hoodie is comfortable, right? We wear them because they’re comfortable. But I mean it was sparked by the fact that someone said Black men can’t wear hoodies because we’re a threat. And then I saw that installation shot with a bunch of beautiful paintings in a series and I want that.
TM
I think that connects so beautifully to what you said about the Black body being politicized, right? As being threatening. Because it’s not the hoodie. Anything you put on a Black man’s body, because a Black man is inherently, in a white supremacist society, viewed as a threat and I hope that that’s a lesson that people learned today and yesterday and tomorrow. So I really appreciate that. Those are my questions. How do we feel?
CH
How are you making sure you’re getting it right?
TM
Oh gosh. That’s such a wonderful question and I feel like we’re the way that I want to answer that is: we’re grappling with so many nuances of that question right now, right? We have COVID, which I think there’s wide disagreement about being in person right now. And so there’s, you know, getting that level of it right. There’s also you know, how do you talk about history in a moment where your students are traumatized? And then how do you talk about history as I’ve been taught to teach it, which is, you know, learning about the past to think about the present and the future. And in terms of getting it right, I think it’s naming that really explicitly to my students that we are grappling with these questions on a daily basis and also telling them about the problems of our archives, right? The fact—I think you mentioned this earlier, right?—that ten years ago, being a Black artist was not what it is today, right? In terms of accessibility, in terms of your wellness as an artist, right? And your evaluation from a kind of external gaze and so those same gaps, right? So the fact that it wasn’t in vogue to be a Black artist ten years ago and it is now, that’s the case for academics. That’s the case for our archives. That’s the case for our newspapers. So when we’re teaching history and learning about it, most of what I try to do is, we’re missing a lot of this information. This is a version of the story. It is your responsibility to dig for other versions of the story and then we teach them research skills, right? So not promising like a “capital H” history but more so, let’s look at this and let’s bring in other voices and give our students a sense of responsibility of history as something that we create and something that we dig for. I mentioned this to you which I’m happy to repeat, I also don’t teach white people anymore and I don’t tell my students that. So the syllabi are just all Black thinkers and creators and artists. Black, Brown, Latina, Asian-American, Asian, or folks of Asian descent. And then I don’t tell them that we just go through the syllabus and, you know, it’s treated as an authoritative text and that’s what it is. One of several ways I try to tackle history. You gotta come talk to my students and they’ll tell you if I’m doing a good job.
