DVCAI Miami A.I.R. Reflection 2021
I was incredibly grateful to further my practice for 2 months at the DVCAI Studio 164 Residency in Miami, Florida. In a world that continually devalues art, and has often left me struggling to find my artistry, this opportunity was as pleasurable as it was necessary.
In the residency I continued to develop my pen and ink drawing series which I presented during the organization’s February 2021 International Exchange Virtual Studio Visits.
This series is heavily inspired by Octavia Butler’s ideas on how to be in right relationship with change as described in her science fiction series Earthseed.
The process for making these works was guided by Adrienne Marie Brown's exploration of fractals and her groundings in nature. Brown weaves these understandings into her analysis of larger human social patterns in her book Emergent Strategy, giving readers a guide to understanding their part in life’s patterns.
Both of these writers emphasize the importance of paying attention and giving care to the interactions that happen between living beings at the smallest scale. They teach us that these sometimes overlooked everyday exchanges shape the larger and more visible patterns that define our world and govern the communities we live in. My pen and ink drawings are reflections on and are part of my contribution to these patterns.
The Process
In Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Marie Brown starts each chapter by naming the concept she is going to explore and then shares reflections she’s gathered from others on the topic. These collective wisdoms are then organized under a section called “grounding in nature.”
These stories and musings provided powerful examples of how the earth offers us lessons to learn how to live better. This process of exploring an idea or concept in the realm of words and then “grounding in nature” to find deeper meaning is foundational to my creative process.
My process begins with a grounding practice of walking and sitting in my environment. I started creative process while living in Washington DC by during the pre-vaccination period of the COVID Pandemic.
I would walk through the Brookland neighborhood where I lived, the nearby Carter Barron recreation area, and on into Rock Creek Park. Like many during this time, I was felt lonely and longed for to feel a deeper sense of belonging and connection. So these walks alone in the place where I lived were an attempt to safely connect and feel a part of the community I lived in. I have since expanded my practice to connect to wherever I may be creating.
During my DVCAI Studio 164 Residency I began by sitting in the front yard of the residency house in the Little Haiti neighborhood. I spent time sitting among the plants, lizards, chickens and neighbors that walked by or through the yard, trying to understand my place in it all.
Frequently I would go to the nearby Morningside park where I would engage in the same process, this time with the Banyan trees, mangroves, palms, the bay shore, and the people enjoying the park.
In both DC and Miami my objective was to become present to where I am, who I am with, and what I am a part of. In the tradition of Adrienne Marie Brown I looked for the “fractals” present around me and that I was a part of, in these places.
Fractals are defined by Brown as, “...a never ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop.”
My work seeks to capture the fractals I exist within, the simple repeating business of my nearby park or front yard. These are the mundane, everyday, beautiful and exceptional things like afternoon light casting the shadows of palms on the Residency house fence, or the patterns of the Banyan roots weaving around their own branches, or the people gathering in the park each sunday to sit beneath trees-eat-play soccer, or the waving hello of my hands at the same two older gentlemen walking past the residency house each morning, etc.
I mentally capture the most basic forms of these fractals and then transcribe these patterns into my drawings while playing with the size, scale, and line weight of the transcription.
I embrace the fractal nature of drawing itself, letting my hand follow the repeating loops I see in my mind’s eye, scribbling with a bit more intention. My work is the paused fractal I have seen, experienced, and participated in.
In Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series she writes, “Everything you touch you change, everything you touch changes you, the only lasting truth is change, god is change.” My creative process is meant to ground me in the life of my environment and community, and to more deeply involve myself in both. Part of that grounding is in recognizing that I am always a part of the fractals of life, even when I’m sitting inside on the couch, and the other part of this grounding is in becoming more involved or engaged in my own life.
Changing my level of involvement changes the pattern of life around me, as it changes me, and helps me feel less alone.
I am not merely the woman watching the chickens scratch at the fallen berries in the dirt, but from their perspective I was the tall white woman who for two months would occasionally sit in front of the small house with seemingly not much to do but sit around and look at things.
As I was out “collecting” an impression of our fractal life, it was perceiving me, and itself changing its involvement. That is all to say that my art commands me to live in the world, and in turn the world lives in me a bit more.
These works may look alien or undulating or impersonal, but they are actually in some sense self-referential. It’s no portrait, but if my work is honest, and I hope it is, at least one of those thick or thin or curved lines is me. How could I possibly transcribe a snapshot of life in a community or environment and not be there for it?
The Work
In one of the “grounding in nature” sections of Emergent Strategy, Brown includes a quote from the Director of the Solidarity Center, Peter Hardie. He states,“The universe is both orderly and chaotic. We understand it to a point and then there is a mystery… There is no eventual elimination of mystery. There will always be mystery. And knowledge. Humans are both understandable and mysterious. Communion is all about acceptance .. .” This quote encapsulates my work.
The pieces themselves balance simplicity and complexity. They are simple black and white pen and ink drawings made of interweaving lines that eventually create mysterious designs. In this sense, the forms are abstract and they can be interpreted as many different things, unknowable pieces that are forever mysterious. On the other hand, the lines and the forms they create are also accessible and can be visually understood in a multitude of ways.
The rounded edges and interweaving curved lines of the forms can be understood as cells, nets, webs, or references to the very things that inspired them; roots, branches, hands, etc. Ultimately though, they are not anything definite. In terms of knowing what exactly they translate to or reference in the world, there will be no elimination of mystery, for myself or for the viewer.
These works are my attempt at “communion.” They are a part of my process of accepting the reality that I can understand, but they are also an admission that I will never fully know the universe around me or even the universe inside of myself.
Gratitude/Reflections
Emergent Strategist and host of the Emergent Strategy Podcast, Sage Crump explains that, “Nothing happens in isolation. There is always a squad, collaborators, a body that supports the change that is occurring.” My squad began as me, the writers I am inspired by but who don’t know me, their characters, the earth I have been planted in, and the beloved friends and confidants I talked with everyday during the beginning of making these works. These beloveds include Chelsea Iorlano, Jonathan Henry Williams, and Danielle Coates.
My squad has since expanded to the community of gifted artists and creators that make up Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI). I am deeply grateful to Rosie Gordon-Wallace and the DVCAI artist’s Izia Lindsay, Devora Perez, and Juan Requena, who shared their time and knowledge during their studio visits with me. I thank all of my collaborators for supporting me through the change I am experiencing while I make, reconsider, and explore this process and the resulting work.
