Artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Story of a 7 Mile Girl
“If we go to museums and we read about work, I want to make sure that my story is part of it.”
Jamea Richmond Edwards is very much a girl made in Detroit. Growing up in Detroit Michigan, on 7 Mile Road, did a lot to shape the artist and the woman she has become today. In the 90s when she wasn’t giving it to them folks with her mama’s furs and Cartier frames, she was admiring Ebony Fashion Fair, couture fashions, and drawing.
“I was always doing art. My sister is 13 years older to me and they would bring their textbooks home from school, you know, that they would have to study. And so when I was four, four or five years old, I would stare out the blank pages just at the beginning of books, and I would draw on them and put Vaseline on the paper and get up on around the house. So when I was young, I just always knew my mother and my family supported me. So if I'm a one-trick pony. That's the only thing I've ever done. Art”
AfriCOBRA Influence
Jamea took her love of art to Jackson State University in Mississippi. After a brief stop in industrial engineering (Jamea says “I took that first class and I'm like, oh, hey, no, no, no.”) she went back to art and made her way to Howard for her MFA. She was already familiar with AfriCOBRA and the legacy of that legendary collective but at Howard, they became a major influence on her development.
“Those were my mentors. But before I came to Howard, at Jackson State is when it was introduced to me. And I was just like, yo, that's the illest thing.. while I was in Jackson, I did a residency called Tougaloo Art residency and Murray Depillars, rest in peace, who was an AfriCOBRA artist, I worked under him. And so he planted that seed. So by the time I came to Howard. And, you know, Akili Ron Anderson and James Phillips were my committee advisers” (24:17)
AfriCOBRA was a Black artist collective founded in the mid-1960s and met regularly and discussed ways that their art could embody a “Black aesthetic”. One characteristic of the work they created was the use of bright vibrant colors, described as Kool-Aid colors. This was a lesson that resonated with Jamea as she was thinking of growing her work.
“I was that artist talk and I heard someone mentioned like, “Oh, yeah, I wanted to be more mature with my practice. And so.. I muted the colors.” Which is fine and that person's right to do so. But I, in my mind, I also felt, like in order for me to mature, and to kind of grow as an artist, I need to tone those colors down. But what I'm doing now, I'm pressing against that. That's who we are. We're colorful people.” (25:52)
Avatars
Jamea now embraces color wholeheartedly. The painting “A Girl with 3 Orbs” is heavily layered with colors and patterns. Three circular pieces float around a Black woman rendered in greyscale with her environment bustling with color and texture. Her works always feature women as subjects. The gaze of the women are always straight forward and engaging the viewer. Jamea insists, “They know that you're watching. And oftentimes there they are posturing themselves because they want you to see them in a very particular way. And so, yeah, it's the very watchful eye” (47:20)
The women are always engaged in some sort of activity. They are making clothes, sitting on a throne, in a bedroom space. The activities are autobiographical from Jamea’s journey from 7 Mile Road to Jackson State to Howard. All of her life experiences, including her interest in the female form, find their way into the work.. She refers to women in the pieces as avatars. They represent her first and foremost but also can represent men or her ancestors.
“If we go to museums and we read about work, I want to make sure that my story is part of it. So they're doing different things up there. The girl on seated throne. I think that that's more like ancestral. That's more.. Something a little bit deeper than my experience. I don't sit on a throne, but maybe I do sit on a throne, you know?” (50:27)
Spiritual Process
The path Jamea takes to build her pieces has changed over the years of her career. She now describes it as a spiritual process. She feels like there is something that is working through her. When she is in front of a blank canvas she waits for it to reveal itself to her. She feels like all creatives are connecting to another undefined place where they are getting their images. Pulling things out of the ether as she described it.
The colors are collaged for different papers and fabrics that she’s accumulated over the years. Old drawing from her students gets recycled into little bits of paper and become part of the process. Jamea takes cues from folk artists like Della Wells, one of her mentors. They used whatever materials that they had at their disposal and organically add to the work. Jamea’s materials list can include glitter, fabric, graphite, rhinestones amongst other things.
This organic building is something that developed over time. Looking at some of Jamea’s earlier works you see they are far more streamlined. The women would be on a colored field and most of the collages existed in the outfits. Over time the images have gotten more and more complex. The collages now surround the women in an environment vivid abstraction. Jamea attributes this to her personal growth that brings her closer to being free.
“I was fighting against the wanting to add everything, all the colors into it. If you follow my career, you will see me getting more comfortable with it and really is getting comfortable with myself. I think that the work is allegorical to, you know, my life, me understanding who I am. Me understanding my people. My story. Me articulating my voice. So it's just it just being comfortable.” (30:49)
Indigenous Woman
Jamea strongly identifies herself as a Black and Indigenous woman. That part of her heritage is important to her sense of self. Her family is Mississippi Choctaw and Creek. She says that is an important factor in trying to contextualize not just her work but a lot of work from Black artists in America. Dave the Potter has work that is similar to that of Indigenous people. Black American quilters have overlap with Indigenous American fabrics. The symbols found in ancient earthen mounds from around the South are all available for her to use in her work.
“My family's from Georgia to Southeast parts of the US and we have all these mounds and artifacts here. These earthen mounds. And you see the horned serpent throughout it. So I'm like I have the agency to use these things for one I am indigenous. And two this is where my people are. So I'm incorporating these, this symbolism in these in these paintings.”
Follow Jamea Richmond-Edwards: www.jamearichmondedwards.com + @jamearichondedwards
Listen to the full interview on Studio Noize Episode 94
