SNP Episode 118 - Jamele Wright Sr.
Seeing Abstraction w/ artist Jamele Wright Sr.
Jamele Wright Sr. joins the Studio Noize family! Your boy JBarber is back from vacation and is live in the studio talking abstraction with Jamele. He tells us about his turn to abstraction and how seeing a piece by Clyfford Still gave him the breakthrough that he needed. Jamele talks about his family history that inspired his series In Transit and how all the textures, color, and materials tell a much larger story about the Black experience. Great in-person in-studio vibes today on the Noize. You can even hear the fan going so you know it’s real! Listen, subscribe and share!
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Jamele: That's great, looking forward to talking about it.
JBarber: Yeah, for sure, man.
Jamele: Talk about it
JBarber: You know, it's been a long time since I did interviews in person, man so.
Jamele: Look at that man.
JBarber: Finally glad to finally be out here, man. Going to people's studios again.
Jamele: This is fun. I've been wanting to do this for a while.
JBarber: Yeah. I'm sorry, man. Yeah. So it's your boy J barber. I'm back out in the field.
Jamele: Back at it.
JBarber: Hey, I'm Hanging with my man Jamele Wright Sr., artists extraordinaire. How are you doing man?
Jamele: I'm doing great how about yourself?
JBarber: I'm good, man. Glad to be out, man. Glad to be out in your studio, man. You got a lot of stuff on the walls, man. It's always good to feel that energy. You know what I'm saying? Artists we need to share that energy man.
Jamele: Yeah. I don't have one of those nice clean studios, that's all pristine. I have what I call a working studio, which means that the walls are always filled with something. The floor is always a mess and I have to generally clean up for company.
JBarber: Yeah, well you cleaned up enough, man. He got some stuff out of the way, but like I say, man, I love seeing the energy and seeing the stuff. Especially like when you look at your work, the final process of it, like the abstractions with all the layers and the different materials and all the other stuff that you put in it, like it's great to see it, like as you are building in, you know, [interposed talking 01:29 ] a different understanding of, what you're trying to do. So, and those don't know Jamele Wright, Senior abstract artists, he got his BA in art history from Georgia State. What's up?
Jamele: What's up alum.
JBarber: We got the MFA from school of visual arts in Manhattan. And he does abstraction man. And he's been doing some phenomenal work, man. I went to your last two shows in transit then- No, both of them were called in transit a matter of fact.
Jamele: Yeah. One was called in transit the return home. I think that was when I first moved back to Atlanta and then the second one was a second iteration of that. But I think that was a more, a smaller, concise work. I think the one that was at the aviation was probably like, it was a total of 23 pieces.
JBarber: Yeah. It was, it was a good range of work. And then I think he gave a good overview of where you are as an artist.
Jamele: Well I think it gave you a great overview of where I was like, where I am now?
JBarber: Yea where you were that's a great point.
Jamele: Yeah, because like three years since I've completed like close to a hundred pieces and I'm rolling, man, I'm rolling. I'm rolling. So like to see that work then, and to see what I'm doing now, I feel like-
JBarber: I've grown completely.
Jamele: I feel like I'm almost another person
JBarber: Yeah, I have that same feeling about my work like seeing it coming out of grad school, same feeling like I don't know. I love it when, you know, you just put your head down and work and don't worry about like each individual piece as like a goalpost that you move in. Just like let it go along the journey and the process. And then you look up and all of a sudden you on some whole another thinking.
Jamele: Right? Like, I mean, the only reason why I knew I did over a hundred pieces was because I was trying to tally up for something and I started paying attention to what I had done. I didn't realize I had done that many pieces. And I was like, wow, like I've done. I started adding up stuff I'm like, wow, like I've really been banging. Like I didn't realize how much work I didn't put in.
JBarber: Is that different for you? Like, was that a different mode? Like a different level?
Jamele: You know, the thing is like when I was an undergrad in the art history program, I was working, but I wasn't working at the same pace. And then when I got to grad school I mean you know, as an older student, I think that a lot of the young ones, they come in there, they're coming right out of undergrad or maybe going to three years out of undergrad, don't have kids aren't married, don't have extra lives.
JBarber: Yeah.
Jamele: I don't think they really understand the kind of time that that is that you have there. So me being completely away from all my kids and all of my responsibilities for two years and being in the studio. I spent the night in the studios, like sometimes three, four nights a week. So that kind of built up my pace to some degree. My biggest fear was coming back to Atlanta and wondering like, how was I going to be able to fit that lifestyle into real life?
JBarber: Yeah. I think that was my balance. But I think because I was a full-time artist before I was kind of already in the mode of all right if the kids are going to be away at school till this time, that's my time to work. So it's super concentrated. And I understand like the span of time that I have to work, you know what I'm saying? I just take advantage of it while I'm there.
Jamele: And I had that too. Cause when my kids would go to bed at nine o'clock at night or 10 o'clock, then I was generally in the studio until like two, three o'clock in the morning. But to be away from them, meaning that I can spend literally all day in the studio and spent all day in the studio for three or four days, I would have studio clothes. Like I had a wardrobe, I had a towel and washcloth for the studio I had extra drawers at the studio. So that way if I spent two or three days there, I had toothbrush and a deodorant. So if I spent two or three days there, I wouldn't smell or look like I just spent 2 or 3 days there.
JBarber: Yeah,studio visit and be just like whoa.
Jamele: Whoa it's funky in here. And I'm not talking about the music.
JBarber: And not talking about the art. What else is up, man? So tell me this, when you went in, what do you see now as the difference between your work before that time? And after that time, like, what does it give you?
Jamele: Oh My God. Like I was working with wood before, so I was working in wood and finding wood off the side of the road I was working in assemblage work and, you know, found material work. So to kind of move that into fabric was a complete move. Like when I moved to New York, I knew that I couldn't work in wood and try to carry a four-foot by four-foot piece on a train. And those pieces were sometimes 50, 60 pounds. So I had to find out a new way of working and I began just doing paintings and doing abstract paintings. And as I began to work in abstraction in that way, away from the found material work I discovered some new things, some different things. And having that kind of access to a different style of learning where, you know, a lot of us here are learning from books and learning from a few museum shows, but to constantly be able to go to a gallery or museum when you're bored.
I was, sometimes- I was four blocks away from Chelsea. And Chelsea is about four blocks. So you would go from like 19th street all the way up to 24th street and you would see pretty much everything that is everything in the world, all the blue-chip galleries. So your idea of art begins to change and you begin to grow. So I think my understanding, thank you to Georgia state and Kimberly Cleveland for really teaching me how to look at work. I think they gave me a jumpstart on knowing how to edit. So being there, going to the studio, transitioning my work into paintings, and then eventually finding my way into textile. My work transitioned in a way that I wouldn't have imagined.
I'm sure that anyone that's truly dedicated to their practice and then going through graduate school, you go in one way and you come out another. It was almost like Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory.
JBarber: Yeah. Got the golden ticket ain't you?
Jamele: You get your golden ticket, but then you go in there one way and you come out with a whole other experience.
JBarber: Yeah. I think it's interesting. What you point out is that how much the environment also influenced the artwork, like just having the limitation of having to travel on the subway automatically made you rethink everything.
Jamele: I wrote a paper about it while it was up there. And I was trying to explain, and it was funny as they really didn't understand it. I would tell them that time is different there than it is here. And they were like how? I said, well, the time it takes from me getting on the train, and don't get me wrong, I love the train system. I love the subway there. I mean, you can be anywhere within 45 minutes, and although we could drive there, but you know, to have someone else drive you there and then still be within two to three blocks of where it is you want to be. And the city is so beautiful that you want to walk.
But in that, you think about by the time I'm done with class. So say I'm done with class at four, by the time I get home, it's about 5:30. By the time I go to a grocery store, it's about 6:30. By the time I cook, it's around 7:30. You cook, you eat, you're done. You go to bed. But for most people getting off work at 5:30, 6 o'clock and maybe they work in Manhattan and they live in Brooklyn, that's an hour travel, then they have to get groceries. So they're getting home that's seven o'clock. They're not going to bed. I mean, they're eating at 8:30. By the time they are done, you know, it's 12 o'clock and they have to start that cycle all over again. I said, here in Atlanta is really different because we don't have that. We can drive our cars, we drive directly to where we want to go.
JBarber: Right.
Jamele: If we have to move art, we can move art ourselves or we got a friend who has a truck. So you don't have all the additional complications. And we have wonderful weather. So we have time to sit on a porch or drink some sweet tea or all those other things that come with being in the south. So time kind of expands, being able to make really big work, is not a real big deal here because there are people who have houses that can contain that.
JBarber: Yeah. Or you have a garage or you have like extra rooms and you know what I'm saying? Like, space is a premium in New York.
Jamele: Space is premium. I went to one apartment while I was up there. And they only had work that was probably no bigger than 24 by 24. Because their little apartment, they couldn't handle it. It was like the size of a hotel room. And these are upscale apartments in like Manhattan down by MoMA, you know? And you're thinking like they're paying all this money and they can have a four-bedroom house here.
JBarber: Yeah. Easy,
Jamele: Easy. Buy it outright.
JBarber: Yeah. That's wow. That's interesting man. So I can see how, not just the rigor of going through the practice, but the environment also change how you're looking at stuff. So you probably also saw a lot more abstraction there than here. Right?
Jamele: Well, you see it a little bit more abstraction, but you also see abstraction because, okay. So there are some different elements to make you work. So the thing is, is when you see a whole bunch of faces all day, every day, you're not gonna make portraits.
JBarber: Mmm. Right. I see what you're saying. Yeah.
Jamele: So the next level is some level of abstraction because everything begins to kind of blend together after a while. The other thing too is you have to consider the idea of minimalism. I didn't understand why they had minimalism. And this is kind of what I was writing the paper about why they had minimalism in the north because all you see is straight lines. You're on a train, you're in a building, you're on the street. You're looking for that spiritual space that minimalism gives you in your reaction to the work because you're needing peace. You need quiet. You need solace. Because everything else around you is busy, busy, busy.
JBarber: Moving always moving.
Jamele: So here in the south, the difference is that we have open space. They were teasing me. It was like, man, you guys down in Georgia. Y'all, don't obey the COVID laws you know. I said, but you have to understand. We don't live next to each other.
JBarber: You gotta go outside and breath the fresh air.
Jamele: So we don't have the same idea about being six feet away because we're generally six feet away all the time anyway.
JBarber: Yeah. Cause, I sit on my porch, you sit on your porch and you know, we still talking like, like it's nothing. And that's a regular thing for us. Like, especially when we talk about having space you know, you have like a million people in like two square blocks. There is no space.
Jamele: There is no space.
JBarber: You know literally like yeah it has to be enforced because there's nowhere for you to go. It's physically in terms of just physics. There's nowhere for you to go.
Jamele: Dude. I'm gonna tell you, there were times where I was on the train, where it was inappropriate, how close I was to people. Because you're all trying to get to the same place. Literally, people and people would see you squeeze on the train and would try to squeeze themself on that train. They see that people are like, basically busting out of the train and they still try to squeeze themselves in there.
JBarber: Yeah. I mean, but that's the mode, right? That's the frame of mind that you it's kind of like, you have to keep moving. I can't not get on this train. So whatever level of discomfort I have to have, I have to have it because I have to do this next thing. Like sorta like the transit, speaking of, you know what I'm saying, your show the transit of it doesn't matter. Like is only the destination that people think about like a lot of times.
Jamele: That had some impact of the idea in transit but also I was really thinking about, and this is where it started. It started I made a list in grad school. It was my summer in between semesters. So I began really thinking about like, what did I really like? What would my work be about? And I'm gonna say this because I think sometimes it needs to be said. Oftentimes when we think about making work, we often consider the idea that we have to pull from some idea of tragedy. You have to pull from some idea of bad places in our life. And to assentiate those. And I begin considering the idea that I didn't want to do that I didn't want to talk about- and honestly, I couldn't. When I hear rap songs, they're always talking about like how poor they were. Or, you know, like Dave Chappelle said, you know, talks about like, you know, how his friends were talking about, like, it was bad in the PJ's yo. And he was like, yeah, he said I don't Know. I didn't grow up in those neighborhoods.
JBarber: Right.
Jamele: And I didn't grow up in those neighborhoods. I grew up in upper-middle-class like teased me and said my family was at the Cosby's. So I didn't have those clinical poor stories to talk about. And that's not- I'm not talking bad about anyone who has those. I'm just saying that because I didn't have that being black I often thought that that's what I had to pull from. But then I began considering the fact that like what my family did, what they accomplished. My father moved from Alabama to Ohio. My mother moved from Alabama, from Ohio. Interestingly enough is my parents lived 20 minutes away and met in Columbus, Ohio.
JBarber: [Inaudible 17:55] way.
Jamele: Yeah.
JBarber: The same thing we went to rival high schools and we didn't meet till we went to college.
Jamele: Right. And do, I mean, so they met in Ohio and I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and then we moved to Dayton and we moved to Cincinnati and then we moved back to the south. And then, one of my friends began talking to me about, have you heard of this idea of the great migration? And we began discussing that. And every summer we would travel every summer, we would go to like we would go to California, we would go to DC. We would go to- My grandparents lived in Alabama. We would go. So we would travel. My father was in a fraternity. So we went to his fraternity conventions every year. So no matter where they were, that's where we were. So we went to a lot of major cities and it was really great, but that travel was the place I felt like was some of my favourite times. Especially the Alpha Convention they were really great. I made a lot of great friends there. People who I still am friends with today we were the alpha kids.
JBarber: The alpha kids
Jamele: But I mean, we would go to these conventions and they would have like video games there and we would go to the amusement parks and stuff like that. And it was really fun, but I also got to travel. My parents took us on a trip to California, from Ohio, where we drove the four days from Dayton, Ohio to California. And then we drove back. we took a train there to California and took a train back. We took a plane there and then back. And I really found it, you know, as an adult, now I go, wow that was probably really expensive. And then being black, I'm thinking what kind of things did they go through to meet those kind of travels.
JBarber: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the time. Yeah.
Jamele: So thinking about all that is where I begin to think about this idea of in transit. This idea of African-Americans for the 1920s, the 1970s moving from the south to north In hopes of new opportunities of hope. And then I began reading a book called The Warmth of Other Suns.
JBarber: Love that book. I love that book.
Jamele: Yeah, and she used to talk about this idea of how even regionally, how people move. like people from Chicago, journey from Mississippi and Arkansas, People from Ohio or from Alabama and Tennessee, and people from New York, or just from South Carolina and North Carolina. But then there are so many stories of that, but now all these people are starting to move back. And then you start questioning yourself, like, why are they moving back? What are they moving back for?
It was Maya Angelou that said, she believed that the reason why people were going, like, African-Americans kind of went crazy when they were in the north is because they'd lost the land. They lost the dirt. And that's why I began to put that red clay in the word. It became even more prominent then, because I want to remind us about not the clay, as far as us being farmers, that we have to always be farmers. But this kind of bridge that is created because you know, the same red clay that's here. If you think about the Bit Pangea is also in Ghana and Uganda in west coast, Africa.
So that bridge I created, I believe like this magical bridge that was happening between Georgia and Africa and we as African people being these kind of nomadic people, not because we want to be, but because we needed to be in order to live. All those ideas of being in transit, there were always moving.
JBarber: Yeah. You got a- In the description of, it has a line that says you're leaving familiar for something better. Like, is that whole idea, do you think that was what- Two questions do you think that's what your parents were doing? And do you think that's what people that are coming back are doing?
Jamele: I think both, I think that, like, I think my parents were doing it because, you know, my parents probably like your parents were in the midst of the civil war- a civil not civil war- It almost seems like the civil war now, but the civil rights. My mother tells me stories about how my uncles were actually part of some of these marches and how people had threatened the churches within their community. And they would sit outside with rifles, waiting on people to come.
My father talks about marching with Martin Luther King, you know, so I think to some degree they were moving for these opportunities. My father worked for internal revenue service. He's like one out of six African-Americans that were hired by the internal revenue service in the 60s. So I think about now, you know, you don't understand this stuff as a child, right?
JBarber: Yeah. Yeah. there is no way for you to put a context.
Jamele: So now that I'm older I think about like all the things that my parents went through. Just to be a federal agent in 1960 that's crazy. You know, to, my mom working at, at Ohio bell as a, you know, that's when you had to like take one cord and put it in the wall.
JBarber: like them old TV shows.
Jamele: Like those old TV shows you know, you plugging it out one place to plug into another place had to know where the plugs were.
JBarber: like please hold.
Jamele: Yeah please hold that's crazy but to be mobile in those societies, they couldn't have accomplished that in the south.
JBarber:Yeah. That's true. And so do you think that coming back is a good thing?
Jamele: I think coming back just shows that there's really no difference. I just believe that what's happened in the south since then, is the south has realized to some degree, not completely, but to some degree that is necessary for all of us to live. I think that African-Americans began making a hole on the cities, especially like Atlanta with black mayors and welcoming black industry. And because of that, black people began to move back. I think, because of people like, you know, Maynard, Jackson, I think that's probably the reason why black people are here. He's the one that brought music to Atlanta. I think that was a big part. I think the international airport is a big part. I think all of these things contributed in bringing black people about that to the south. And also I think that a lot of them remember a lot of them were sending their kids back to the south in the summer anyway.
JBarber: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a lot of those kids are the ones that are coming back.
Jamele: I agree. And they're coming back because they remember open land. They remember, you know, and like we were just saying about living in New York. If you're spending $250,000 on a two-bedroom apartment and a three-story walk up. a three-story walk-up is the term used for like these stairs, there are three stories of stairs. So they would say a two-level walk up or three-level walk-up and you got a two-bedroom apartment and it's costing you $250,000, no elevator. Versus moving to the south, take $150,000 buy yourself a three-bedroom, two bath house with three-quarters of an acre. And you still got a hundred thousand left over in your pocket. You could almost retire. And that's what you're finding. You find it like a lot of these people who like worked on Joel buses in New York, or were police officers in New York, moved down here, collect their pension.
JBarber: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense too. That's why people were moving to Florida, no taxes and getting land and retiring weather you know what I'm saying? All that, all that stuff plays a part in it. And I think it's also a nostalgia piece too. Like when they saw big mama down here, they remember that feeling and they're kind of still chasing it. You know what I'm saying?
Jamele: And I remember it, like, I would remember coming down to Birmingham. My parents lived in a small town in Birmingham and I mean, the place was so small that like, it wasn't until 17, that there was a sign outside the community that told you two miles till. And it wasn't until I was like, in my 20s that I realized that the community was divided up between blacks and whites. And we had always been on the black side for so long I didn't even realize that there was a white side to it.
JBarber: Yeah, that's hilarious how segregation work ain't it?
Jamele: It. It is, it is. But I remember like the really fancy thing or the thing to do because let me tell you something, it was, this community was so boring. It was so boring that we waited until like 8:30 to walk the whole community because it would just be one long walk. And we would do that at 8:30 because there's nothing else to do.
Other than that, you just sit on the porch and talk to each other all day.
JBarber: Yeah.
Jamele: You know, I remember one time we walked at four o'clock and then it wasn't as fun at eight o'clock. And still, to this day, the smell of burning trash makes me feel like I'm at home because I didn't understand what that smell was for years. I was like, wow, that's just a wonderful smell. Then one day I smelled it here and so I said, wow, that's a wonderful smell. They said, well, that's trash. I'm like oh, so all my childhood, I was thinking that this was some amazing smell that was happening and it was just burning trash. So it's that nostalgia, is that remembrance of home. And I think that through my work, I think that's the over probably one of the under themes of my work is this idea of this constant quest that we all have for home.
JBarber: Yeah. Yeah. I could see that because I could see how it's about you call it in transit. And so when I look at it, you're also seeing a lot of the things that are collected along the way. That are put together to form like your memory of a thing like you feel an impression of what it meant to be with your family is for you about the trip that you took. The different places that you stopped, the experience that you had along the way, like stopping, you know, I remember taking trips, my dad and he would give me peppermints out of the thing. So now I keep peppermints in my thing, just off impulse, because that's just I see it as the function of it, you know what I'm saying? And so a lot of times I think your work is being reflective of that too because you have all the different pieces, you're sewing them together. You putting them together the found objects, the Dutch wax cloth, and all the different things, the clay. like all of it is being combined to create a new thing. You know what I'm saying?
Jamele: Well, yeah. And I think that's, what's really amazing when you find artists like [Inaudible 30:42] who are able to take one thing and make it into something else. And I think that that's another thing that black people have always been really good at. You can take the Coke can and turn it into, I mean- our, how we take jars and turn them into drinking glasses. And sure that's a sign of like, not just ingenuity, but it's a sign of some type of poverty to some degree, but it's also a sign of using what you have. Like not taking it, not needing to take up more space, but just utilizing the space that you have. And with my work, I try to kind of embody that. Like, I don't really waste anything. I mean, you can tell that by just walking around my studio, there's tons of stuff that you would think to throw away. And I'm thinking to myself, I can use it.
JBarber: Yeah. Why, yeah you go to throw it away.
Jamele: Why throw it away? I mean, I may put it in something later. You know, I have this thing about gloves. Like I really like seeing gloves in my work. Because I think that it shows the literal hand in the work, but I also think it shows the sense of workmanship and things that are left behind, you know textiles, this idea of this Dutch wax cloth. What I really like about the Dutch wax cloth is the fact that it shows, first of all, it's a cloth that's made in Holland that was supposed to be given to the Malaysians and they rejected it. Then they gave it to the Africans. The Africans took it and owned it and begin to use it to incorporate into their culture where like if you're having a funeral, the immediate family wears black, but the next level of family wears red, but they're wearing red and black. So it's the same patterns.
So they begin to take it into their culture and it means different things. And each one of these fabrics Have a name. But then when you bring it to America, it deals with quilting. This idea of quilting, this idea of taking things that are thrown away like old jeans and our old blankets or torn up blankets that we can't use anymore, but we can put it into this quilt. And I think that our culture is very reflective of just using what you have. And to me, I think my work is a little bit of recycling, like for my pouches. They're based off of the Greek rebates, the things that African-Americans would carry with them from the south to the north that will have like little magical items in them or considered to be magic. They would be like amulets, or you put a rabbit's foot in there, maybe a ring that they thought was really lucky, or maybe it was a ring of their grandmothers and they were carrying it with them cause it brought good luck.
And I think that so that's where I began to add these pouches to my pieces because I want my work to be amulets. I want it to be power items. I want it just like in the Congo when they put nails into something the [Inaudible 34:00] pieces I really liked the [Inaudible34:02 ] pieces a lot. And I wanted that same type of effect for my work. I want it to be powerful, not just in a sense of like, you look at it and it's powerful, but that if it's in your space, it has a power to it. And you feel that and it's like good energy.
JBarber: Yeah. Yeah. And it's something physical about it too. It's the same thing when you talk about having amulets, right. I think it's the physical object is also what, what channels, the energy can power through different spaces. So especially if you believe that and you're putting it into your work, that work is going forth, carrying the same energy to all these other places that it's going to be exhibited at. I like that. I like that. So when did you, when you started with the scrap fabrics, tell me about how that started?
Jamele: So I started first day of grad school. I started these canvas paintings. And I remember telling my mentor Miguel Luciano, I said to him, well, I'm going to take these paintings, and then I'm going to take them and then I'm going to paint on them. And then I'm going to put them in these shapes, hang them on the wall in different shapes. And he wasn't really sure what I meant or he looked like he wasn't really sure what I meant, but then he looked at the painting said, how about this? Why don't we start with just making a great abstract painting? I was like-
JBarber: Right. Take all the complications out of it. Just start from the very beginning.
Jamele: Start from the very beginning. Very good place to start. So then I began thinking that way and then by open studios when I showed him what I was doing he was like, oh, I get it. I get it. I get it. So in order for me to- I felt like the abstraction was the American aspect of us, but this series was called going home. And it was right after the murder of Michael Brown. And I'm in grad school and I'm thinking, what is my part in this? I have a son very easily, could have been a Michael Brown. What is my part in this? And I said, but where do black people go? Where's their safety? Where's the place of safety for us? But I don't like, you know, I don't like dwelling in the negative aspects of America cause there's enough of those. And there are enough people talking about how negative it is here without solutions.
So I figured I would create these portals where when they're hanging, if you said this word, or if you were initiated into this space, then you could transport yourself into a space that would be safe. So the abstract painting, I felt like it needed another element to it. And that was what I can- thought at the time was African cloth. So I sewed the African cloth to the canvas painting and then I hung it and I draped it and it was really nice. You know, it felt like me, I did that for the rest of the year. And then the following year, that summer, I began to think about the fabric in a different way. I began to ask myself and you know, another friend comes up and says, man, the fabric looks really good, but it seems like you care for the fabric more than you care about the painting. Said what have you just painted on that?
JBarber: So you were leaving the fabric untouched.
Jamele: I felt like I was including it, but maybe I wasn't including it enough. So then I separated it. And I'm gonna tell you that, first time painting on it was a challenge.
JBarber: Yeah. Just in terms of you thinking about painting on it.
Jamele: Yes. Because the thing is like this fabric is really pretty. And then you think to yourself, so I'm going to paint on top of that. And to me, it was kind of a boldness.
This kind of boldness to think that I could paint on top of that. To me, it was almost thinking to myself, like I am going to paint on top of a Picasso. Like why would I do that? But then I did it. And once I did it, well, I turned the fabric around so that it wouldn't be- so to add a more sculptural element to it. And that was suggestion by Camilo Rashid. She was my studio professor. And she was like, hey, why don't you think about turning it around? I mean, that way it's not everyone does it on the other side, pretty side. Why don't you just turn it around?
So I turned it around and I began to paint on the backside side and that became my thing is to paint on it that way, because it does have a more sculptural aspects to it, but also as I've been doing it, the one thing I like about it is that the mistakes that I make in sewing actually begin to work to my benefit. The loose threads, the weird shapes I get because I sometimes get this fabric from people who make dresses. And because I get these odd shapes, sewing it together, sometimes isn't always even. But that actually begins to work to my benefit. Pieces of hanging fabric they just add additional marks. So, I mean, I think that that also plays in this idea of home. It plays in these ideas of remembrance. And they become almost like halos to the work.
JBarber: I like that. I like that because it does also bring in kind of the history of the cloth into it. This was cut off from a dress pattern or something that, you know what I'm saying, [Inaudible 41:10] me. So you bring in that kind of those shapes make their way into it like a little bit. I like that.
Jamele: And that's where I also think that like where it plays into us like here you have this fabric that's made in Holland that becomes African. Is this thing in between, because you could no longer say that it's, I mean, as much as it's made in Holland, it's not a Dutch fabric anymore. No one in America or Africa, will ever, say that's a Dutch fabric. Only people that know it as that would say that. And we, as the people that have been brought here to America and existed here for over 400 years only we know that. I don't know. I think we're this thing in between too. I mean, I don't know any African stories. I can't tell you about any days I was on the Saharah and able to look out into the sunset. I don't know any of them, I don't have any of those. I don't, know any African fables. You know, I took- African-American studies was my minor, you know, but I had to pursue that. it wasn't something that was poured into me.
JBarber: Yeah. Everything, you know, is kind of a second hand experience of it.
Jamele: But what I do know is living here in America. But then I question, I mean, with the current crisis or the current situations that we're dealing with are we really American? I mean, we're born here, we live here, grandparents, great grandparents. So we're indigenous to the land, but are we American? So I asked this question and when I'm asking this question, I then also use the cloth to also ask this question. And I think the cloth kind of discusses it a lot better than I can.
JBarber: Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about the role that gesture plays?
Jamele: That what?
JBarber: Gesture.
Jamele: Gesture?
JBarber: Yeah, because when I look at your work, I do see a lot of that. Like a lot of, even though I considered the way you're putting the cloth together as a gesture itself. Because it's not a pattern played out, laid out, like you are like moving stuff around, taking scraps. So like you playing with the shapes. I think the word gesture comes to mind when I look at your work.
Jamele: Thank you. I always like work that you can see the hand in it. I don't like, I can't say I don't like it. I am drawn more to work where I can actually feel like I saw that person touching that. Like, when you look at Basquiat's work, you almost feel like he just walked away from it. Like he just made this mark and he walked away. Jackson Pollock I feel like the same thing. Some parts of Rothko, I feel the same. So there's certain parts where I feel like I can see the human in the work. So I try to do the same thing. I try to make sure that there's a human element in the work, which I think separates me from this idea of minimalism.
Because I think that, I don't know. I think that's the beauty of what makes the work. I think that like sometimes when we talk about the idea of black abstraction. We talk about the fact that you're not actually seeing the physical body in the work because there's figurative. And that's the question right now with all the work that selling is, a lot of it is figurative work. Representational. But I would say that my work is just as representational as a figure, because you could actually see my marks in the work. So you see me.
So when we talk about gesture and we talk about movement and creating that level of movement, I think that's accomplished because of the physical body in the work. But I liked gesture. I liked seeing that. I like seeing the movement. I like work that makes me feel like, like when you look at a Rothko and you begin to levitate, because all you see is the plane that he's created. Well you almost feel like you're standing on the shore. And like the bottom part of the painting feels like the water. And then like the center part begins to feel like, what's far away. And then the top part, because to feel like the sky and the it's all coming together for a sunset or for sunrise, I think that's really powerful.
When I look at my work? That's what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm trying to accomplish this idea that you get completely lost in it. And that you, that the place that you have to find peace is within the busy-ness, rather than trying to create a safe space or a quiet space in the work. I want you to find that safe space. I want you to find that soft place within the busy-ness.
JBarber: I like that and I think that's also that's kind of a very complicated structure to it. Now, I think that you have to- you're trying to understand while you are standing in front of it and looking at it, right. Especially like some, your larger pieces that were, that I saw at, aviation centre. Like, they feel like you are on a quest to understand it. What are you looking at? You know I'm saying and how it all like fits togethe? So I love it when work can do that and make you make you think and activate different parts and make you want to spend time with it. And not to say that figurative work doesn't do that, but there is a, easier understanding of what you're looking at. I think that that has something to do with it.
Jamele: Yeah. I mean, we know what a nose look like.
JBarber: Yeah and you know, what a person sitting on a chair, like on a patterned background, like you, like, it's almost expected at this point. Like just the way we're inundated with those certain kind of images.
Jamele: You also go to museums a lot and you see people take pictures of those things and they walk away. They take a picture and they walk away. And my question is, how often are you looking at that picture? After you leave Will you ever see that picture again? When you go through your phone, how many of those do you ever go back through your high museum folder and just flip through it and look at those images again?
JBarber: Yeah. Cause you're not going to get the same experience.
Jamele: You're not going to get the same experience. Not only that, you're not even gooing to look at them again.
JBarber: That's true. That's true. I know I went to the- I saw the Driskell exhibit before it came down and I was struck by not just the size of some of the pieces, but the brightness of the colors, even in the ways that I've seen it, reproduced it doesn't do it justice. Like there's no way to like, to take away the experience of standing in front of a David Driskell and looking at all the different layers and the colours and how everything is working together. And he has a lot of gesture in his work to that gesture and the, you know, the layers. No photograph could I've ever seen of some of those pieces, I'm familiar with it, but it still didn't do it any justice
Jamele: If you ever get the chance to see, I remember seeing Aaron Douglas', and this is where it really struck me. Aaron Douglas' pieces that he made for WPA. And I remember seeing them in books, large in the books, but I saw them in person at the Sharpsburg and they're like 18 by 24. They're not big. And you're thinking this whole time, when you're reading this book, these have to be large. All the detail that he's worked in this, these have to be huge pieces like 10 feet by 10 feet but no.
JBarber: Same thing with Persistence of Memory when, the Dalí exhibit was here and you come and see it, and it's literally like they're like 18 by something it's not even 18 by 20-
Jamele: But when you saw large pieces, you were like, oh my god.
JBarber: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Like you turn that corner. It's that piece with the man on a horse, I'm going to add a title to it later, but it's the man on the horse. Like, like, yo, this is wow. But everybody looks at Persistence of Memory because they are used to seeing the imagery so much in so many places, so many posters, it says a different experience of work.
Jamele: So like to take your photograph is great for memory.
JBarber: Right. They're trying to recapture that feeling later like you said, after you sat there with, it for a little while right there you have something there to go back and reference like you're not going to get it just by taking pictures.
Jamele: I'm going to tell you when I, it was the end of my first semester, my second year, which I was getting ready to go into my thesis semester and we had open studios and I had some of the work in there and I had some hanging in a corner. I had painted the studio, like it's installation. And then I had another piece on another wall and I just was not feeling it. People were coming in and looking at the studio and they were like, oh, okay. What do you think? And I'm like I said, you know, I was explaining the work or whatever, but in my mind, I'm thinking this sucks. This is horrible. And I couldn't figure out why it was horrible yet. And then I went to the Whitney. I came in after open studios, but I couldn't take it down yet because I started to have my mentor look at it and all that kind of stuff.
So then I go to the Whitney. I had the afternoon and I go to the third floor where they generally had their permanent collection. I turned the corner, right turn left and there's a Clyfford, Still's 10 foot by 10 foot on the wall. And when I saw that, it answered all my questions.
JBarber: How?
Jamele: I was trying to figure out why my work didn't work in that space with the painted walls and the installation look and work up in the corner. And there was a 10-foot painting, on white walls. It was just the painting. It was no gimmicks. It was no like me trying to make it work, me trying to fit it into a space. It was just the work. And when I saw that, I went back to my studio upset because I now knew what it is I needed. And that was just white walls. Some people could put their stuff in the corner. My work isn't made for that. Some people can put their stuff on the floor. Maybe someday I'll get to that. But what I figured out about the work that I was making there is that what I needed was the white walls to separate. So you have to find the peace in the work. So you have to come to it-
JBarber: No distractions.
Jamele: No distractions. And that Clyfford Still's taught me that. And that was an amazing painting. I mean, Clyfford Still's is a Monarch man. I mean, this dude is beyond understanding. I mean, even for someone like yourself as a printmaker, I'm sure you understand the way he worked with line. In his abstraction, the way that he created almost landscapes with these paintings and when you find out he's from Denver, it makes perfect sense. You begin to go, oh, no, well, no wonder, you know, really great work.
JBarber: Yeah. That's awesome, man. So we're approaching the end, but I do want to bring up, the latest exhibition that you've been in a there's two of them, the Four Elements was at Marietta Cobb Museum is about to come down though.
Jamele: It comes down Sunday.
JBarber: And The South Got Something to Say, curated by Karen Comer Lowe now at the Hammond house. Shout out to Karen, got to bring her on the podcast. Tell me about that show a little bit. And what'd you think.
Jamele: Well that show was Interesting because it's not like in four walls. It's not inside of a building it's out in the world.
JBarber: Yeah. And, for those that don't know The South Got Something to Say, you can look it up and it was, they have these billboards, electronic billboards all over the city and it was part of dashboard. Yeah. And so they all work together to show like these group of artists that Karen's selected, and they put their work up on these big lED screens, like all over the city.
Jamele: Yes. And each artist has their own neighbourhood. So like, I think for [Inaudible 56:08] is Midtown, I think not sure and I'm on Peachtree street, me and Alfred Conteh on Peachtree street. So you have them in different places throughout the city. So it's really interesting because especially dealing with COVID like, it's an exhibition that you can go to without having to go indoors.
JBarber: Right. Without, having to get out your car at all and just experience as you drive by.
Jamele: As a matter of fact, when I went to go see my piece and Alfred's piece, I pulled over to the side of the road and I was just able to look up and see the work. So it's really interesting to, what technology is giving us when it comes to art.
JBarber: Yeah. Yeah. And I think because a lot of people were kind of forced into that space of, you know, we can't not have art like during, COVID like, what are we going to do? So it was a lot of the online exhibitions, a lot of, 3d showrooms, like online and a lot of this, like kind of, finding a way to broadcast the art. Now I consider it broadcasting. Cause it's not exactly showing like your original work. I see it as two completely separate things. Like seeing your work in person is one experience. And I think that is it's separate experience, And so I want, I wanted to ask you, like, how did you look at it or what do you think it did to your work and the presentation of it? If anything?
Jamele: I really thought it was fascinating because I'm the only abstractionist,
JBarber: That's true. That's true.
Jamele: So to see my work was completely different than seeing everyone else's work because everyone else has a painting that's a picture and it's on a billboard. Whereas mine is an abstraction and almost looks like, I don't know, like some kind of weird kind of graffiti, you know? So what we did was it was actually a painting that I did, based off a series that called Flat Splat, Just Like That, it's actually number 2 of that series. And, I had them cut the painting in half and put it side by side, and then they, wrapped the whole thing around the billboard. So it goes from the front all the way to the side. And that's kind of funky because it's really different than the fact that you have still pictures of portraiture on these buildings, but here you have something that goes completely around and consumes the whole space.
I was really humbled that I was asked to participate, but even more humbled by the way that it, exhibited on the billboard. To me, it was really exciting. It kinda reminded me of like the, Prada store in Martha, Texas, because it kind of stands alone in a way. And the light from it is so bright. I mean, I got really, really, excited when I saw it I was like, oh my God, this thing is fantastic because it's just so bright.
JBarber: Right. That's good. That's good. Cause you know it, and I wonder if you'll keep using it. Like if there's another way that you will try to do the same thing, like in your own way, like more purposefully that goes along with what you do. Does that make sense?
Jamele: When I saw it, I said, my brain started cooking and I was like, ah, [Interposed talking1:00:06 ] LED.
JBarber: They need to be shook up a little bit get you to think about some other stuff.
Jamele: Yeah. I mean, but that's the great thing about being an artist. We like I've been asked before, like what now? What's next? And for a long time, I was really, I wasn't really sure what was next, but then I began to understand that my practice kind of evolves, right. Like the same way I may pick up a string on the side of the road, or I used to pick up tires off the side of the expressway to make work. I'm not really sure what I'm going to make next, but I am sure that I'm going to continue to make. But each work builds off of the last work. So like the work that you saw at aviation center, when you go to Marianne museum and you see those pieces on the wall that are just the pouches by themselves. The pouches have now left, the physical aspect of the textile work. Now they become their own thing. So what does that mean? Now I begin asking questions. Okay. What does this mean for it to be separated from that? And how do I make it my own? How do I continue to make it my own? So though, I mean, every new work creates new questions and then you make work from those. Well, I make work from those questions.
JBarber: Absolutely. Man. I love it, man. Tell them where they can find you.
Jamele: I'm on Instagram. Jamelle writes senior, J A M E L E W R I G H T S R. You can find me with September Gray on her website. You can find me at Marianne museum. and on Peachtree street. I'm not literally standing on Peachtree street. But for The south Got Something to Say my work is on Peachtree street.
JBarber: Thank you. Man I appreciate you coming on the show man
Jamele: Oh I appreciate you asking me. I've been hoping for thissitting by the phone, waiting on a call from Jamal. And what's great about you and I is I wonder how you're going to say this because generally I get called Jamal. So there's going to be a nice tongue-twister for you to say This is Jamal introducing Jamelle.
JBarber: I could figure it out man, thanks for coming on the show man.