African-American Artists Beginning to Educate Americans About African-American Art (ABEA)

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Della Wells’ exhibit “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Fly” is on display at the Charles Allis Art Museum through July 9.
Evelyn Patricia Terry, Della Wells and other MARN members show their work at the Summer Soulstice Music Festival on North Avenue, Saturday, June 24.
ABEA artists take part in the second annual Milwaukee Artist Marketplace at the Milwaukee Art Museum on Gallery Day, Saturday, July 29.
Ras ’Ammar Nsoroma, Mutope J. Johnson, Sonji Hunt, Della Wells and other Milwaukee artists are currently exhibiting at Minneapolis galleries Juxtaposition Arts, Homewood Studios and Obsidian Arts as part of an artist exchange. The show, “Trip Tick 2,” runs through June 30. See www.juxtaposition.org for details.

Envisioning Diversity
Local arts organization builds community, calls for education
by Caroline Goyette

Evelyn Patricia Terry’s studio is empty of students, but their recent presence is clear. Art projects and supplies litter the long tables. Chairs are shoved helter-skelter around the room. Warm and outgoing, Terry, artist-in-residence at the Lincoln Center of the Arts, seems slightly frazzled, as though she’s been engaged in battle.
Around the edges of the room, Terry’s own work­brightly colored canvases, boxes of handmade pins­forms a cheerful clutter, along with that of fellow Milwaukee artist Ras ’Ammar Nsoroma.
As Terry touches up the blue around the borders of a student project­today was the last day of class­she talks about trying to teach her students life as well as art skills.
“Put your energy into what you want your life to become,” Terry says, “not into somebody else who’s picking at you all day­draining you and keeping you from what you want to be. So much so that you don’t even know who you want to be anymore.”
She is speaking to the challenges of middle-schoolers, but the words have resonance for artists in all stages of their careers. Terry, a prominent member of ABEA, the now 5-year-old local organization promoting African-American art, emphasizes similar issues in her mentoring of up-and-coming visual artists.
“That’s what this is all about to me,” she says of the organization. “Equipping everybody with the wherewithal to be whoever they want to be.”

Educate, Advocate
Founded in 2001 by acclaimed Milwaukee-based folk artist Della Wells (Wells is president of the organization; Terry is secretary), ABEA takes a multi-step approach to achieving that goal. An acronym for a somewhat unwieldy title­African-American Artists Beginning to Educate Americans About African-American Art­ABEA (pronounced “a-bay-a”) seeks both to educate and to advocate.
“We try to inform artists; we also try to mentor artists,” Wells says. That mentorship can include guidance on exhibiting work as well as other nuts-and-bolts information about making a career in the visual arts­an approach that many find refreshing.
“I am not a joiner of groups, but I joined because I really liked what I saw Della doing,” says Sonji Hunt, a full-time artist and painter who works with fabrics. “It’s more of a business side of art … more experienced artists helping to educate younger artists in how you go about the business of art.”
“The artists in the group have a very wide range of experience, and I’ve been able to glean knowledge from different people and pick up on things that I didn’t know about before,” explains Blanche Brown, who has been pursuing art in various media in Milwaukee for three years.
ABEA members vary in training from the self-taught to those with advanced degrees in the fine arts. Some work day-jobs to support their art; others pursue their art as full-time jobs. ABEA hosts two exhibits a year and facilitates artist exchanges with organizations from other cities.
“ABEA for me is really filling the gap left by the Inner City Arts Council,” says artist Muneer Bahauddeen, noting the organization’s exhibition offerings, including last year’s celebrated show at the Mother Kathryn Daniels Conference Center. ABEA is hoping to receive non-profit status soon, Wells says, which will allow for more exhibitions and other activities.
In addition to practical lessons and opportunities in the present, ABEA’s educational mission also includes goals for the future. “We want to expose African-American people and other people of color to the roles of curator, art historian, art administrator,” Wells says. She sees the lack of people of color in such roles leading to African-American and other types of art being less visible and less supported in the community as a whole. “We encourage our members to curate shows, because that’s the only way things are going to change,” Wells says.
Teaching people about art and fostering communities of buyers­African-American and otherwise­are other educational goals with long-term benefits.
In terms of advocacy, explains Bahauddeen, the organization offers members “the incentive and courage to take care of their business. Sometimes artists will get taken by a client or agent, and in that respect ABEA acts as an advocacy group, standing up collectively for the individual, to ensure that he or she gets paid.”
ABEA also provides a more general support system, as well as enhanced visibility.
“We go out of our way to be supportive, not just to purchase each other’s work but to be at the openings, to have a dialogue with each other, to encourage and help each other. We’re better off together than we are as stand-alone individuals,” says artist and contributing exhibition chairperson Mutope J. Johnson.
In particular, Johnson continues, ABEA ensures African-American artists are able to have a voice on issues that involve them. “When issues relating to African-American artists come up, it often seems as though no one can find us. When you begin to talk about issues of diversity, or you’re talking about the arts as it affects the African-American community, people need to focus on artists from that community and get their spin on the issues, rather than just assume we don’t exist and take liberties and tell the rest of the community what they think is going on in the African-American community as far as art is concerned. In that respect, ABEA allows us to speak for ourselves; we can talk directly to issues that affect us.”

Artist Perspectives
In spite of the support ABEA provides, some see continued difficulties in access and understanding in Milwaukee’s arts community. The question of how African-American artists and their work fit into the larger arts community is a persistent one; it’s also one artists have different opinions on.
“For me personally­I’m not speaking for ABEA, I’m speaking just for myself­I think there’s still a huge learning curve [for accepting African-American art in Milwaukee],” says Johnson. “I think that there’s some much-needed education when it comes to acceptance.”
“There are just a lot of areas where people are not knowledgeable about African-American artists,” Brown says. “I think some people still have a concept of, ‘Oh, they only paint a certain way, they only paint certain things,’ or ‘They’re not concerned with the business of art.’”
Along with narrow ideas about what art by an African-American artist should look like, come pressures. “I have pressure from all kinds of people, white and black,” Terry says. “Outside of the African-American community, our problems are basically, people always say you’re not good enough; you don’t fit. You’re not good enough.”
Wells points to criticism of public murals as an example of elitism and lack of understanding among some circles of the arts community. “There’s criticism of African-American art from outside of the community, and they don’t really know what’s happening. … There are historical reasons why murals are done in the African-American community and also the Latino community.”
Ras ’Ammar Nsoroma was heavily influenced by the Reynaldo Hernandez murals he saw growing up in the city; he himself has completed several murals as well as other public art commissions in Milwaukee. He notes the difference between Milwaukee’s view of murals and the attitude of other cities. “In Chicago, there’s a variety of cultures making murals. And people embrace it more. In Philadelphia, there’s a real renaissance of murals happening right now, and it’s by a variety of people­Caucasians, Asians, Latinos. … Here, they’re associated with poor communities, mostly. People outside of inner-city communities look at murals, and they consider it bad art in a way.”
“You have critics saying this or that is really bad art,” says Bahauddeen, who also works in public art. “But if there is something out there that touches the heart of someone who is about to do something negative, and it turns him or her around, then it really isn’t bad art. It’s medicine.”
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Nsoroma says. “You want to deal with your culture and be proud of who you are, and address it in your work, but then people try to make you suffer for it anyway.”

Breaking Out of the Box
Another concern for some artists is the limiting tendency of ethnic labels.
“We are artists who just so happen to be African American, but sometimes we’re constantly pigeonholed,” Johnson says.
“People try to put us in a box,” Nsoroma says. “They may try to include us in black shows around February [Black History Month]; they don’t look at you as just an artist. You have to struggle with that.”
“Seems like they never find us, for the most part, till Black History Month,” Wells says. “And people think it’s wonderful because they do a show based on diversity, or because it’s African American. Personally, I think they could be a little more creative, because it should really be about the work.”
Denise Crumble, co-founder of the Arts Village, an organization that works to increase patronage of African-American visual and performing arts, sees an even more insidious effect of such labels. “The broader community tries to ghettoize African-American artists and artists of color, and relegate [their work] to a community art kind of recreational form, when these people are educated, dedicated, and sell their work.” The result, she says, is that “they don’t want to pay them; they want them to work for free.”

Inclusiveness, Responsibility and a Vibrant City
Lack of a major black arts institution and African-American curators and art historians, says Wells, and lack of adequate support from the private and public sectors, says Crumble, are further complicating factors for African-American artists in Milwaukee.
For artists such as Jeanette Wright-Claus, it all comes down to a simple need for inclusiveness. “I grew up on the East Side,” she says, “and I notice there’s a lot going on there now [in the arts], but I haven’t seen much going on as far as diversity is concerned.
“I just wish we had more representation on the cultural scene,” she continues. “When people come into town such as they did for this [Americans for the Arts] convention and they’re looking at what’s going on in our community, I want them to see African Americans doing their thing here. I don’t want to be excluded from the rainbow.”
Crumble notes that supporting cultural diversity would benefit Milwaukee in several ways. First of all, she says, increased funding for African-American arts would be a boost to children who aren’t getting arts education in school. “If you look at all the problems we’re having now with young people and violence, these kids are growing up hopeless and with not enough outlets for expression,” she says. “If we had more of an opportunity for these kids to learn about their culture, and the artistic expression in their community, it would really help.”
Promoting diversity also ensures a vibrant city, Crumble maintains. “We always talk about how can we keep young professionals here, and how can we encourage them to come back home,” she says. “Whether they’re white or black, Native American or Asian, young professionals want diversity. They don’t want a milquetoast, boring community to live in. They’re looking for urban areas that have diversity of population and of cultural opportunity.”
Wells agrees. “I really challenge the business community, I challenge our political leaders, I challenge people in the arts community, to get some things going here,” she says. “There’s a lot of talk about diversity; start including people who are really involved in the arts in the African-American community [in decision-making].”
For their part, many artists are already active in serving their communities, regardless of external support or recognition.
Through his murals and public art work, says Nsoroma, “I feel like I’m contributing; I can address problems and issues of my culture or community, and I feel a responsibility that way.”
Wright-Claus recently put together an exhibit dealing with gun violence; the show is part of an effort to lobby for background checks for guns. “I would like to see improvements in the community, and if I can use art as a vehicle to do that, I’m more than willing to try. It’s very important to me,” she says.
“Where I live, the kids know Mr. Johnson as an artist, because I spend time with them,” Johnson says. “I get on the sidewalk and draw dinosaurs; I do illustrations for them. That’s how you do it. It’s not always about selling, it’s about influencing; itabout sharing.”
Terry, who mentored Wells and Nsoroma, among countless others, continues to share herself as well. Seeing the success of those she’s advised excites her, she says. “If I could inspire [others], I could do the same for me. It fires me up. … ’Ammar, every time he gets a big commission, I’m so happy. When he tells me he didn’t get paid for something, I’m like, ‘What?’”
And in the end, Terry notes that, regardless of issues of race, all artists deal with some of the same fundamental challenges.
“I think as an artist you have to figure out your life because it’s sort of like being in the wilderness,” she says. “Whoever you are, you have to find out where you fit.”

Della Wells’ exhibit “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Fly” is on display at the Charles Allis Art Museum through July 9.
Evelyn Patricia Terry, Della Wells and other MARN members show their work at the Summer Soulstice Music Festival on North Avenue, Saturday, June 24.
ABEA artists take part in the second annual Milwaukee Artist Marketplace at the Milwaukee Art Museum on Gallery Day, Saturday, July 29.
Ras ’Ammar Nsoroma, Mutope J. Johnson, Sonji Hunt, Della Wells and other Milwaukee artists are currently exhibiting at Minneapolis galleries Juxtaposition Arts, Homewood Studios and Obsidian Arts as part of an artist exchange. The show, “Trip Tick 2,” runs through June 30. See www.juxtaposition.org for details.