All is calm on the yards of green grass that stretch out from the Blackburn Center, a kind of all-purpose structure nestled on the campus of Howard University in Washington DC. A smattering of students stroll by or lounge on the concrete benches that border the “yard,” Howard’s version of the perfected piece of landscape that every college seems to need to qualify as an institution of higher learning. Though I don’t see any camera men hovering over pedestals or fiddling with lenses, I wouldn’t be surprised if some future admissions guide featured an image captured at this precise moment splashed across its cover. A perfect summer day has conveniently fallen in a spring calendar month and all is right in the world.
But as much as I would like to lay flat on my back on the green grass and let the years since I was a young co-ed melt away, I have other things to attend to. The Blackburn Center is hosting the final day of the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and I have questions that need answering. Over the course of the past few years I have encountered artistic talent after artistic talent that studied on this very campus; fully formed talents that have eagerly attacked the art world armed with a Molotov-like cocktail of mission, motivation and moxie. Where many young black artists find the business of creating something from nothing difficult and intimidating within the confines of the contemporary art world, these men and women maneuver such obstacles like it were second nature to do so. I wanted to find out what kind from which such diamonds are formed so I’ve come to Howard University and the Porter Colloquium to find the source.
Established at Howard University in 1990, the annual Colloquium is named in honor of James A. Porter, the pioneering Art Historian and Professor, whose 1943 publication Modern Negro Art set the standard for probing discourse on the subject of Black American Art. Since its inception, the Colloquium has eagerly attacked meaty subjects that deal in and around the historiography of African American art while other forums for discussing Art have seemed intent on remaining obstinate about the contributions Black artists have made to the global legacy of art. But the Porter Colloquium is nothing if not ambitious. It bills itself as “the leading forum for scholars, artists, curators and others in the field of African American Art and Visual Culture.” To prove its point, the Colloquium has brought art figures such as David Driskell, Ann Gibson, Leslie King Hammond, Michael D. Harris, Samella Lewis, E.J. Montgomery, John Scott, Deborah Willis and Judith Wilson to Howard’s campus.
This year has been no different. The Colloquium has taken on the challenges of “focusing on developing new strategies of analysis and interpretation that are anti-hegemonic, that reveal the changing realities and the efficacy of new narratives;” And “noting the multiple meanings and histories of migration and globalization and their impact on artistic production and reception of the art of African Americans and the art of the African Diaspora.” Honorees include Robert Farris Thomas; one of the earth’s most quoted authorities on African and Afro-Atlantic cultures, and Evangeline J. Montgomery, who may have written the book—both literally and figuratively—on melding artistic talent with administrative know-how. |
Through the front doors and up the initial flight of stairs there are tables and easels filled with artwork and art books for the silent auction that will begin once the panels have ended. The session is in progress so I eye the wealth of visual stimulation quickly before entering the auditorium. Inside, Arthur Monroe is discussing the iconic Charlie Parkers’ prematurely interrupted forays into visual art. The wonder of the possibilities that the music genius could have contributed to visual forms of art is reflected in the eyes of nearly every person sitting in the well-populated audience. I am right on time. I settle into a chair near the front and listen.
Over the course of the session, the mood and energy of the participants and audience members continually shifts and changes. Laughter and polite banter shifts smoothly into pointed intellectual debate and civilized dis-agreeance. It is stimulating conversation and I decide that I had come too far to have the discussion end without speaking my piece. My arm is in the air before the call for questions has finished.
Now, I have appeared on radio and television and between the pages of a national magazine and never had a problem speaking my mind. I have been more than happy to lather partial-sense on the spots my logic didn’t quite cover and then eagerly invite dissenting points of view. I have rambled on and on in graduate level Ivy League courses about personal hypotheses that stretched beyond anathema into blasphemy within the boundaries of the Ivy Tower and not thought twice. But here, in front of so many people who have thought long and hard about the issues inherent in the presentation and creation of Black art; here where the integrity of Black art is rightfully revered; I am nervous as hell.
And it is at this moment that I get it. I understand the confidence of the young artists that have stormed the New York art community like Wu-Tang. This discussion and debate; this information gathering and sharing; this validation that everyone’s contributions are significant and worthy of attention; this passion is the fire that forges diamonds. And I am feeling the heat. Heart pounding at Techno paced beats-per-minute and knees knocking, I rise when my turn comes and proceed to fold musings on the inadequacy of audience development efforts by established arts institutions into question form. Simultaneously thinking and forgetting the things that I am saying. But when I sit back down… I feel large like I’ve done something. I feel that I’ve added unto something regardless of how small my actual contribution was. I feel good.
And when the professor who sat in full view of my nervousness and inability to control my legs, compliments me on keeping my voice strong when everything else refused to cooperate, I laugh and say thank you. Then I comment on hot it was.
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