The Passion Of Art

Morning,

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’m teaching two undergraduate classes at City College this semester. One is an Intro to Art Education class that I’ve taught for the last three years. The second one is basically a thesis of my adult life. It’s called “Harlem Convergence.” The goal of the course is to provide thoughtful footing in the historic neighborhood where City College is situated, Harlem, as a means of developing a nuanced understanding and development of community engaged ways of art making. 

Art has been a part of my life since the end of high school. I went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for Photography and Imaging and then a couple of years after graduating, made my way west to attend California College of the Arts (CCA) to receive my MA in Curatorial Practice. I sublet my studio apartment in Sugar Hill to a friend while I was gone. I chose to attend CCA because I loved how the program defined exhibition making. Exhibitions didn’t just need to live in museums. My department encouraged us to think about exhibition making in public spaces, in books, and as a series of experiences as well as traditional gallery settings.

A view of the City College campus from one of my classrooms.

I have been attracted to art all these years because of its power to bring people together and to catalyze meaningful conversation. After grad school, I moved back to my studio apartment in Harlem and began working in non-profit arts organizations and museums to interpret art for people by way of public programs. My work with Sugar Hill Creamery is an extension of all my training. I think of the store as a museum of sorts. The ice cream is the art and while people don’t come to learn more about how Nick makes the ice cream, they come to experience it while connecting with each other. Through the programs that I organize, they often learn more about each other, Harlem, and sometimes themselves.

During the Harlem Convergence class this past Thursday, I brought in one of the subjects depicted on the walls of our Lenox store – Ms. Christola Phoenix. She was born and raised in Harlem and raised her kids in the neighborhood. She became a registered nurse and spent her career working at Harlem Hospital. Now retired, she is writing her memoir. In addition to reading an excerpt of Ms. Phoenix’s story, the students were also asked to read a chapter of Jamal Joseph’s book Panther Baby, which gives an internal account of what it was like to be a part of the Black Panther Party in Harlem. This passage in Chapter 4 stuck out to me, 

“One day I was with Afeni and other Panthers in a broken down building whose tenants we were helping to organize. I saw a little boy with a bandage covering an ugly rat bite. We noticed a baby sleeping in a crib with panties tied around his head. ‘Why do you have panties around the baby’s head?’ Afeni asked the young mother. 

‘So the roaches won’t crawl into her nose or her ears while she sleeps,’ the young mother replied tearfully. ‘I scrub my house every day. I use the insect spray every night, and they still come back.’”

A rendering of a building located on St. Nicholas Ave that a student made after I showed them a new printmaking technique using block ink, transparency paper, and a pencil.

As I listened to Ms. Phoenix talk about her Harlem from the 1950s and I thought about this particular passage, I started thinking about what it means for us to be in control of our lives. We’re not in control of much, not our kids, not our partners, not anyone around us except us.

Aside from the heartbreaking image of a mother protecting her child from roaches with underwear, this particular image is even more gut wrenching because she did not seem to have control of the situation. The way her life was depicted, it seems she did not have an option to leave and she did not have the wherewithal to self-organize with her neighbors to demand livable conditions.

But then, I thought about how she would have felt if she owned this property.

So often you see stories of people buying fixer uppers that have a colony of pests who had made this newly acquired pile of bricks their home for years. The new owners go in determined to excavate all the pests and rebuild a home that is safe, warm, and welcoming for human dwelling. Despite the circumstances, they go in, in charge and committed to a favorable outcome – a pest-free home.

But, when we are at the hands of a long distance landlord whose proximity to an infestation yields a can’t-be-bothered approach, a feeling of helplessness sets in. 

Ms. Phoenix is the portrait outlined in blue. And, here I am actually leading young campers in a conversation and workshop about how we make ice cream. This image supports my argument that we are in fact a museum of sorts. Ha!

What this passage made me think about is our mindsets when things seem out of reach. The Black Panthers came to that building to help the tenants self-organize, but until then, the feeling of helplessness and things feeling out of reach was likely the mode of the day for all who lived there.

When we are in charge of our environments and truly in command of our lives, the hard things that come our way might feel taxing but the feeling of helplessness isn’t the go-to emotion. 

It is when we feel we have no power in a situation that we rescind our agency. 

This week, let's focus on these feelings of helplessness and having agency. If feeling helpless about some aspect of our lives, let’s explore how we can regain control of ourselves, our emotions, and the places that our bodies reside. Conversation with others, meditation with a higher power, self-advocacy, identifying helpful resources that can improve our quality of life are just a few strategies we can employ. If feeling in charge of all aspects of our lives, take note of what contributes to that feeling. I’d put money on the idea that you feel that way because of your mindset. When we believe that we are in control and fully embody that idea through our actions and our thoughts, we possess a command of ourselves that is untouchable.

Ms. Phoenix reads from her memoir last Thursday.

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