StudyMe: If You Want to Talk About Discovering Some Shit
Photo by Donald Black, Jr.
I first met Donald Black, Jr. (a.k.a. D. Black) in November of 2010. At the time, I was directing an after-school program for girls. The program had money to bring in an artist for Black History Month so I reached out to the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning (CAL). I used to work at CAL back in 2005 (it was Young Audiences back then) so I knew they had a roster of artists who would facilitate art workshops during out-of-school time hours. I wanted someone who could help the girls transfer images of notable Black women onto blue jeans.
CAL’s program coordinator instantly recommended D. Black. She arranged a meeting with the three of us and I was sold on hiring him as soon as I saw his work. I remember him showing me a black and white photographic mural of trees he had installed at a Cleveland public school. It was beautiful. But I was even more attracted to his vision. He was instantly thinking of ways to make the project stronger. “You gotta document this,” he said. So when we started the project he brought his camera. Twelve years later, I still have video footage and photographs from the project and practically everything else we did at the program. I even still have the pair of jeans I made.
This is the genius of D. Black. He thinks ahead. He sees the end goal. He digs deep. He considers all the possibilities and he knows what’ll make a project special and last forever.
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I’m quick to credit D. Black for a lot of my growth as a person and as a writer. We’ve had countless conversations over the years about our collective work, our individual work, and what it means to be an artist. In our first episode of StudyMe, the podcast that investigates D. Black and his work, we talked about discovery. We covered everything from when D. Black discovered he was an artist to how he distinguishes between the idea of “discovery” versus “finding” and more. He shared what he has discovered about himself as an artist over the years. In my mind, one of his biggest discoveries is that the more his work started to reflect his identity—“Black man, nigga, inner city, hip-hop culture, hoodie—the less interested the formal art world seemed to be in providing a platform for [him] to have conversations.” Instead of changing his work to appease the formal art world, he discovered that the formal art world “might be the wrong place” for him and now he is finding new platforms for his work. I respect his commitment to his work because it shows his commitment to and love for himself.
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One of the things I’m still sitting with from that conversation is the moment we start talking about one of my own discoveries as an artist—the struggle I have talking about my work. I feel envious of artists who can sit back and talk about their work with elegance and ease. I be wondering if I’m the only artist who feels like this. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me because I don’t always have sophisticated answers about my work that some of y’all have about y’all work.
Is this a thing or am I tripping? When I talked to D. Black I realized that I’m not tripping—it’s something that he used to struggle with. One of the things that helped him learn how to talk about his work was asking himself, “What am I not saying?” And don’t get me wrong, I’m excited by this challenge of getting better at talking about my work so I love the idea of thinking about the things I’m not saying. Of all the times I’ve been asked about a poem or an essay that I’ve written, I can guarantee you that I haven’t said everything that I have to say. For instance, I’ve never said out loud that I write so much about death because I’m terrified of it. It isn’t just because death is all around me. Writing about death is my way of facing it—it’s how I take my time trying to process why this friend died so violently and why that friend or cousin or mother died so young and whether or not I’ll follow the pattern.
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Every now and then, we might get lucky and come across people like D. Black—people that challenge you and get you thinking about your practice as an artist or just your “being” as a human. I find that I’m not alone whenever I’m in conversation with him. The insecurities and fears that I have as an artist are not singular to me. We’re all trying to figure it out. We’re all trying to discover new things and tap into the possibilities.