004 MATERIALITY
LIVE CONVERSATION WITH ARTIST DWIGHT SMITH
recorded on
www.facebook.com/LOLWOWSOS/
October 7, 2019
LOL/WOW/SOS: Good afternoon Dwight, How are you this afternoon/evening? Thank you for participating in this interview. In the next few days, we are looking forward to learning more about your beginnings as an artist in Detroit and your current art practice. Kindly post an answer to this post so that we know that we are connected. Thanks.
Dwight Smith: Looking forward to this, and I live in North Carolina.
LOL/WOW/SOS: First, we would love to know about your beginnings as an artist in Detroit. When did you know that you wanted to become an artist? How did you make this happen? Did you have mentors or family that supported your decision? Kindly share your experience.
Dwight Smith: Okay, I have to go back almost sixty years to remember that I fell in love with art in the third grade at Pattengill Elementary School in Detroit, watching a student named Billy create a landscape drawing. I wanted to learn how to do what he was doing. At another elementary school, a student named Douglas M. had a father who was an artist, and Douglas could draw very well. That is when I knew that I would be an artist. I then took advantage of every art class that I could in elementary and high school. Back in the 50s and 60s, schools had full-blown art programs for students. But I really didn't take it seriously because I did not have any role models until college. Then, at Highland Park Community College, I met my life-long friend, mentor, and artist Shirley Woodson Reid and her husband Edsel. My life as an artist changed from that day forward. My parents supported my decisions to become an artist but they didn't know any artists. Through the Reids I met hundreds of Black American artists that I had no idea existed. They became a great balance to my Wayne State University art studio programs.
Dwight Smith: Wayne State University was a good contemporary art program supported by the Detroit Institute of Arts and other galleries and institutions. It was the late 60s and early70s and so many of the instructors, I felt, ignored the black students who were few in number in the art department. Many of the students were great, but it was very political and at times elitist, as the art world is, but I didn't seem to care about any of that. It was more about "what do I need to accomplish," that was my driving force that moved me forward against all odds. I also had family, friends, artist friends and church (which was more social for me than spiritual).
LOL/WOW/SOS: Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I will answer with two separate posts. You mentioned that you met “hundreds of Black American Artists” through your friendship with the Reids. Could you tell us a little more about this? I sense that this was important to you. What was it that these artists provided to you that the school couldn’t at the time? If one is an African American artist today, where should he/she look for support beyond family and friends?
Dwight Smith: Thank you for asking. Through the Reids I became a member of the National Conference of Artists Michigan Chapter, which was part of a larger national organization. The membership was comprised of Black American visual artists, art educators, art historians, museum personnel, gallery owners, collectors, arts students and others interested in the artistic culture of the African Diaspora. This organization in the 1970's had members all over the country, and they would meet once a year at a national conference hosted by an NCA chapter. This is where the hundreds of artists come into play. My first conference that I attended with Edsel and Shirley occurred in Atlanta, GA at Spelman and Morehouse Colleges. That year, I met all of the artists that I'd read about in any publication about Black American artists. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. David C. Driskell, Margaret Burroughs, Dr. Samella Lewis, Virginia Kiah, Varnette Honeywood – to name a few. It was an extraordinary experience. Jon Onye Lockard, who became my dear friend and mentor, watched over me at that conference because he knew I was overwhelmed by the experience. The art exhibitions and the collections were eye-opening for me. This helped me to meld my path and focus in the direction of Black Art. I felt at home and supported. This organization has been close to my heart ever since that time.
Dwight Smith: Do I think that there are more opportunities available now? YES! The canon in this area of American art has grown. Art historians, galleries, and museums are promoting, presenting, and collecting the works of African American artists. Several auction houses have major auctions of the works by these artists. Are they exhibited or sell at auction on the level of de Kooning, Pollock, or Reinhardt, no, but Mark Bradford and several others are doing pretty good. The scholarship in the area has expanded considerably. If I had known then what I know now, I would have collected more works. Oh the retirement I could have had.
LOL/WOW/SOS: I was happy to read your posts, thank you for sharing. You are an abstract painter. How did you end up choosing this path? Please, tell us more about the African American abstract painters that inspire you.
Dwight Smith: My path as an Abstract Artist to me is very interesting. The Wayne State University art courses were very contemporary in their focus. Abstract Expressionism was in vogue. I actually started out as a realist watercolour painter, but because the school allowed such freedom of expression in making art I found myself moving in that direction. I loved it. I poured watercolour paint onto heavy watercolour papers to watch the paint form in puddles to dry. I would stand on a chair and pour the paint so that it splattered into a variety of patterns and then as it dried, I would work back into the paint to manipulate and tweak the drying paint to achieve certain effects. When I moved into the acrylic and oil-based mediums, I started out as a still-life painter to understand the mediums, and quickly moved back into abstraction. My professors introduced the color field painters to me and I studied the German Abstract painters at the museums in the area. The Detroit Institute of Arts was almost across the street from the school’s painting studios. The Detroit art galleries were showing the latest contemporary works of the time: Motherwell, Paul Klee, Mondrian, Miro, de Kooning, and others. It was a wealth of informative information.
Now, where Wayne State, Detroit, and New York were eurocentric, Chicago institutions provided New York School and Western Art training. Detroit was a mecca for the developing Black Art galleries and institutions. The Detroit Institute had a Romare Bearden retrospective which included many of his abstract works that I found invigorating. I volunteered at a small arts center called ‘Your Heritage House’ run by a Josephine Love who was well connected with the black middle-class around the country. Through her I met Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Romare Bearden, Richard Hunt, and others. Through my involvement with NCA, I was fortunate enough to meet Samella Lewis, David C. Driskell, Al Loving, Betye Saar, Howardena Pindell and a host of others that influenced what I was doing, or should I say, approved of my direction in art. Many artists thought I should be creating art for the people, for Black people to understand as part of the Black Power and Civil Rights Movements. The Black Panther Party was well established in Detroit. The Afro-American Museum was getting started. There was a strong push for Black artists to create those political images. My work was non-political, so I thought. By accident, I discovered Ghanian Adinkra symbols which are a visual language of symbols used on textiles, and began using them in my work, which was perfect for me. Then I discovered the works of Norman Lewis, a Black Abstract Expressionist who ran in the circles of the New York School artists. He was a member of the Spiral group in New York which was a group of Black artists that had come together to respond to the Civil Rights Movement and the conditions of Black people in America.
At this moment in my visual practice, I am a huge Mark Bradford fan. I am intrigued with his use of materials to create the work. My soil paintings are inspired by him.
LOL/WOW/SOS: Thank you for your in-depth response. I appreciate learning about your trajectory as an abstract painter. Effectively, in an article in Artnews (2016), Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, explained that African American abstract artists during the 20th century “were being marginalized on both ends of the spectrum,” that they, because of the less political and more subtle messages were seen by other black artists as not being preoccupied with the issues concerning the black community. However, intuitively, I sense in your work a clear link between the materiality, the technique, the compositions and your African American heritage. You once explained to me that you see the soil and the symbols as metaphors for your heritage that you can’t trace but know is there. In a way, I feel that your work speaks through means of the dust embedded in the granular surfaces, about the loss/absence of this memory. Could you help decipher both the socio-political and poetic meaning of the soil and the symbols in your work? Please also tell us about the writings that have informed your research as a painter – looking forward to your answer.
Dwight Smith: The soil is the earth and it is one of the substances that informs the improvisation, materiality, the technique, and the compositions found in my African American heritage. The various hues in the soil many times will direct the palette used to complete the work. I acquired over 100 North Carolina samples from working a state-sponsored project. I am still amazed at the wide range of brown, gray, red, and blueish tones in the soil samples. It is, in many ways, a very spiritual experience to mix the various samples like paint with my hands and feel the textures as I throw or spread the material on the canvases that have about six coats of gesso or house paint on them to strengthen the surface of the canvas. Soil is heavy, so the support needs to be reinforced before the soil and paint mixtures can be applied. You mention the loss/absence of memory, and yes, my way of working is that response to the journey. It is my process of using the soil and found materials that give me that joyful connection to my heritage and studio practice. The use of the symbols in abstracted forms that are painted, sprayed, or stenciled provide another layer of language. If you can read the symbols, you understand the context of the work. I also give my works titles that celebrate cultural icons and other artists.
Dwight Smith: Currently I am doing a lot of reading on the subject of Abstract Expressionism and the Black Art Movement of the 70s and 80s. ‘Soul of a Nation’ is an exhibition that is touring the US. It has a hardcover catalogue that investigates the art of the time period that we have been talking about in our conversation. About 30 essays and reflections on the period. An essay by Mark Godfrey entitled ‘Notes on Black Abstraction: Al Loving's Crisis,’ references a statement by Allen Gordon, a prof. of Art History at Sacramento University who says: "I think that an African sensibility is manifested more by attitude, by style, by a way of perceiving the world by a particular technique.” I think there are definite African elements in the work of Loving (and my work) in the improvisatory quality, the sense of transformation that occurs: the element of chance, the sense of extemporizing, the deviation and arbitrariness ... I think this explains much about my work and the content that develops out of the process of making art. I picked up a book on Abstract Expressionism by art historian Barbara Hess that discusses the period and many of the artists of that New York School. I have several other publications that help with the research. I read HYPERALLERGIC on-line arts publication every day. It keeps me in the loop of what is happening currently in the art world. Love it, love it, love it. It leads me in all kinds of directions and artistic information. Thank you for introducing me to the CUT. I enjoyed the piece on Marilyn Minter. Now I am going to do the YOUTUBE piece on Mark Bradford who I really, really want to meet.
LOL/WOW/SOS: Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the soil and symbols in your work. Love that your paintings are constructed through these multiple layers of meaning by the means of the chosen materials and techniques. Looking forward to learning more about the exhibition ‘Soul of a Nation,’ I will post some information about it on this page. I’d like to end our interview by talking a little more about your studio practice. Would you like to tell us, what your dreams and aspirations are for your art/studio practice? What are the projects you are working on? Do you have any exhibitions of your own work planned? If you like, you may share as many pictures as you wish below your post. Your work is gorgeous, share it with us!
Dwight Smith: Let me start by saying that I have truly enjoyed our conversation in so many ways. Thank you. As for my current practice, I am currently working on twelve large canvas paintings that I hope to show in the spring or summer of 2020. I am preparing a few small paper collage works for group exhibitions in India and China next year. I am looking for a space for a one-person exhibition of about thirty works that would cover my last twenty years. My newest works are influenced by my research and readings on Richard Pousette-Dart, Al Loving’s later works, and anything by Mark Bradford and Anselm Kiefer; textures, pigments, and materials, undulating, subtle hues; my canvas works appear as time capsules that reference cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, graffiti art, and include selected cast-off materials that my students’ or other people lose by accident. An earring, a cheap necklace or objects that has been run over by a car which are symbols of our decadent society. They act as surprise elements to the narratives of the work. These works are still in development and one of my students reclaimed her earring, bummer. In my studio at home I have been working on a series of about forty to fifty watercolour, ink, and gouache collage paintings. They started out as a tribute to James Baldwin, but they have really gone in another direction. Will have to start the Baldwin paintings over. Sometimes it works and sometimes you just go with the flow. My dreams are to just continue to do the work. Up for promotion and tenure as an Associate Professor this year and will find out in the Spring if I make it. I will share some images later. Thank you again, and I look forward to reading your other conversations.
LOW/WOW/SOS: Congratulations to all the positive events taking place. It will be wonderful to see your new work. Thank you for pursuing this conversation here on LOL/WOW/SOS, it has been a joy learning more about your artistic practice. Have a good day in art and life!