Almost fifteen years ago, a friend, who happened to be a reporter, asked me a series of questions, as if for an interview. It’s strange to read this now. Anyway, here are some of the answers I gave.

WHO AM I?

I see myself as a person, a human being, a light, a voice. I see myself as what every human being is—separate and trying to connect, trying to communicate.

I’m not a compartmentalized person, so I live in my world, and my communication may come out in any number of ways. I write. I paint. I sing. I don’t consider myself a singer, a writer, a painter. I consider myself a human being, trying to communicate, trying to—you know, throw things up and say,  “Look—here I am. What do you think? This is what I saw; did you see this?”

If I’m lucky enough to find people who have seen some of the things I’ve seen and maybe even interpret them in similar ways, then I’m not alone as I was before and I’m not afraid as I was before.

So much of my energy comes because I’ve been afraid for so long, because life is scary, especially as somebody who is completely separate. We all are, but we don’t all have to pay as acute attention to that.

It seems that people who become artists, for lack of a better label, are people who pay more attention, for whatever reason.

DO I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE AN ARTIST?

I’m a woman, a mother first, an artist second. Does that mean that I don’t have what it takes to make it?

I think society asks you to give up too much to make it in almost any arena—whether I could bounce a basketball better than anybody, or it I were someone who understood the dynamics of supply and demand, as in economics.

It seems society is constantly asking you to become a ‘thing’, separate from humanness in order to make it.  So you leave your family. You leave part of yourself to do that. You cannot be someone who loves and is committed to other people in order to make it in any arena in the world right now.

It’s considered okay for somebody like my father who I saw, alive, for the last time when I was three years old. He left, not only my family, but also apparently five or six other families. It’s perfectly acceptable for him though, because he is a man and he could point to all kinds of examples of why this is worthwhile. He is an artist. He is a performer. And there is absolutely no doubt in his mind of that.

For me, I’m first and foremost a woman. I am somebody’s mother. I’m somebody’s daughter. I am connected to people I cannot desert and cannot justify, with the sanctity of my art, deserting. So, it is part of my tradition, from growing up in the South, from being Black, and maybe for some people, it doesn’t matter, but it does to me.

LINGERING DOUBTS ABOUT MY ART

I forgot who said it—a very wise guy way back—that which is in you that cannot be destroyed is yours to keep.  I almost—actually did deny it. In despair I’d think, “You’re not an artist. Maybe you don’t have it.” I tried to live normally. “You’re not going to do this. You can’t.”

Then it was that I couldn’t NOT do it, you know what I mean? It was like, “There it is, anyway, in you. You keep doing it.” So, I decided not to try and impress anyone. Even to consider whether they would have to be shown, but just to take it one day at a time, and patiently, honestly, put down what had to be put down, as a person, and that’s what my paintings are.