Calida Rawles: “Once You Put a Black Figure in Water, There’s Context”

TRANSCRIPT

Calida Rawles: Once you put a black figure in water, there’s context. It was the first time I had an example in my mind how what happened with segregation is still impacting a culture, because there wasn’t access for my mom to go swim. The leisure of swimming wasn’t common, and I didn’t think about that.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi, I’m Dan Rubinstein and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour to the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel, all the elements of well-lived life. On this podcast, we’ve met a ton of artists, many of whom have been successful for decades. But sometimes their stories can be a bit rosy when you’re speaking with someone that senior. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sculptor or an architect, sometimes the trials and tribulations are ignored or even forgotten. My guest today is an artist who has overcome numerous creative challenges and found herself in a well-deserved career stride. One that is equally personally fulfilling as well as it is culturally relevant, Calida Rawles. Her often large-scale photorealistic paintings depicting black people in and out of bodies of water have really struck a chord for their beauty and resonance.

Her first major solo show Away with the Tides just wrapped up at the Perez Art Museum in Miami, and she’s currently represented by Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York. The Perez said this about her work. “Calida Rawles envisions water as a space for black healing and reimagines the African-American community beyond the stories we already know as part of the United States collective history. Merging hyperrealism, poetic abstraction, and the cultural and historical symbolisms of water, Rawles creates unique portraits of black bodies submerged in and interacting with bright and mysterious bodies of water. The water itself, a sort of character within the paintings, functions as an element that signifies both physical and spiritual healing as well as historical trauma and racial exclusion.”

To hear Calida’s story on the podcast today, overcoming professors that didn’t believe in her and being inspired by friends and fellow artists that did, is inspiring to any creative. And her work, which mixes a high degree of technical acuity with a kind of joyful creativity is really something to behold. It’s a story of perseverance and the inherent value in artistry that overcomes the forces of cynicism in the art world today.

I caught up with Calida from her studio in Los Angeles to talk about her creative process, the fraught and complex relationships between the black community and water, getting shot down by her professors at NYU, how fiction inspires her paintings and more.

I’d love to start at the beginning. I read that both of your parents were kind of working-class and Amtrak employee and a post office worker. Real responsible folks, both sound like very responsible jobs. How would you describe your home life growing up?

The first, the word that pops in my head when you ask me that, is quiet. And I have to even think about that. I think because I have a brother that’s seven years older than me, so it was kind of like we were in two different worlds. My mom worked a lot and I was always given a lot of art supplies for things to do. It was like television, art supplies. My mom would almost cook big meals every Sunday, and it was about heating up food throughout the week. She was like … It was a very utilitarian type of idea of food.

What kind of art did you do as a kid?

I drew my cat a lot. I drew things around the house, objects. But my first drawings I remember, were of cartoons like Garfield. I could draw Garfield very quickly. I used to draw Garfield in different ways and sell them to the kids at school, and any cartoon they liked with their name in some way. I was always able to mimic. I could draw what I see. There’s never been … And I did that all my life. And so as a kid it was always just looking at … Drawing my hands. I drew my hands all the time. After a while it became more complex.

And did your parents sort of encourage that creativity? Did they recognize it sort of a talent or an ability in you that as parents sometimes do?

Yes, I think so. Well, mom could draw.

Oh, okay.

But she was also a photographer and so sometimes in her downtime there were moments where our guest bathroom would be a dark room and she would develop her pictures.

I’ve heard that you had a love of literature also as a kid, and that was really important to you, as it is now. But is there a novel that you read as a teenager that you think was important to you, now looking back?

Yeah, you know what? I remember the book that hooked me was Manchild in Promised Land by Claude Brown. I remember, it’s an older book, but I remember there was one scene where Claude is at his neighbor’s house and they’re about maybe nine or 10 years old. And it was one of his best friends, he’s at the guy’s house, and him and his sister are fighting over an egg. And he thought it was really funny because they were wrestling and fighting and then the egg smashed to the ground and he was starting to chuckle. But then he realized the little sister started to cry and then he saw his friend’s face and that’s when he realized they were hungry, that he had missed that and didn’t understand. And then he went to the store and got them these eggs.

But I remember how it was written, I was going along with him in the beginning of feeling like there was just these silly squabble went that far and they’re wrestling over it. Look how stupid they are. Look how ridiculous that is. And then he realized it was survival, and then it was like he saw the rooms and he noticed the house. And it was like he took me along with that and it was a very moving scene in my head, in my memory. And now I’ve read this book in a long time, but I do remember that and this guy’s journey of being raised, I don’t even remember what city he was in, but him watching drugs come into this community. That there were families and then when drugs took over. And he was kind of in a gang or something, and then he went to boys’ homes and then he restructured his life and ended up going to college and becoming this, I don’t know, a writer and wrote this book about his life and just the growth that a person can do.

And you first studied at Spelman in Atlanta, which is an HBCU for those that maybe not from the states, quite famous. Why that school? How did you wind up going there?

I remember when I went to visit it, it was just felt like home. And it was all these young black women, so all women’s black college. They were all the top of their class and doing all these amazing things. I remember talking to this one girl, I was there as this prospective student at the time, at the table, and she was like, “Yeah, I studied at NASA for the summer.” And I was like, “What?” And someone’s like, “Oh, and I did this.” And I was like, “Everybody’s just … I can paint.” But it was very exciting to be in a group of high achieving people and I wanted to be there.

And did you think about what you wanted to study there when you got there? What did you study?

I ended up being a art major, painting-focused. But when I first came, I was undecided and I was thinking psychology or history. I thought I was maybe a history professor or African-American literature professor, I imagined myself. Or psychology.

Was there a flash point when you realized that painting was kind of something you wanted to really study schoolwise?

I can’t think of the moment, but I remember taking classes and feeling like I could grow and I wanted to push myself and I wanted to do it at all times. Because I think the other subjects kind of faded out. I went to psychology classes too. I was taking those classes and I remember feeling like the little classes I did take, I felt like you were to listen to people and then put them in the prescribed box, “This is how they are, so they must be like this,” instead of listening to someone. And it didn’t seem like … I didn’t believe in that theory, and I was like, it was too prescribed of what I was learning and I felt like I would be always combating what I was teaching and how they were trying to teach it to me. And I don’t really believe you necessarily set people into these small narrow categories.

And then with English, I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of English majors that thought I was an English major too because I was in their classes, because I continued taking some of these classes because they were just interest to me. I enjoyed it and I enjoy writing. And of course I love reading and I love the artistry of wordplay. But when I painted, I really felt like hours would go by.

And it still is like that now. When I see that, when I say I’m going to go paint and I’m going to leave at six, it feels limiting. Like, oh no, I get there at nine, I got to leave at six. For other people, that sounds like a long day or a standard day, but to me it’s like, “Okay, I’ll go home because my kids are there and I do need to see them.” But if they were not home or if they’re out, that means I get to stay and I get really like I don’t have to feel limited by time and I can stay as long as I want. Just the fact that I have that and it’s something I get paid to do. That’s it.

And you went to NYU to get an MA in painting. Was that your first time spending time in New York and do you remember … I don’t know, anyone moving to any big city has got to be, is it big? Maybe it’s a culture shock or maybe it’s just a fun adjustment that seems so eye-opening. What was your time in New York like?

That’s exactly, it was a culture shock. I did go to New York often with my father. He would take me there a lot on trips, day in. It was really fun and I really wanted to go there. I actually applied early decision undergrad to NYU and I got in and I was supposed to go there, but then when I visited Spelman, I was like, “Nah. Changed my mind, sorry.” And so I knew I wanted to get to New York for grad school because it was something I always wanted to be and live in. But when I got there, it was hard. And I think I may have gotten a little depressed, but I didn’t know it at the time. I couldn’t identify it as that. But I remember trying to talk to this teacher about it, like, “This isn’t right.” I mean, I got a B in painting and I was still irritated as hell. I was like, I shouldn’t get a B in this class. It was hard to adjust.

Was it a new level of people? You’re on a master’s degree, graduate degree level, was it like all of a sudden, you were in New York City and NYU with graduate level people and it was kind of maybe it’s a little bit colder and a little bit more competitive?

I didn’t feel the competition. Maybe I’m arrogant like that. I mean, I thought people were good, but I always felt like I could paint. And I compete with myself more than anything. It was New York. It was hard. Yeah, it was the coldness. It took a minute for me to adjust and me just going there. By the time I ended grad school, I felt okay there.

Was it a two-year program or a one-year program?

Yeah, it was a two-year program. But by the time I left, I felt like I didn’t really want to be a painter anymore.

Really? What kind of sucked the joy out of it?

Yeah. Sucked the joy out of it.

Really?

Because I didn’t know what I wanted to really… I remember there wasn’t a moment of… I remember one of the professors coming in and he was like, “What are you doing repainting Clint work?” They all looked like I was doing… I think I just remember them reading all this Greenberg and painting is dead and just all of this… I was a figurative painter, “Why do you keep painting a figure?” Then I had a few ignorant professors, I won’t name or anything. It’s like, “Why are you painting black people?” I got asked really dumb-

Really?

… questions and stuff. I wasn’t at the right program. Like, “Why are you?” And it was just like this irritating conversations. “Why are you painting black people instead of people, I guess?”

Yikes.

Yeah. It was like, “Am I going to have to argue with people to understand stuff?” And it was just like, “Nah.” I just wasn’t in the right place. It just wasn’t the right program at the time. I don’t know where it is now, but it wasn’t at the time for me.

And did your hyper-realistic style begin there? ‘Cause I know you had mentioned in the past you would draw your hands and so it was always there in a way. For someone who knows your work now, would they look back on your college work and be like, “Oh, it’s a hyper-real”? Did you start then? Or how did that start?

No, I think then because I didn’t like what I was doing, I tried all different styles, all different things. But I think I naturally am very realistic, hyper-realistic painter, so it didn’t matter. It was going to come out that way. So it felt like I had no style. That’s what I felt.

Well, did people, I knew nothing about the learning how to paint or being in an art program. Did people try to get you to not do that style?

I think I tried to not do it myself.

Oh, okay.

‘Cause of the environment and what was happening. I was fighting against my own way. But I do remember a few students coming to me that were in the program that were like, “You have a gift.” I was even different in the program.” They thought I was really good. My talent, you could see, you could just… But I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was making. I didn’t have a voice. I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I didn’t know what… I I was just painting what I could. I didn’t have… I was lost in New York. I should have painted that.

But I didn’t. I didn’t even think to do that. I think I didn’t have a really good mentor or someone that I really gravitated to. I remember this one professor was a female professor and she came to me, she was like, “Listen, you could probably get a show, for sure. But you’re black, you’re a woman. You know what I mean? If you have kids, you’re never going to have a career.” I was like, “Okay.”

Wow. [inaudible 00:16:10].

Yeah. I had a lot of maybe depressed teachers too. I was depressed, probably. I don’t know what was happening, but I do remember that conversation and I think she thought she was being helpful to me.

Yeah.

Like, “If you get married and have kids there’s a possibility.” And I was like, “Got to make a choice.” I believed I listened a little bit. So when I got out, I was like, “I’m just going to paint for fun when I want, but it’s not going to be a career. I’m not going to be able to make it ’cause I do want to have kids. I do want to have a family.” And that possibility is like you have to choose. So I think I subscribed to all those, I believed the hype of it that you couldn’t. And I think I’ve been so many different, this sounds weird, phases of a woman in the United States.

Like, I stayed home with my kids for some years when I had them. I taught art classes. I did graphic design on the side and also taught. I was for a second thinking about being a kindergarten teacher. I was a substitute for kindergarten. This principal asked me, we could make you a full teacher. You are great. I love children. I wrote children’s book.

Okay.

And then I was… But I was still painting and figuring things out.

And throughout all of that, were you just painting on the side? What were you-

Painting on the side.

And was it recognizable as the sort of work with water that you are now or is it come completely different?

No, no.

It was before that.

It was different. They were figures. They were people. A lot of them were portraits.

And at this time, are you in LA when we’re talking about

Yeah, I’m in LA. I’m in la.

I know, but when you were teaching and first having your kids, was that all in LA?

Yes. All of in LA. I had my children in LA. I left New York because I think it was like, I met my husband at the time and I was like, I didn’t want to have children in New York. I wanted to have children.

And how many kids do you have now?

Four.

Four. Oh, gosh. Okay. Well-

One’s a stepson. My stepson came to live with us when he was like nine.

Okay, is that five?

And then I had a-

Or that’s one of the-

Huh?

Is he, the stepson-

No, that’s the four.

… you’re counting one of the four?

Yes.

Yeah.

He’s counted as one of the four, then three girls.

Okay. Oh, gosh.

Yeah. So I have this other life in a way, and then it was like I realized it was my self-doubt that was holding me back. I’ll put it on me. And it wasn’t honestly until… I was painting and doing things, not that we want to harp on this. I know she doesn’t like to harp on this part of her life. Amy Cheryl, this was my friend. We went to school together and we painted together, we were in the same program. And I remember when she went to get her heart transplant and her mom couldn’t be there while she was waiting at one point because her brother was sick. And I flew to see her when she was waiting for a heart and she was like, “I’m going to get out of here. I’m going to get a heart and then I’m going to win this thing and I’m going to be a famous artist, right. I’m going to get this heart. Yeah, I’m going to win this contest and then I’m going to be a famous artist.”

I was like, “Okay, yeah, that’ll be good.” And exactly what she did. She did that. I was there when she was doing the application to do that contest. I can’t remember the name of it right now. The one that went to National Portrait Gallery. I remember she was there and she was like, “I’m doing my essay ’cause I’m going to do this and I’m going to win that and then watch, so I can see it and I’m going to be in the galleries and I visualize it. This is going to happen.”

I was like, “Okay.” And then when things… And I saw her make a vision for herself and do it. And I was like, “Wait, what if I believed? You know what I mean? What if I believed I could make a career out of this instead of telling myself the things I heard?” And then I was like, “Okay, what am I going to say?” And then that was the first thing. “What am I going to say? What do I want to do? What do I want to say?” And that’s when it really clicked when I got to the water.

And when you moved to LA, was LA itself as a city kind of influencing you?

Maybe. Again, I was in a little different type of universe. I wasn’t going to that many galleries at first, ’cause that I felt rejected from it and I couldn’t figure it out. So I was like, but then I remember. I was like, “Why am I… I can paint.” I was like, “I can paint.” I knew I could paint. I just didn’t have a voice or what I wanted… I didn’t know what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, how to make it different. Why would my paintings be necessary in art history? What could I do that someone hasn’t done and it be… And then I just remember I was very lucky because at my school or serendipitous or faded or whatever, but in my school, my middle daughter’s kindergarten class, Toba Khedoori was in that grade with my daughter and Christine Kim was in there. Christine the curator, Toba the artist.

I remember hanging with them. And Toba came to my studio to visit me. And I remember showing her this image, is my niece in the water. And I said, “I’m painting all these things ’cause…” I was like, “I’m going to do this.” I had this idea, this big idea, and I was like, “I’m going to paint this and then I’ll have a series and this is going to work.” And I remember showing her this picture and I was like, “But really I just wish I could just… I just want to paint something like this. I just want to paint this.” And she said, “Then why don’t you do that? Why don’t you just paint this? Don’t overthink. Just paint this.” And it was my niece underwater and I got a big canvas and I painted it and it was so fun.

How big?

And so beautiful. It was 4 feet x 5 feet. And I did it. And I remember with my husband, it was like we made a pact when I had my last child, ’cause first we went back and forth on the last baby. I was like, “Oh, I don’t know.” Anyway, I had her and I said, “Okay, this is going to be your baby. And after I have the baby, I’m going to get a studio outside the house and I’m going to paint. I’m probably going to make no money. I’m just going to paint for a whole year. I’m going to figure me out.”

And so from that, what about that picture of your niece underwater? What did that mean to you? Why did you want to paint that? Was it just a beautiful image you hadn’t considered before or is it just something about the waviness of the water and the way that light reflects off of it? What kind of made you want to just paint that?

It was so beautiful and abstracted though. Her body was all broken up because of the waves on the top of the water. But it was so… She had these hair barrettes in her hair, but they looked like birds. And I remember I’ll say to me, you can clearly see this figure underwater. That I remember sending to my mom and she said, “What is that? Earth?” Like, it wasn’t identifiable exactly, ’cause the barrettes kind of look like birds and there’s like this dark patch, but I could see it ’cause I was swimming at the time. But my mom, my dad, who don’t swim, I don’t think their brain besides being in a tub, I don’t think they thought of what the body looks like when you break the waterfront and how abstract and how it moves.

My mom couldn’t see it. And I was like, “You can’t see it? It’s a person swimming.” “No, I don’t even see it. Is it earth? What is that? What is that?” And I was like, “Okay, whatever.” But her bathing suit might’ve been colorful and that was broken, and the hair and it was weird, but I was like, “Ah. I got something. That is exciting to me. That I could paint something I see and it could still be like, ‘What’s going on?'” Even though some of my paintings are just like clearly there, but some have a mystery and a dreaminess that I really love. And that’s where I feel like I get really excited about.

Is your mom a kind of good critic for you? Do you bounce ideas off of her being that she’s a painter and a photographer and a talented woman?

I think she has a good eye. I think she has a good eye. So even if she doesn’t, like, “What are you doing?” She’s still like, “No, that’s beautiful. I don’t know what I’m seeing, but that works.”

Okay, good, good.

And I think she has a good eye. So sometimes I’ll send stuff. Yeah.

And your paintings now, some are quite large, right? I mean-

Yes.

… what’s the scale of the smallest thing you’ll do versus the largest? Just to give people an idea.

Small thing I’ll do would be like 12 x 9 inches. So a piece of paper almost, right. And then I’ve gone 12 feet x 9 feet.

Okay, big.

Yeah.

Amazing. And for those people who don’t know how painting works with this realistic style, do you work from photography or-

Yes.

… do you work with multiple photos?

Yes.

Or are you mimicking the photo exactly or are you kind of interpreting it as you go along? Or where does that borderline or where is the border between mimicking the photo and then creating a new work of art that’s just inspired by the photo? If you know what I mean.

Yes. I rarely paint it exactly like the photo, but it looks just like the photo for people, sometimes. You know what I mean? But especially in the water, that’s all interpretive, and kind like, ah, it’s kind of loosely feeling it. And then if my brush goes in a certain stroke and I like it, then I’ll keep playing with it. But a lot of times I’ll have multiple photos up on my screen.

And are you shooting these pictures?

Yes. I shoot all my images that I paint from.

Okay.

It’s a whole process. I start with a photo shoot, and even that sometimes is a family affair. Where depending on the level of the person that I’m shooting, and it’s very often where people can’t swim. Or they’ll say they can swim, but they really can’t swim. So you go there and you’re like, “Yeah, I can swim. Oh, this is going to be great, but I have to hold the wall.” Yeah, okay, so-

Oh, okay.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I can swim, but I just don’t want my face wet. And I can’t float on my back. You’d be like, “Okay.” So when there’s times like that and I want someone to look freeing, and… You know?

Right.

In a certain way. Sometimes I’m holding people and I’m telling them, move their arm up, “Lift your legs,” and I’m holding in their back, and I may have one of my daughters take the image above.

Oh, wow. Well, you’ve got some assistance built in, I guess you [inaudible 00:27:39].

Yeah. And then I have my other daughter pushes the water, and makes waves. You know? And she’s sitting there-

Wow.

Half the time, I just have to go pull her to the side, “Get your attitude together,” because her face is all, “How many times I got to push these waves, mom.” like, “Stop it.” So it’s a whole family affair, especially in the beginning. They were my crew.

And so how long would it take you to do a painting in the middle of the size? Not a piece of paper, but not a giant canvas, and what is-

Maybe three weeks.

Intensely, because sounds like you work from sunup to sundown essentially.

Yes.

So-

So it’s probably a month of painting, really.

Wow, okay.

They take a long time.

Where does your mind go when you’re painting?

If I’m really doing well, not on the painting. If I’m doing really well, I’m somewhere else. So I put on music, but most often they’re books. I do audio books and I want a really good book that’s like, “Oh my God, it’s a great book,” 17 hours or something like a lot of hours. And I can just get caught up in the story, and my hand is just moving.

And when you’re painting for a month and your brain is somewhere else, is what you’re listening to, we talk about fiction and literature and how it influenced you, can you look at something and be like, “Oh, I can see the Octavio Butler in this painting,” even if no one knows how, it’s just in your head? Is like music influencing a photographer at a shoot, something sexy or something quiet, versus you listening to sci-fi or a romance novel or whatever it is?

Mm-hmm. Sometimes. There are some paintings that are direct influences. There’s a painting, Infinite from Root to Tip. When I painted that, I was thinking about the Power by Naomi Alderman, when I listened to that book. And so even there’s these reflections in the top that look like roots. And I was thinking of the beginning of the book, where it was kind of like this, I guess you could say a poem, where she talks about what power is and how we break branches in a tree. And somehow she was describing it and I put these women in this very… The figure is in this powerful position.

I felt agency, and I was thinking of that book and how it made me feel, and the power of women. And sometimes I try to listen to books that kind of make me think about where my work is going. At the time in that show, it was about agency of these young girls, and I had these women in these white dresses. I was listening to books with women in power, and agency, and overcoming things like that. So sometimes that does lend in, and I want to feel that while I’m going along with it. But I think I love those books anyway, so maybe that’s always in the work.

And obviously themes of water carry a lot of weight in the Black experience in the United States, especially. Can you describe that history in your own words to someone who maybe they had no idea? There’s also people listening to this podcast all over the world who are not as familiar. If you could describe that history and then also what you’re trying to say, referencing that history.

I mean race, it’s so funny how it means so much and then it doesn’t mean so much. But-

Because you didn’t choose that original picture because of some thought about the history of what race or water, and swimming, and anything. You just thought, “This is beautiful, I’m going to do it.” But obviously something clicked eventually when I’m sure some critic or some gallerist came in and saw a bunch of pictures and was like, “Great. Meaning.”

No. It was a beautiful image and it was complicated, and it looked like, “Ooh, a challenge.” It was like, “I can do this.” And it was beautiful and it was going to be hard, and I love challenges. I love to challenge myself, I want to see how far I can push it. So it was a really fun, “I can do this.” But it was when I was creating the body of work for a dream for my Lilith, I gave myself I think nine months or a year, that I was going to be in that studio and sit and paint what I could, slowly as I could, take my time and do it beautifully.

And once you put a Black figure in water, there’s context. Because one, I recognize that I didn’t come from any family members that swam. People didn’t swim. And then it made me realize as I’m reading more and thinking about it, how many Black people I knew that couldn’t swim or how I thought I could swim until I went to this class and I realized I was a joke of a swimmer and I never really took classes and didn’t understand. I thought if I could just hold my breath and push off a little bit and go underwater that I was a swimmer, and not understand stroke or breathing or anything.

And then I started thinking about it. It was a stereotype of Black people can’t swim. Right? So I was like, “Okay, there’s a stereotype,” and some stereotypes have some truth, that, why is there a common thing in a culture? But it was when I realized, like many other people, when you say… Well, people would say to me, “I don’t know what your problem, y’all are talking about race. Segregation happened so long ago.” Right? It was the first time I had an example in my mind how what happened with segregation is still impacting a culture. That it’s still alive. Because there wasn’t access for my mom to go swim, that there were no pools, and her parents weren’t even allowed in a pool with white people or in class, race in class, the access to pools, you couldn’t swim. And because you couldn’t swim, the leisure of swimming wasn’t common.

And I didn’t think about that. Or even my father used to take us to the beach all the time. But I remember going to visit family members. My father’s family was from the Maryland Eastern Shore, and we’d go visit my uncles, but they wouldn’t go with us to the beach. And I would be like, “Why?” And he was like, “I would never go there.” And I came to understand that when he grew up, you could only go on Thursdays. And so because of the segregation laws and that rejection of not being allowed or feeling welcomed in the ocean, he would never enjoy the beach. And how that impacted my culture, and that fascinated me. And I wanted to learn more about that and understand.

And then I wanted the opportunity to give the element back to us. That water is also for us for leisure, and the beach, and those kind of things. And there’s freedom in it. There’s a freedom of taking it back and believing it’s ours. It’s a whole element like air, but there’s so many that say, “Oh, that’s for them. Not…” You know? “We don’t do that.” And there’s so many conversations that happen for that. So for me, thinking about that a little bit, and then thinking of our passage, of middle passage, of how we got here is through water, and how many… You know? There’s a saying which my brain can’t even think of right now. It’s like, “For those that…” I can’t remember.

But I was just thinking about that, how many people jumped over the boat or didn’t make it, or got thrown out, the lives, the bodies in that water. And then thinking about how all water is recycled, and how much of us is made out of water, what percentage, and all of those things. I just started eating that up, and it became something I was thinking about as I was making the work, and even thinking about how important the language of water could be, and empowering of a vision of us having agency in water. And it seems in some ways simple, but it became something many people hadn’t seen before.

And your first major solo show, is that Miami’s Pam, Away with the Tides. Congratulations on that by the way.

Yes.

It’s up now until February.

Thank you.

Tell me about what’s in the show. What is it like when you walk in? What am I going to see?

Well, when you first walk in, you’ll see a lovely man that is almost saluting to this map of over town. So I did a show about, in honor, almost like a love letter to over town, a Black community in Miami. I was asked to do a site-specific show, thinking about Miami and the residents there. And I started thinking especially in the political time, what was happening in Miami. And I’m living in California, I’m an outsider. But what I did see in the news was how AP Black history wasn’t going to be taught or recognized. And I started thinking, what do Black people feel like that live in Miami in a place where their history isn’t allowed to be taught? And I kept thinking about that. I kept seeing articles about some banning of books and things like that, but I never heard the constituents there saying how they felt living in a place like that.

I didn’t hear their voices, I never saw those articles. And I kept thinking about them. And so when I was asked to do the show, and that was really on my mind, I said, “Where is a historic Black neighborhood in Miami?” Because I haven’t heard of it. I do know about the strip. I’ve visited Miami several times, been to the Strip. I do know of the migration of Cubans and Haitians in Miami. But it was in the South. So where are the Black Southerners that possibly did some plantation work? Where are they? Because I don’t know where they’re… Like, what is that history? And so I learned about the southern Black people that got the railroad to come down from the north to the south, who built Miami, who were one of the largest communities and was there from the beginning of Miami itself. And how it became, or was known at one time as a second Harlem of the south. And it was a thriving community with 300 businesses, and everyone would stay there with hotels and restaurants. And then I was learning about this. And then I was like, what happen? And then learning about the Federal Aid Highway Act that Eisenhower put into place all over the country that was racist. They targeted black, brown, and any kind of community of color that they said wasn’t doing well, but it could’ve been thriving. And put highways right in the middle of them and destroyed them, displaced these communities. And that’s why I laughed so much when I would hear DeSantis say, when he was making fun of… or he said something about Biden when he was doing these highways. And he said, “Highways can’t be racist.”

I heard him say that. And I was like, “Yes, they can be.” The Federal Aid Act was put in place to destroy these communities. And Overtown was destroyed by it. And I wanted to bring that community to light. I wanted to see Overtown. And so, I thought of this neighborhood that was broken, fragmented, and the highway itself looks like a cross. So, I thought of this crossing. So, in the images, you’re going to see parts of bodies that are somewhat broken, I guess you could say. You’ll see crosses. There’s this woman, there’s a painting that’s a way of the tide and a woman’s legs are just crossed over, but it was like the shape of the highway. And inside where her legs are crossed and then inside where she’s underwater, there’s this broken fragments that you know there’s bodies. But I put a geographical location of the layout of the area of Overtown, right where the heart would be.

Now, all of that you may not readily see. But then there’s this white wipe away, this white area, this erasure that I’m trying to also talk about as well of this community. Then I put some faces and very hyper-realistic figures, because I thought it was also important to show them whole. Because when I went to the community and I went there, they love their community and I saw a community. Even though people may not think there’s a community there, I saw it. I remember picking up this woman, Ms. Roll, who I painted with these hands. There’s these two panel painting where there’s these hands in the water rising up on her legs. When I picked her up, I remember I was going to take her to the beach.

She’s part of the video work that I also did that’s in the show. I did a video for the first time working with this documentarian film director, Laura Brownson. So, together we created this beautiful three channel video work that we call We’re Going to Swim. But Ms. Roll is in there, and you can see her and she’s talking. But in the gallery itself, I have this two panel diptych with her hands. But when I went to pick her up, there were all these men sitting outside of her building. And I pull up, and these men are sitting outside and she’s coming down. And when I got out of the car, they were like, “What are you doing here?” I didn’t look like I belong, I guess. And they’ve never seen me before. “What are you doing here?”

And I was like, “I’m here to pick up Ms. Roll.” And Ms. Roll came out and they were like, “What are you doing with Ms. Roll?” So, at first I’m like, “I’m sorry, I’m just picking up Ms. Roll.” And Ms. Roll was like, “It’s okay,” whatever his name was, “I’m going with her. I’m safe.” And then they were like, “Well, what are you going to do with her?” I said, “I’m going to take her to the beach.” “You’re taking her to the beach? It may be too cold for her to go to the beach.” I said, “It’s going to be okay. Be fine.” And they were like, “Well, what are you going to feed her?” I said, “We’re going to have food.” Well, you going to have water? She needs to drink water.” And I was like, “This is her…”

These men sitting out on these chairs, someone may think other imagery of these black men sitting outside of a building. I don’t know what people’s conceived notions could be of what they’re doing. But I saw this genuine concern of this older woman in her seventies. And he was like, “Well, she needs to drink water and don’t give her any soda.” And I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “Are you related to her?” “No, but we’re watching on Ms. Roll and do you need me to go with you? Are you sure you want to go with her?” And I was like, “She’s safe.” And I had to bring her back to her people. But that community and that love, that’s probably not depicted in the news or outside of that community of understanding how well and how much they take care of each other.

There is a community. It may not look like a community, like someone thinks in a white picket fence and all that. It may look pretty impoverished, which it does, because they lost their jobs and that was taken from them. And their businesses were taken from it. It wasn’t because they didn’t want it. And so, just looking at it in that lens, and me being able to show to people the figures and begin a conversation about a community that’s often overlooked.

And this era of your work has been for the past, I think it’s about five years now, has been so fruitful and clearly has a long ways to go. It seems like you can keep doing it. Do you ever think this era will be kind of like your water period or whatever you want to call, like a blue period, like Picasso’s blue period, and like you’re going to move on to do something else? How do you think about that now?

I’m sure I will. I’m sure there’ll be a moment where it’s over, but it’s not right now. I can foresee three more shows. I already know what they look like. The problem is my body.

Oh, well, that’s true.

That’s just me painting them. And they take a long time. But if I had a factory and I could make 10 of me, I have three shows done. They’re not exactly done, but I know what I’d want to paint in each one. I know them. And that’s going to take three years right there, just right there. So, I have some years. And don’t let me do some more photo shoots. Don’t let me do some more, which I will do. And I haven’t even gotten into a beautiful sunset with orange. I haven’t even gotten to a river where you can see the rocks through and the browns. I haven’t even gotten to places where I want to go. I’m still working from shoots I have that I haven’t gotten to yet. And so, those will come, too. So, I have some years, but then when I’m done, I’ll know I’ll be done and I’ll push it. I’ll move somewhere else.

And the actor, Steve Martin, curated a show based around his film LA Story, which is that included one of your pieces. I’m just curious, how did that happen?

It was very great. I got asked by Mike Davis, the director at Hauser, if I wanted be included. He said he’d really wanted one of my pieces in it, because he felt like it connected to LA, the pool itself. And knew he had a Hockney there in that pool. And it would be a conversation itself, how you do these Cali pools, because I am doing in California, this blue sun. I need this sun to make my paintings and I need these pools. And so, he thought it would be very important to have that in the conversation. And so, I said, yeah. I actually have a great… in my inventory of photography. I mean, one day I’ll maybe show my photography somewhere, because I take a lot of photos and I had that. I had this image of my stepson. And that’s him.

My oldest who was like, “Yeah, you doing all the girls. Why am I never painting?” Right now, I was like, “I got you, baby. I got you now.” Now I got all the kids. And I had this image of him, and he had these tattoos. And LA, his love for LA is on his body. And I was like, okay, this would grow great in a show about LA, where he has LA on his chest. And so, I pulled that out and it was perfect.

And if I had to ask you to describe your work in three words, what would those words be?

I’d say figurative, ethereal, and dynamic.

Thank you to my guest, Calida Rawles, as well as to everyone at Lehmann Maupin Gallery for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net. And follow me on Instagram @danrubinstein. And don’t forget to follow The Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. And leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Til next time!

(END OF TRANSCRIPT)