An Interview with Vanessa German

Vanessa German is an award-winning artist and creator of Love Front Porch in Homewood, an art project that encourages youth creativity. At this year’s Merton Award Dinner, in addition to providing the Art Minute, German kindly also spoke with Thomas Merton Center intern, Nijah Glenn.

Nijah Glenn: A lot of your work reflects off of "darky" iconography and reclaiming it. Why this particular style?

Vanessa German: Because I actually don't that it is a style. The only time people started using the terminology like "darky" is through the lens of American racism, right? What I think about first is about beauty. I'm not actually thinking about anything political first; I'm thinking about my soul. I'm not trying to make things that are someone else's idea of worthwhile or beautiful. I'm working through my own soul.

NG: Do you feel as a society women of color have more representation today?

VG: I think what I've honestly experienced happen is that there are more black and Latina women in a position where they're telling stories, creating images and opportunities for other women. I think that what happens is that there are women who are more visible and they are sort of opening up these secret, intimate doors for women who didn't see very many things like that. I feel like those seeds are really coming to harvest in the souls of little girls and teenagers. I think love replicates itself and that's what's happening.

NG: How do you think your art makes people think?

VG: I think that it makes people think because people are so used to seeing black images ridiculed. One of the things that I think causes conversation is that it's like the black image/ representing blackness is political. To love ourselves is political, to create from a place of beauty is political, but also, the amount of cultural ignorance around racism really bubbles up around my work. Then the question becomes, does my work become educational? Does every talk back I do revolve around education, or can we talk about other things? So I think that [the art] is just blackness in and of itself. When white people paint white people, there is no "oh it's so political!"

NG: Who are your biggest influences artistically, and do you think they influenced your art as much as your identity?

VG: Wow, I mean I've always loved museums. In my work, a lot of the sculptural pieces look like they are on display, there's a sort of an intentional presentational quality to them. My mom used to drop us off at the LA County Museum of Art; we got to know the security guards, we literally ran through museums! I became fascinated with museum display and preparation. And I think a large part of my influence is seeing African art, and having it speak to me, and not being able to articulate what that feeling was. Being fascinated to a point of silence and stillness with the work; to find a place where my soul speaks with clarity and to my senses. There are more contemporary artists that influenced me, like Betye Saar into thinking "you can use whatever you want to use!" Contemporary artists influence me in the way that they talk about art; Kerry James Marshall talks about coming to a zero place. I get that. That's so inspiring to me.

NG: The work you do with the Love Front Porch is incredible. What do you think the children have taught you?

VG: I don't consider it work, but what it is to be fully alive, the amount of inspiration to be alive, waking up in the world we live in and not be in a stupor of depression in dealing with reality. And I think one of those elements is love. Things happen differently in your life when you work from a place of love and one of the things that the kids have taught me is that people say kids are resilient--but they're not. What they see does affect them. You have to give them a place to bounce back to, and their minds are as wise as ours are. The fact that kids are affected by gun violence--how do you as an adult make safe places when you can't answer the questions kids ask about gun violence? Like Marian Wright Edelman wrote, people don't have the will to take care of children. There all these things, but there isn't the human commitment or political will. One of the things that you learn in art is that you are making things that cannot be given to you in any way other than through creativity. If we know that, then every 6-8 blocks, there should be creative spaces for kids and for their parents to make things, because we know how important creativity is to healing, physical health, and what your brain goes through. We have to answer their questions better; we need to show them that we are fighting for them on the other side of trauma.

Nijah Glenn is an intern at the Thomas Merton Center and a member of the NewPeople editorial collective.

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