Sonya Clark

[Music] Welcome to episode 25 of "Foreground Background with Me Noah Scalent." I'm an artist, author, and corporate creativity consultant, and today I'm interviewing Sonia Clark. Sonia is a Winifred L. Arms professor of art and humanities at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited in over 450 museums and galleries across the globe, and she is a recipient of multiple awards and residencies. And you may have seen her work featured in The New York Times, sculpture, art in America, Time Magazine, Los Angeles Times, and so many, many others. In this hour-long conversation, we discuss navigating the complexity of humanity in the art world and its relation to marginalized communities, embracing different styles and methods and learning and teaching art, and so much more. I couldn't have made this podcast without my team art members on Patreon. The regular writing and reflection I do for my Patreon page has me thinking deeper about the issues that artists and creative folks of all sorts have to contend with. I've been talking with fellow working creatives to get their perspective, and once I started having these conversations, I realized that others could benefit from them as well. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a comment, let me know what resonates with you, and give it a thumbs up or a five star review wherever you listen to it. And of course, if you're not already a team art member, I hope you'll check it out at patreon.com/noescalin. For as little as $5 a month, you get behind the scenes access to my art studio, including content available nowhere else. Hi, Sonia. You know, I've been trying to get you on this podcast for a long time. Well, it's been a crazy world and a crazy time, but I'm happy to be here with you now. Admittedly, admittedly. Yeah, no, I think you were actually one of the first people I wanted to interview. And that's nice. I didn't know that. Yeah, well, it's because I am a huge fan of you. I think your artwork is incredibly inspiring, and it's something that I aspire to be at the level that you're at in terms of your combination of your activism and your practice and your materials usage is just phenomenal. Thank you. I truly appreciate that. Clearly, you haven't seen all my work because there's lots of failure in there. You know, like I always say this, like you need the manure for the things to grow. So you spoken like a true artist too when you're giving a comment, let me tell me about the bad stuff. Let me make sure you understand the real. I love it. If I don't have a bunch of things that I think are, um, excrement, I know that I'm not doing something, you know, like it, it, I really truly believe that you need, you need that stuff for the good stuff to grow. See, I knew this is why I wanted to talk to you, a font of wisdom. Everything is a gem here. Okay. So, um, gosh, there's so much to talk about. So, let's, the way I like to do this is sort of take us on a journey of your life as an artist. So, let's, let's go all the way back and, and say as a child. Did you think that you'd be an artist, you want, did you want to be an artist, was that something even something you thought about? Was that on the list? Uh, I know, not in particular, but I will say this, I, um, I went to Montessori school. So already, if you know anything about Montessori, that's a, um, a way of learning that is very experiential. So, um, when I think about that, I think like, well, I was being trained to experience a world through multi, multi sensorially, which is something that's very important to, to me, and to many of us who are in the fields of art. I say fields, I'm not just talking about visual art because this is not privileging the, the visual like, the way that Montessori would teach kids how to learn their alphabet, they understood that a small child couldn't necessarily hold a pencil. And so you would trace letters that were, um, sand paper letters, so you could really feel them, right? So like an A would be written in in sand paper on a blank card that the A would be in sand paper. And that actually, um, I had many, many years later when I was a, um, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I was studying Braille for a project, and I had this month, multi sensorial experience where I was studying Braille and I was smelling the beach. And my, um, and I was like, what is happening in my brain? I mean, like, I, I had to tell you like, I was smelling the beach. So I called my parents, my father was a psychiatrist, my mom, a nurse, and I really want to talk to my dad as a shrink, I was like, what is happening in my brain that I'm touching something and smelling something, my dad wasn't home. And I shared this with my mom, and my mom got like angry at me for, um, for studying Braille because she said it's like you're tempting the universe to take away your eyes. Yeah. And so this is my mother remembering that as a very small child, I had very bad eyes. I've been wearing glasses since I was quite young and she was just like, you know, like, don't do this. But then they said, OK, mom, can you get over that? Because what actually is happening is this weird multi sensorial thing where I'm, I'm, I'm learning Braille and I'm smelling the beach and my mother, who has just gone off about how I shouldn't learn Braille because it would make me blind. Like that sort of twisted logic says, oh, that makes perfect sense. And, and what she, and she said, and it's not the beach. So she corrected me. She said, it's not the beach. It's sandpaper. So now you know the beginning of the story. I've sort of buried, you know, like, told you the story of the beginning. But she remembered me, you know, the thing about parents, and I know you're a parent is that we have the privilege with parents of people knowing us before we knew ourselves, right? So my mother knew that I had had this learning experience. So she said, you're, you're learning another text will language and it's your brain is just going, oh, remember when we learned this before, remember when we were doing this before. First of reason I was studying Braille is because I was interested in the tactile senses, the relationship between text and textile, the relationship between touch and the haptic not not privileging the optic and that sort of thing, where did all of that get born. Probably from Montessori school. So I mean, we could start there. It could just be sort of happenstance. It could be genetic who knows all the people who made me who knows who of my like epigenetically who of my ancestors who were in me with me right now in my blood and bones. I mean, I come from people who are incredibly and here I'm speaking broadly as a person of African descent. I'm talking about the things that are filled with ingenuity, right? So it also feels like my responsibility, right, to be an artist. And then I'll say that my Montessori school teacher said to my mother that I was she was an artist and she said that I was going to be an artist. But I think people say that about kids all the time because kids are so open. And the last thing I'll say about like early childhood is that when I often will say to my students as a way of getting to know each other in the classroom, I asked them to recount I pair them up and I asked them to recount their first art full experience. I think their first art experience, I say art full experience and I, you know, their first experience with art but art full experience to see where it leads them because some of them will do, you know, school, so some of them like the first time I saw Picasso at the med, they think that that's the right answer. And the first art full experience is a child with very poor eyesight, who was using a pencil to feel the wall. And I mean that like I wasn't drawing on the wall as much as I was feeling that sort of the way that the wall when painted with a roller is almost like our skin. And so I was using that pencil point the way that a record with the way that an needle is on the record player. And again, my mother, my mother was the last to my day just painted this wall and she's like, you know, right. But I drew her in and I said, she said, what are you doing? And I explained to her in, you know, toddler language that I was feeling the wall. And I drew her into my art full moment and I do remember that I remember that my mom was yelling and she calm down when I could draw her into my the experience that I was having. So I would say that that first art full moment is also something that we try to do as artists are that was a long answer to the very short question. That's amazing. And I think that's a profound thing to experience when you're young and say, wow, this is the power of art right here. And then and obviously you were very lucky because your parents are sending you to a monetary school. So I'm assuming they're supportive of your interest in art and art making of some sort at a young age. No, I should say at a young age, everybody is. And then you get to another age and they're like, okay, okay, this is what I want to know. This race is going to be a great day. and you want to do art. So here's the thing, you know, like there weren't many models. Yeah. And so, you know, I grew up with a sense that art would make you sort of maybe well rounded, but it wasn't supposed to be your profession. Right. And, and I think that's just because like any parents, your parents, hope for a kind of stability. They hope that their children's lives are as better than theirs, if possible. The struggle, if they had struggle that there's a little bit more ease for the next generation. So I didn't study art until, you know, relatively late in the light. Like my, my first degree isn't, isn't in art. My first degree is in psychology. And, and then I went to art school and got a second bachelor's degree. And my father was like, I just so college was expensive. And you had a job and you want to do what now? And when he said to me was, I worked for two years and he said, well, you, I know I've taught you how to save money. He was very good at teaching me how to do that. So he said, I know, I'll tell you how to save money. So if you want to do this art school thing, that's great. You have some money, right? So go ahead and do that. My own, his caveat was that no matter what. Again, it was a second bachelor's degree. So to him, it was like this, why would you do something over? And then why would you do art? And he was like, you know, your 20 some, this is what 20 year olds here in this country deal. They, you know, try and find themselves or whatever. And he said, great. Just promise me that you will go to graduate school, no matter what, you know, he's like, I just want you to get to the next level. And I went to the art institute of Chicago and found oxygen, more oxygen in the air there than I had found in other places. And it was also the hardest learning environment that I had ever been in. And there were no grades. I knew how to get good grades as a student. And so I was in this institution where there were no grades. So how do you, how do you know what is valuable and what is worthwhile, what is good, what is not good. How do you judge all of those things? It's turned everything upside down. And art is still the hardest thing that I do. And so, my parents didn't really buy in until I got my first, my first job as a professor because, you know, and then they were just like, someone's paying her to teach people how to do art. So, maybe she's also an artist. And I regret that they're not in the world now. My parents are both ancestors because, anything that feels like a minor success or achievement is really an honor to them. And you know, my most, my most, my closest ancestors and, and for them not to be physically here to witness it, it, it feels, it feels a little less shiny, you know, like it puts things in perspective in a way, you know, yeah, yeah, anyway. You, you, you take me on quite the journey already. And I feel like I want to go back and unpack a few things in there. So, okay, yeah. So your parents are like, and I get this because this is not an uncommon story. My parents are the children of immigrants. And interestingly, we're, we're allowed and encouraged to study art because I know that that's not common like you're describing. So you don't, so you don't study art, but did you know you were an artist who are interested in making art at that point and we're like, well, but I can't because my parents, I'm going to go to this, do this real job thing study this thing that I can make a living at. Yeah, well, psychology wasn't the thing. I mean, so my father was a psychiatrist, right? So I was interested in psychology and I took psychology classes and like college level psychology classes when I was in high school. And, and my father was an incredibly kind man. Like when I think about him, it's his kindness that I think about first. And so, we would have pretty long conversations about the complexity of humanity. And he always led with kindness. He's the first person who explain to me that he understood racism as a mental disorder. And, and one that like COVID, which now that metaphor is really tried and true, was highly infectious. But in there is a kind of kindness, you know, he was just like, there are people who are infected with this disease. And it can take them to a murderous place. And there are people who are infected with these disease and they don't even know that they're carrying it, right, which is microaggressive. But to walk with the walk in the world with that sort of perspective is is the kind of thing that made me say, let me study psychology, right, like let me, let me try and understand the way that my father understands the world. And I would say he actually became a psychiatrist because that was his mindset, who used driven to that. And actually, no, I forgot what the question was. So I just started talking about my dad because I love him. And it's in every conversation. A worthy topic and great. I think you were saying that your parents, your parents, um, had this sense of like studying art was an okay thing, which is surprising. And I think that it's rare. I think it's more rare to have this experience. Like, like when I said I wanted to, I didn't, so I didn't see art as a valid career path, but because my parents were artists, not because they, it was the opposite. They were artists. And I was like, right, but you both teach and do other things because you don't see that as a way to make a living. And I was very practical. And I was like, I need to make a living. And I was like, hmm, I'll study something practical theater design, which. Well, you know, I had a job title and some people got hired to do it, whereas no one got hired to be a fine art painter as far as I could tell. And so I was just like, okay, well, I'm going to not, I'll do something adjacent. But you did something completely other. You know, I want to unpack this, the immigrant experience too, because I have to tell you that when I am, when I am almost anywhere else in the world, like when I'm in Europe, I spend a lot of time in Italy, now I have dear friends who live in Italy, so I go there quite often, but I sort of love hate Italy. That's another conversation. I love my friends there, but the things about Italy that I think we all hold up Italy, like this wonderful, wonderful place. And this isn't anything to take away from the culture and the people on the richness of the culture. But the things that people go to see, it's just like, so about 1492. And then I'm like, cutting off indigenous people's hands for gold and all this gold that's here, that's what I see. There's a backstory. We're not. Yeah, like, let's talk about that. And let's talk about how the Roman Empire was built on the backs of slavery, not, not racialized slavery, but on the backs of slavery. And that's actually unpack what we're celebrating here. It's a little bit like the Queens Jubilee. It's like, okay, really what story are we telling? But I will say that when I am in Italy, and my friends introduce me as an artist, people lean in, they're actually interested in that. And I'm like, here, when I say that I'm an artist, this is what I get, you know, the sort of like, like our real artists, like, what do you show your artwork? People just want to know how you make money, right? They want to know if you make money or if you're famous, right? And when I'm in other places, people, I mean, it's like if I said I was a poet, people would understand this as a way of holding culture and how important that is. And many places, not everywhere in the United States, but many places in the US, we're so capital, we're so focused. It's such a capitalist economy that people are like, but I need to understand your worth in terms of fame. And how much money is in the bank, right? And it's like, this is not my worth. But I mean, we're steeped in that, right? To the point, like I'm saying, like I was like, I've got to be practical. And to your point, when I, you know, went to France for the first time as a kid, my family got an opportunity to stay at a studio and spend some real time there. And the same thing happened where they were like, oh, your artists, your teachers, these are the most important jobs. And you're like, what? Like, oh, my god, like it's such a sharp shock when you've only been in American culture and not realized the striking difference there is between. And it's not all of American culture, right? Because of course, America is very complicated. Because you know what I'm saying? Like that sort of like, you know, like, are you famous? I like, I never, I was like, uh, to the people who know me. There's a lot of versions of that. Yeah. Like to my friends and family and a couple of people on Instagram, you know, like I don't know how to answer that question. But to say the same thing with my parents, like as soon as someone was paying me to do the work that I do, and that I had a title that they could share, then it felt like, okay, like we made lots of sacrifices and you'll be okay. So it was legitimized, but also they were concerned for you. Like you said, that as parents are, I want you to be-- - You're one of us for their kids. - And that you're gonna be able to take care of yourself. - Yeah, I mean, I'm grateful. I had parents who wanted the best for me. I mean, not, I said parents want their best for their kids, but not every parent does, right? - Fair enough. - There are use of parents out there. Parents who don't care and love for their kids. And I came from a family that I was loved and cared for, right? So there's gratitude in that. But you also understand that there's a kind of complexity there. - Yeah. - You know, if we lived in Canada, just a little north of where I am, if you're an artist, they give you a stipend. - Oh my God. - Like they understand that you're an artist. So here's at least this much money. So you have a way to live and support yourself, at least a little bit, 'cause we know that the system is crooked. - Yeah, I mean, it's hard to imagine that life because I think about how much of my time is spent trying to make sure I've got income. And if I spent that time on creation, what more would I create? What more would exist because of that? - Yeah. - Okay, well, that's getting depressing. So let's talk about it. No, but so-- - It's not depressing in the way that there are models out there and we can think as creative people, like what are those models? So when someone comes to me in the era of Zoom as we are currently on Zoom. - Yes, yes, yes. I mean, this is a slightly different situation. And people were having this, some people were having this racial reckoning, like they suddenly realized that America is a racist place. Every time that happens, I'm just like, good for recognizing this, this is not new. This is-- - Right, you're like, you're like, how this nation was built. This is actually foundational to the nation. But I'm glad that you see it, right? - Yeah. - And then, you know, like the number of people who would say, we need to make sure that we have more artists of color, giving talks or speaking to our students and all of that. And it's in the Zoom era. So we wanna make sure that we're suddenly now, like, ah, this needs to be a more diverse pool of people that we're speaking to. But in Zoom, so we would like to pay you $1.50 for your labor. - Right. - And the number of times I said, I am not doing that. And also do not ask any other melanated people to do this, right? Pay people better than that. - Yeah. - So, I mean, that is sort of this capitalist urge, but it's also this sense of like understanding that people's labor is valuable. - Yes. - So, I mean, it's sort of like the flip side of what we're talking about, right? You know, it's like, so actually valuing that labor and that creativity and making sure that someone can pay their bills. - Yeah. (laughing) - No, I mean, yeah, we could go far down this track 'cause I think, you know, it says a lot about a society with what you choose, what you value, who you choose to pay the most to and what those jobs are, what that says, what the society value. So, we know what America's value is, it's very clear. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So you get this other degree, you go off and work for years, and then you say, I'm gonna go back to grads. It's back to undergrad. - Right, so I am at my alma mater now. I landed here sort of unintentionally, but I'm teaching at Amherst College and have been here for now five years. Came here just as a visitor while I was on kind of a sabbatical from VCU, and then they wouldn't let us leave. Darryl, my husband and I met at Amherst College. We got married many years later, but we met at Amherst College, and we're both here, so that's a nice thing. And when I went to Amherst, Amherst was a difficult place to get into, and I went to a prep school in DC, called Sidwell Friends, and it's a place that I say, I paved the path for the Obama girls to go there. But it's one of the private schools in DC that has a reputation as a Quaker School for teaching people ethically, but also it is a prep school. So in my class, eight people went to Harvard, six people went to Princeton, and a whole bunch of us went to places like Amherst and Williams and Wesley and the Sidwell Friends, and so on. It was that kind of institution. So we all did well on our SATs, all of that stuff, right? And then I came here and got this degree worked at a boarding school for a couple of years, 'cause I knew I was interested in education. So I worked at a boarding school for a couple of years and saved my pennies. It was like the richest I ever felt, 'cause they was free housing, and if you wanted to eat in the cafeteria, which I never did, you know, I was free for them. And I was just, I wasn't getting paid very much, but I had really not many expenses, so it was like, I felt very rich. And, but right before I took that job, right before I took the job, my parents' graduation present from Amherst was to send me on an art trip to West Africa, and so I was in the Ivory Coast or Couture-4, and I studied textiles there. And that trip made me say, this is actually what I wanna do, right? - Yeah. - So I'm gonna go back and take this job, and I'm gonna work, and now I really wanna, like I've done all the right things, you know. - So it kinda lit the map. - Yeah, yeah, I did the right thing, but I will always have that college degree from Amherst, that's fine, and I know how to get a job, so that's also fine, but now I really want to know more about how embodied knowledge manifests itself in art forms, like long old art forms that are normally under the canopy of craft, and for me that was textiles in particular. And so I started looking at textile programs, right? And trying to teach myself how to do some things in textiles, right? And then I applied to art school, and art schools are just like sure, we'll take your money. (laughing) - And you say this is a long time. - I shouldn't say that. - No, no, you said this is a long time art school teacher, so you know. - Okay, I don't mean to be so flippant, but no, it's true. - They teach, the art and student of Chicago treated me like a transfer student, right? So I'd take an all my liberal arts degree, so they said you just have to take studio art classes. And then the artist, the student of Chicago studio art classes meet all day. So if you take a class, it meets like all day on Monday, right, with a lunch break. And it feels like being in a studio, right? Like all day. - That sounds like a graduate school experience. - I mean, it's one of the things I loved about the art, it's true to Chicago, because your teacher would teach you something, and then you'd like work it out with a bunch of people all during the day, right? And then there were no grades, right? So the way that you could fail there is simply by not showing up. That's how you fail. But if you showed up, you passed the class. - You were good. Wow. - Yeah. - So show up. And if you're gonna show up, then you're probably gonna do this all day long. And they always said, at the time that I was there, they said, "Don't take more than three studio classes," right? You know, so three full days a week that you were in the studio classes, and then maybe like one liberal arts class. But I'd taken on my liberal arts classes, and I was paying. So it's like, "I'm gonna take five studio classes." So I was in studio all week long. - Wow. - So it was very immersive, and I loved it. And then went straight to graduate school after that. So it was only at the Art Institute of Chicago for two years in the summer. - Oh wow. But yeah, it sounds like you got everything out of it. And I find that with older students, like when you come back to school and you're paying yourself, you know what you're there for, and you're gonna grab every ounce of it and you did, which is what you're doing. - Yeah, you're not doing it for someone else. You're doing it for yourself, right? - And you knew we wanted to be there. It was a passion at this point. - Yeah. - Well, it was a curiosity. - Okay. - Like it felt like a passion, and then it helped fan the flames of that passion into something like, well, I know I need to have art in my life. I should also say that while I was there, one of my teachers was Nick Cave, who was a dear friend, not the musician. - I know who it actually just saw a show in Chicago. I was actually just in Chicago and I saw it. Yeah, yeah, and so he was a young artist at the time, 'cause this is many years ago, this is in the early '90s. And what a privilege for me to have been there while he was on this visiting artist, in this visiting artist role, just a three year position that he was in. And he became a mentor, he's like an older brother, he's a dear friend, to have him as a teacher, was like, I was so lucky. Like it was just really good time. And I had amazing teachers there, and amazing fellow students. And it was really expensive, so I needed to get out of there quickly. (laughing) So now your parents, or was it your dad specifically, said you have to do grad school? Right, right. So you were obliged to do that. So I was gonna apply to a grad school and art. Like it didn't take me long to figure out the best what the grad school was gonna be. And I did get it, when I went to Cranburg, I did get scholarships to go to Cranburg. I got a couple of scholarships, one scholarship at the Art Institute of Chicago, which allowed me to go to Indonesia for an art and study trip. And so that's one of the things that is also deeply important to my practice is this idea of being out in the world, sort of shedding the titles that might be in the world, that be attributed to me in this place, this place being the US. And then being somewhere else and just being sort of unknown, and maybe an oddity, you know, like traveling, and like when I was in China, I've only been in China once, but when I was there in the mid 2000s, 2005, I think it was, I felt so tall and melanated as a woman. I was just like, I am a giant here. I am a giant brown person in this place. Like I was such an oddity that it, like so such an oddity where I was that it was just like, I mean, it was just this wonderful way of understanding, wonderful sometimes, wonderful way of understanding things, also being in a place where I was completely illiterate. And realizing like, it sharpened my eyes. So you're just like in a culture, deep old culture where you can't read anything, but how do you read and how much is your cultural reading and how much is like your human reading and how much is like what I learned yesterday that I'm now applying to understanding this situation today. So having the experience of walking into a high end hardware store, like a restoration hardware store and thinking that I was going into a restaurant and then stepping back out and I was like, what happened there? (laughing) I had a similar experience in Japan because it's similar. If you do not know Japanese, you cannot read a single thing. You work an alien, it is not your place. You are clearly not from there. They know you're not. And it is an amazing experience. And it is one that it's profound to be able to like, have that rare moment of like, wow, I can look at things totally different and have that experience. Yeah, I had a friend there who took me somewhere to a restaurant and I would be like, I didn't know that was a restaurant. I would never have walked in the door. I don't even know how to operate that door because it was like a thing that turned, I was like, I don't even know how that works. Like, that's how aliens was like, wow. So yes, I-- And then coming home to the place that I was born on the part of the planet, you know, that the generations might mean that I'm not a first gen. I am a first generation American, but as my mother would always say, Columbus didn't discover anything, but he also never set foot on the continental US. You know what I mean? So I'm like, right? So this to come home and say like, I ain't an alien here, though. Right? You know, so like that kind of, you know, when you see that other ring in your homeland, you're just like, you know, I'm not tolerating that bullshit. Yeah. Sorry. I won't curse anymore. You can. It's quite over. Oh, now you shouldn't have told me about it. Oh, no. The real use coming out words at the time. I will try and I will try. I'm used to being on the radio, so I know how to keep that in. But on a podcast, you can do anything you want. So let's jump forward because I feel like I can spend the whole time just talking about-- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at the time. And so you went through grad school. So I don't want to talk too deeply about it other than, what do you think you got out of grad school? Like, what was that for you? What was the purpose of that as an artist? I didn't go to grad school. So I'm always fascinated by the art grad school thing. Because I always feel like I miss something by not doing it. What was the-- What do you feel like you brought out? I might have missed something, but you might have gained something else. So, you know, I mean, that's a thing. Like, yeah, I miss something by going to graduate school that you have by not going to graduate school. You know, I don't think there's one path for artists. But I will share with you that I went to graduate school where three-- no less than three-- of my teachers had gone. So Nick Cave had gone to Cranbrook and Wilson had gone to Cranbrook and Joan Livingstone, who I was a studio assistant for, had also gone to Cranbrook. They were all teachers of mine in the fiber department at the Art Institute of Chicago. So that's sort of following in the legacy of your mentors and teachers. And I did that. At the time, Nick was-- Cranbrook's been around for a while, but Nick was one of the few black students who had graduated from that particular department. I felt very empowered when I was at Cranbrook. But I also-- and part of that power came from the fact that Cranbrook is a few miles north-- half an hour, 40 minutes from Detroit. And so much of my education at Cranbrook came from the black art community in Detroit in conjunction with what was lacking in the really white ivory tower that was Cranbrook. When I arrived at Cranbrook, someone said to me-- one of my teachers actually said to me-- black students tend not to do well here. And my response to that, because I felt very empowered. And I know who I am and who the people that I come from said, is that supposed to be a reflection on me or on you? I mean, to me, that sounds like you failed black students. That doesn't sound like black students fail. [LAUGHTER] And we had a learning moment. I was just like, oh, I just taught you something. You don't see who I am and the legacy of who I'm coming from. You don't understand who I'm walking with. Let me hold up a mirror. And I actually expect my students to do the same thing with me when I falter in my teaching, when I underestimate their ability. When the isms that exist within me arise, I hope that they too will hold up a mirror so that I can be a better teacher, right? For them and the people that are coming after them. I hope that to be true. So this is not a story of shaming. This is a story of how, even in an educational institution that was not intending for my presence to be there, right? We can shape the institutions to a certain amount, and they'll push back. Shape the institutions to a certain amount. But it was also a good learning experience for me to understand how the art world might receive me. Both the art world-- and I should say the art world-- both the way that the National Conference of Artists, which is a black organization, embraced me and gave me my first solo show before my thesis show at Cranbrook. And how that community in that first solo show held a conference that my artwork was acquired by a museum, right? So that community, I was just like, great. And then the predominantly white community that was Cranbrook was teaching me also-- all of these things. You know, I had classmates who would say things like, oh, you're so lucky to be black because there are all these black art shows. And I was like, you realize that's because the ex-nomination of-- I know that's like a million dollar word-- but the unnamed-- I mean, like the difference between American and African American means white American. Black American-- like, you have to-- American means white. So you have all these art shows. And then black people have to claim some space because you all are not including us. And we have plenty of culture that doesn't need you either. Right? Like, both of those things simultaneously. So that sort of learned-- learning environment of double consciousness was really important, informative for who I am as an artist and an educator. And the political stance that I take. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see how that helps you navigate the world that you're that we're in now. So yeah, for sure. What's heartbreaking is that I hear that students are going through the same thing now, like it's still really still. That was 30 some years ago and yes, I feel because every time we hit these things and I might, my, my mom was an activist and you know, it's like it's heartbreaking when she's like really like we're doing this again like we haven't gotten any feels like we're just we haven't taken a step forward. She remembers back in the day and now we're and here we are yet again. And so yeah, I, I, well, this is where education matters. I mean, when you see, when you see. You see white supremacists. The last gasp, you know, like these ridiculous notions of replacement theory, banning books and all of that, you know, the, the fascism that is rising in the nation. And so, as always had its tentacles in this, I mean, trashes learned how to, they got, they got a significant part of their playbook from the way that America treated black people, right. And seeing that you can say it's a, by friend and the great curator and museum director, Lowry Stoke Sim said it's the last gas, you know, but it man is it ugly. And, and, and dire like lives being lost, just, you know, I mean, we start talking about what's in the news is really is going to be a depressing conversation with people are just like we can't teach, we can't use 1619 as a book because that is very dangerous, but yeah, we can have guns in school. In fact, teachers should have that. And you just connect is what madness is this? And people worried about losing their political base by, by, I'm spewing this, I mean, like there is no logic in this. It is incredible. It is so. Yeah, yeah, no, we're on the same page. I know, I know. Okay, so we're going to take it back to art. Yes, this does directly correlate because your work is, you know, deeply rooted in your ethics and history and beliefs. But I want to talk about this sort of other side, which is the practical side of being an artist, so you out of grad school chose to become a teacher, as well as as an artist who is exhibiting work in museums. And so, you know, there's a practical side to that right there's a job when you're teaching as an artist, that's what my parents did. Was there a version of you who was like, I want to just be somehow making a living at and I'm making big assumptions here that you may, that making a living as an artist versus making a living as a teacher and then making art. And that way you're not driven sort of by the commodity side of art versus like I may be a gallery artist or even a craft person who's making their living selling craft. Yeah, yeah. So, oh, there's a lot to touch in there. So first, I will tell you that in high school, I worked at a very, very sort of fancy boutique in DC. So I had this sort of retail experience, right. But in a very fancy place in DC. And when I got out of grad school, so this is, so that was high school. So now I have my high school degree to undergrad your degrees and a master's degree. And then the job I got was working in Macy's. Right. So a department store, which, you know, to my high school self was definitely a step down. Right. But that was a job that I got. And the idea was that I was going to work. Live with my now husband, who was working in a boarding school. So we had a place to live, right. And it was a pretty liberal boarding school. And so I had a place to live with my husband, and he was working in a boarding school. And he was working in a boarding school. And that's what led to me having my first show. And that they had a conference and that this museum happened to be there. So is that my artwork or is that like a lot of, we are each others magnitude and bonds, you know, to sort of quote Wendell and Brooks. You know, like this, this way in which we take care of each other, but there's also like this serendipity of something that's much larger than us, right? So it's not that my work was so amazing. It's that I had the, I really feel like the universe was taking care of me. My work wasn't bad, you know, was good enough. (laughing) - Yeah, that's what I'm about to say. I would contend that it was good. - You talk. - You have to have both, right? - A lot of people looking out for me, right? - Well, I say you have to have both because you can have not good art, but great connections. You can have not, you can have great art and bad connections. Like it does have to, you have to have the right formula for it to add up. - Right. - And yeah. - So gosh, we could talk for hours and hours. - So yeah, so to me, always teaching and being an artist is that's the crux of your question, like that balance. I had been teaching for a long time. When I was a middle schooler, I was very good at math. Now I can barely add, but I was really good at math. And my mom's hairdresser, who also I guess was my hairdresser for better hours, but her son was being held back. And my mom said, well, Sonia's good at math, so she can tutor him. And I taught him all of these tricks that I had learned, like literally like patterns so that he could learn his timetables without it just being memorization. I was just like, oh, this is what happens. Like the one timetable and the nine timetable are connected. They just sort of reverse each other in this way. Like all this sort of pattern recognition stuff that I just, I don't know, learn somewhere. I don't know where I learned it, not Montessori, but somewhere, you know, or recognize and shared it with this little boy is probably just a few years younger than I am. And to watch him have this pride and know that he, like, he learned something. And I was just like, it filled my heart, right? So I was like, I want more like that. (laughs) So education is really important to me. Teaching is really important to me. And my students make me a better artist and make me a better teacher. And I sort of acknowledging that before. So it's a hard thing. Like I could not teach now, also real talk. Like I could, I could pay my bills. (laughs) And that was gonna be my next question is, you know, how do you. Without the generous, I have a very, Amherst treats me very, very well. Amherst College treats me very well. And so, but I like having, I like, I like have, I like teaching people who, this is gonna sound a little weird. These are you I taught students who thought of themselves as artists, that's why they came to VCU. Now I'm in a liberal arts school. And I'm with students who don't necessarily think of themselves. Most of the students don't think of themselves as artists. They're very caught up in other things, you know, like aspirational things. How are they gonna change the world and make a living? (laughs) Maybe not even in that order, depending on the student. I love teaching students who are trying to get into my classes, and the students who say, oh, you're teaching a beating class. I've been beating for 20 years. I'm like, not as interested in you. I'm a little interested, but why would you take a class? That sounds like you already know. Right. I mean, you could teach me a thing or two, so. (laughs) And of course, I haven't been beating 20 years. They are 20 years old, right? But, let me just say a little brief thing, that particular class that I'm talking about had attracted a number of Indigenous students and then a number of Native American students, of which Amherst has some, but not enough. You know, it's a community that is a rich community. But we only have representation of a very few of the many nations of Indigenous people from this land. And so those students, I was just like, okay. You can, yeah. You stupid. Oh, yeah, like, come, come, come, come, come. 'Cause we're all gonna teach each other and this is gonna be great. And so a couple of those students who have some, you know, already previous prior knowledge. But also, I'd like love the student who didn't know how to thread a needle before the class. Right. Like, I want those students in there. I want them all together. And that student who didn't know how to thread a needle ended up doing the best, you know, like, was at the top of that class. Because one of the things that I value in that class is just like, okay, so we're gonna be rating things on skill, but also gonna be rating things on ingenuity. So the most skilled student might not have any ingenuity or improvisation, improvisational ability, right? So that student's gonna say like, what did you do? Like, you can barely thread a needle, but what did you just do, right? So one student who had all of the game with a sort of like all this improvisational ability and ingenuity, but didn't know how to thread a needle, like learn the skills and just roast at the top of the class. And I said, so you see that, right? Like, I can teach you skills, right? But we don't fan the flames of ingenuity. Then, you know what I mean? Then that's the skills, right? So I want to, there's several points here. I think they're good to emphasize. One, right, is you choose to teach. And-- - Now? - Yeah, but that is not just the job so you can do art. It's something you find, you get from it. And that you find this, you know, there's this learning component to it, but also that it is something, I guess what I'm trying to express is that I have this similar thing around needing this balance between art making and then this other piece, this teaching piece. I teach as a corporate setting. I do work with people that are, you know, executives. And what's interesting in similar sense is that my favorite people to teach, right? Every now and then I work with like a creative group. - Yeah. - And they've frustrated with me teaching them. They think they're the experts and they don't like that. I'm giving them some weird thing. You know, they, I know this already, you know, you're not, you know, what do you know? But if I come into a room full of people who feel completely uncomfortable, that this is out of their realm of knowledge that they're experts in other things, they're the best because they don't have any preconceived notions. And it's fun and they're, and there's surprise and we all learn something like you're saying. And so what do you say to the people who are, you know, non-artists about why art is important? Like what is, what's the value of this to those, to those folks who haven't grown up with this and studied this and embraced this? - Well, what I would say is, first of all, I think people have a very, very, very narrow definition of what art is. - Yeah. - And, you know, like I was saying in the top of the hour that when I ask students to introduce themselves, and there's a little bit more to that, but they're first to artful experience. Some of them will lock into like museum famous white guy or like a picture, right? And I'm like, okay, like it gives me an opportunity to like unpack what artful moment means, what art means. - Right, right. - Why we're probably, privileging that space over some other space and all of that, right? So, first of all, like sticking elbows out and saying, like let's talk about what art actually is, right? And then when that definition is as broad as I think it should be, and then it's like, okay, so now we have this very broad definition. Now take all the art out of the world. What do you have left? - In a much. (laughs) And so there's a reason why they, they, and here I mean again, to turn to politics for a moment, white supremacists, fascists, those who want to control and subjugate, because that's the only way that they understand that they can have relevance. Get rid of the poise, the musicians, and the artists, right? And there I mean like the visual artist, you know, like all of the art feels. Because a protest song, you can, and you know, you can cut someone's tongue out, but they still have the song in their heart, right? You can have an image they can move people, it can move them to tears, it can move them to action, it can move, have an image, and you could, I don't mean to be so violent, but there is such violence in the world in this world. You could gout someone's eyes out, and they still have that image in their mind, right? A poem, and the poet's actually, the poet's to me, if I could, if I could come back as something else, I would not, I don't think I've earned it in this world. life, but if I could come back as something else, it would be a poet. The way in which a Tony Morrison or a writer like, I was talking about Gwendolyn Brooks earlier, a poet like Gwendolyn Brooks, a writer like Manny Perry, can fold a metaphor inside of a metaphor, right? In the span of seven words, right? The way that Ocean Vaughn can like, I read a page and I have to shut the book because I'm like, it's like, I'm so full, right? Like, that's the power of the arts. Of course, I turn to the literary arts because it's easier for me to talk about like an art form that I have absolutely no skill or mastery and to acknowledge that and say like, that's why they come after us because it's that because that's where the power actually is. So the subjugation is just like, when you see people needing to subjugate, look to who they're subjugating because what they're actually saying is that's where the power is and we're scared of that power. So when you see people subjugating indigenous people, people of color, immigrants, you know, it's just like that's because they know that's where the power is, right? And when I think about American culture, you know, and I think about the the heritages that have built American culture. I mean, one of the things I love about 1619, it's like try and have American culture without the people that were subjugated. And you don't have American culture. You just don't have it. This is the importance of art. And to turn to this other side of it, the capacity for art to hold all of our humanity. And so not just I'm thinking about specifically this, the I'm trying to find like the right words, but the public lynching of George Floyd. He was not the first and he clearly was not the last. I'm thinking about how the there's a way in which people wanted to capture the pain, like the number of times people came to me as a black artist and say, what are you feeling now? What are you making now? What are you doing? And I was like, this is the same as before. So if you look at my other work, you will see that. But also can we not just monetize black pain. Because there is also the complexity of emotions and ways of being. And that is our humanity. And if our humanity is only monetized and capitalized through our pain, then what that will do is just like, oh, we need more pain for those people so we can have some more art as opposed to through our joy, through our complexity, through our messiness, through everything. Like I need you all to see the fullness of the humanity and the complexity of all the identities that we have and the diversity and our diversity. And then if you can see that and they aren't right, then we can talk. But yeah, so that, I mean, I think about all of that as art's purpose. And there's a poet out there who probably could say that in a high coup. Right. So let's let's bring it back from the we have only a little bit of time left. Bring it back from the very big to you. Do you feel successful? I, you know, I do, I feel successful. Hi, moments, but it's not my goal actually. Yeah. So you said you bring it back to me. And remember that even when I'm thinking of me, I, I, I say this to people all the time. Like there is no way that you can really feel lonely. And I don't mean this about people who are suffering from depression and are actually, you know, someone who was in a psychological state where they do actually feel lonely. But when I mean it sort of more metaphorically, is that this person right here was made up of like millions and millions of people. Like two parents who keep going back multiple generations. And you know, it, you know, it's like to the, to the power of I don't know 100. It's like a lot of people. And then mixed up in that is, you know, you and I are, are relatives like, you know, we, we have common ancestors. I mean, I often say people of African descent and I was like if the anthropologist have that right, does everybody right? But so the individual self, I actually think the artwork is the more important thing. So I'm not really so concerned with my success as what it means like really not so concerned with that. Because I think that can be very distracting. I think I would be making other work if the, if my goal was, was the way that we think about success in this capitalist. I mean, like I think I know what that work might be. I know I think I know how I could make that work. But I would be relinquishing something of my ethics and something my responsibility to the legacy that I want to. If I focused on myself and my own success, I actually want to make artwork that I don't even care if people know that I made it. But the artwork has, like, like, who made this? Oh, Sonia Clark. I, ah, it's not important. But the artwork facilitates some sort of change in catalysts well after I'm gone, right? And so that's a kind of, um, uh, it's a kind of immortality, I guess. But, um, but it's more immortality in the idea, right? Because the idea, um, feels like a gift, right? And the idea can live far longer than the bones and blood and breath that is Sonia Clark. And so again, it doesn't even matter if it's Sonia Clark. Because first of all, Sonia Clark is a bunch of people that arrived at this being, right? So it feels like just continuing that legacy. So when I make something in, and it has resonance with someone for a moment, for a time period, for longer than that, or it resonates again and again and again and again. That's a kind of success, but not for me, for the legacy that I belong to. When that happens, that feels like, like, um, that, that feels special. But I, I'm also not there to witness it. You know, artwork lives in a space, in someone's home, in a museum, or something like that. I'm not there in someone's mind and heart to know how the artwork does or doesn't speak to them, right? And this is what I mean. Like, I don't know whether it's successful because there could be a child who sees a big 15 by 30s foot woven cloth. And they say, that's the biggest piece of cloth I've ever seen in my whole life. And then they find out, or their parents tell them from reading something, like, that's the piece of cloth that an artist forget her name, but decided to make a hundred times its scale. That's a piece of cloth that ended the Civil War. Let's talk about the Civil War. Let's talk about what surrender means. Let's talk about what truce means. Let's talk about why the Civil War was fought. And so this piece of cloth now becomes a story, right? And that story is actually that the artwork has the ability to hold all of those stories that I am not witness. I can't bear witness to. And that, that feels like success, but not mine. Not mine. You know, like, I can claim some of it, but that's not the important part. It feels like the the art itself has had a moment I regularly remember success, but I'm not there to witness it. So, you know, if someone walks by, I'm also not there to witness. And those unsuccessful events, right? Anyway, yeah, that's my thought on that. I love it. I love your perspective. Thank you so much for the generosity of your time today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no, it's so wonderful to talk to you. And thank you for making this space. And as always, I wish you all the best. Thank you. And in all of your endeavors, all of them creative and as a partner and as a father and all of those things is the son and all of those things, all the ways that you walk in this world. So again, thank you for inviting me. And I hope, I hope our conversation will be fruitful for others. Thanks for listening to For Round Background with me, Noah Scalin. If you want to know more about Sonya Clark, check out her site, sonyaclark.com, which will be in the show notes. If you want to help me make more things like this show, please consider becoming part of my team art at patreon.com/noescalin. And of course, please rate and review this podcast wherever you found it. This show is edited by Kelsey Devorek. Thank you, Kelsey. And the music used on this episode is Flying High 2019 Hip Hop Remix by Jan Trex. And finally, a special thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. You help make this show possible. You all rock. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)