A History
W.E.B. Dubois was an extremely intelligent man who spoke on the many sociological issues that plagued the Black community. In one of his most famous work, The Souls of Black Folk, he speaks of a metaphysical wall that exist, what he denominates as ‘the veil.’ Dubois explains this veil as a double consciousness that all African-Americans adorn themselves with, in order to cope and survive in society. This double consciousness is the way African-Americans know the world sees them, all the prejudices and the biases, while they also know they have to be in each setting while also being true to themselves if they can.
Since Dubois’ book, not much has changed within the African-American community in terms of the double consciousness. America has not simply become more welcoming to the lifestyles of Blacks, and as a result the defensive mentality they used to survive back then, has stuck around. African- Americans have had to find several ways to cope, both positive and negative outlets, in order to be stay sane in a mentally straining world.
When a minority, any success you attain is expected to be shared with your community. That can be difficult as an artist, due to the fact that you are selling your heart in order to make a living. Art is a product, that you sell, your service as an artist, your work, all of that is being provided for whichever buyer desires it. Black artists are hired as specialists. They are hired off their ability to illustrate people of color, devoid of any stereotypes.
In the recent decades, there has veil more Black artists known than ever before. The last large Black art movement that the world acknowledged was during the Harlem Renaissance. The Black artist has not been an individual to stay in the public eye. To be a Black artist is to see the stigma placed on you as an artist, to be able to rebuke it and stay true to yourself, while also embracing your creativity. Artists have been stereotyped to be outlandish individuals, something that a minority may fear, for not wanting to step into a limelight controlled by the prejudice.
I started creating visual art at the age of 9, when I was bedridden after a fatal accident that confined me to a wheelchair. When I started creating, art was my escape, my way of being able to cope with not having the mobility I had became so accustomed to. My family loved my art, they saw it as a positive sign that I was not giving up my happiness, despite my circumstance. However, after getting out of the wheelchair, I continued making art. My family, at this point was not the most supportive. They felt that art was not something I could do forever, that it was a cute hobby and that all children go through this phase. That I would be a lawyer or a businesswoman, with the mind that I have.
Entering high school, I learned that art was a path that I could take, that hobbies can be turned into career choices, and I could make money off of doing what I loved. However, I quickly learned how difficult that would be. Despite my high school being nothing but minorities, I found very few visual artists. When I did encounter some, little to none of them were like myself, African-American. I simply thought that, my high school is just a small community, and that there were other people out there like me, and so I did what any Generation X person would do, and I took to the internet.
Present: An artists Making their way
When I began scouring social media for other black artists on the internet, my questions were answered by none other than ‘Blitter’ Blitter is ‘Black Twitter’, the “other side” of Twitter, dedicated to the uplifting of the African American community and the positive praise to those prospering, that otherwise the masses would have no knowledge of.
The first artist that Blitter lead me to was Marcus Williams (known as MarcustheVisual) , a 38 year-old Georgian artists who quickly became my primary source of inspiration. On Williams page, you will find what one can only describe as ‘ Black excellence’.. Williams only illustrates Black and Hispanic individuals, representing a minority in his own highly animated and lively style. Williams illustrates children books, completes hundreds of commissions a month, designs his own characters and graphic novels, all while still managing to check his homework. Art, his main source of income, has been the greatest and most difficult gift. On one hand he can spend large amounts of time with his children in the comfort of his own home, on the other hand, Williams is constantly bombarded with the responsibility over gentrification within his neighborhood. As a black artist, many in his community expect his art to reflect he neighborhood he resides in , and use the money to clean up the streets while he’s at it. What a lot of people don’t know is that artists are like teachers, we ain’t rich!
Two years ago, I was invited to a comic book event. I had never been to one, but I did no think that is would be a spectacular ordeal, due to the small building and my low teenage expectations of what the black art community looked like in real life. It was during those years ago that I was able to meet Marcus at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture located in Harlem New York. Despite being in a room with over 50 other artists, Marcus stood out from all of them, even to the people who had never heard of him. While he isn’t boastful or cocky, you can tell he knows the value of his work and genuinely enjoyed his career path despite all the obstacles endured to get to the point he was at.
However, it did not go over my head how much work each and every artist went through just to be able to vend at that even. The even was created specifically for minority artists to come and sell their work, due to the corporate industry rejecting their work, because the Black image is not the one that white people wish to see,. The idea that one has to orchestrated an event to sell art, something that is a form of expression, just because and entire industry refuses to indorsed and support them, says enough in itself. Williams didn’t publish his graphic novels with the help of industry funding, he had to turn to the internet To Instagram, to Blitter, in order to raise the money needed.
Present: An artists Making their way
When I began scouring social media for other black artists on the internet, my questions were answered by none other than ‘Blitter’ Blitter is ‘Black Twitter’, the “other side” of Twitter, dedicated to the uplifting of the African American community and the positive praise to those prospering, that otherwise the masses would have no knowledge of.
The first artist that Blitter lead me to was Marcus Williams (known as MarcustheVisual) , a 38 year-old Georgian artists who quickly became my primary source of inspiration. On Williams page, you will find what one can only describe as ‘ Black excellence’.. Williams only illustrates Black and Hispanic individuals, representing a minority in his own highly animated and lively style. Williams illustrates children books, completes hundreds of commissions a month, designs his own characters and graphic novels, all while still managing to check his homework. Art, his main source of income, has been the greatest and most difficult gift. On one hand he can spend large amounts of time with his children in the comfort of his own home, on the other hand, Williams is constantly bombarded with the responsibility over gentrification within his neighborhood. As a black artist, many in his community expect his art to reflect he neighborhood he resides in , and use the money to clean up the streets while he’s at it. What a lot of people don’t know is that artists are like teachers, we ain’t rich!
Two years ago, I was invited to a comic book event. I had never been to one, but I did no think that is would be a spectacular ordeal, due to the small building and my low teenage expectations of what the black art community looked like in real life. It was during those years ago that I was able to meet Marcus at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture located in Harlem New York. Despite being in a room with over 50 other artists, Marcus stood out from all of them, even to the people who had never heard of him. While he isn’t boastful or cocky, you can tell he knows the value of his work and genuinely enjoyed his career path despite all the obstacles endured to get to the point he was at.
However, it did not go over my head how much work each and every artist went through just to be able to vend at that even. The even was created specifically for minority artists to come and sell their work, due to the corporate industry rejecting their work, because the Black image is not the one that white people wish to see,. The idea that one has to orchestrated an event to sell art, something that is a form of expression, just because and entire industry refuses to indorsed and support them, says enough in itself. Williams didn’t publish his graphic novels with the help of industry funding, he had to turn to the internet To Instagram, to Blitter, in order to raise the money needed.
DuBois said that the veil is the lense that African American see the world through, they see how they are expected to react, to respond, to behave and they choose if they want to comply or to tarnish the thought and be true to themselves. Williams, at one point, had to deicide whether he should conform to what publishers desired, an artist only hired when they want to illustrate a side character and not have it appear as blackface ( due to the outrage from the growing population of those who publically cancel corporations for stunts such as those). If he wanted to be an artist, hired for his skill, or a ‘Black artist’, a artist hired with expectations, not for skill but for one specific talent. What did he choose? Williams chose to rebuke both, to create for himself, to work for himself so that he would not have to worry about the desires of a biased company, he could send his novels to black owned publishing and make his way there.
Past: Artist who paved the way
Marcus Williams story is very similar to another Georgian based artist that I had to opportunity to interview. Dawud Anyabwile, one of the oldest black comic book writers, is yet another artist who had to decide his path, based on his veil.
From childhood, Dawud had always loved to draw. Manifesting anything that popped into his head, Dawud created stories and characters all throughout middle school. Once he got to high school, he began selling his art to both friends and family. The support he received then became the driving force for his extremely successful 30 year ( and going ) career.
Unfortunately, despite Dawud’s copious amount of skill, he found himself in the same predicament as Williams, a head full of idea and a email list full of no’s. The biggest difference was the time period. Dawud’s struggles took place 20 years before Williams, a time where racism was more blatant and surface level.
‘I believe that during the early years of my career in comics went against the mainstream industry where our publication was not only Black owned but featured all Black characters during a time when that was not common and pretty much non existent. Our book was a catalyst and pioneer in this Black comic movement and as pioneers you are often shunned in many areas of business whereas you observe your white counterparts advance in similar areas when they were not even impacting the industry as we were.’ (Anyabwile, Personal interview)
Dawud’s first graphic novel was published in 1989. Not by a publisher, oh no. Dawud was forced, due to the lack of resources and support, to create his OWN publishing company, ‘Big City Entertainment”. This is a prime example of the lengths that black artists have to go through. Resources are so scarce, that on top of raising the money for the resources to create book, to sell their art, the have to create the resources themselves, something that takes time and education. An education that is not the easiest to obtain, as a minority.
Future: The artists who have yet to change the game
As an art student at city college, I have seen first hand the trials and tribulations art student go through. Sleeping in studio rooms, going nearly a week with no sleep for an art project, only to scrap it the day before and submit something else. It is intense, and competitive. Millions of kids go to art schools all over the country, but not millions of kids get art jobs. You need a niche, some pizzazz, or some kind of experience that makes jobs pick you over the other guy. This causes additional stress to a nation of students who just want to do what they love.
Take my good friend Becky Maldr for example. At 21, she is dropping out of college. Why? The art world is hard for minorities.
Straight out of high school Becky was accepted to Parson’s School of Design, a school with less than a 35% acceptance rate ( according to Parson’s School of Design website ). However, after only a semester and a half she dropped out. With school fees piling up, and having to work full time to support her family, she just couldn’t do it. The $10,000 she received in financial aid was not enough to cover the over $40,000 remainder of her tuition she was expected to pay out of pocket. After taking a year off she transferred to City College, the school praised for its low tuition and retaining a high quality of education.
But in Becky’s case, City College was still too much. She was paying out of pocket for yet another year of education, and couldn’t afford it. After all she is still just a child in the grander scheme, and it is too much for her to pay. So this year, she is moving to California!
When I asked her why, and what this means for her art, she was solemn. “ I can continue my education any time. But I cant keep killing my body and my creativity for this.”( Maldr, Personal interview) For Becky, college was supposed to train her, to hone her skills so that she could become a art educator. It is impossible to expect someone to be able to create under pressure like that.
It is simply another reason why it is so hard to be a Black artist, the very institution in place to make you a better artist and prepare you for the art world, forces you to spend all your time working, so that you can pay to keep going. But by that time, you’ve lost it. You’re passion, that love for the craft you had, can leave in an instant. Some don’t get far enough for college. High school is too strenuous to juggle.
In the end, there are several factors on why African Americans choose art. Escape, in Becky’s case. Revolution, in Dawud’s case. Fun, in Williams case. The obstacles are clear, a society and systematic oppression making it nearly impossible to succeed while staying sane. So why do it? Why keep going for something that seems harder to hold on than it is to let go?
Art is it’s own thing. To create is to put yourself on a page. It is the purest form of expression. Everyone needs an outlet.
Work Cited
Anyabwile, Dawud, Personal Interview. 23 April 2019
Figure 1 Smith-Butler, Jhanaiya, Digital Image, 2017
Figure 2 Williams, Marcus, Digital Image, Marcusthevisual.com 2018, Accessed 25 April, 2019
Figure 3 Anyabwile, Dawud, Digital Print, Brothermancomics.com, Unknown, Accessed 23 April, 2019
Maldr, Becky, Personal Interview. 2 May 2019
Parson’s School of Design, TheNewSchool.com, https://www.newschool.edu/academics/ Accessed 10 May 2019
Williams, Marcus, Personal Interview. 25 April 2019
