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. 

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. 

Basic Outline

Intro- My life as an artist 

• Where/ when/ why I started creating 
• How art made me feel 

• How my art made other people feel 

P1-  Internet and social Media 

• Wanting to give up because of the difficulty 
• Realizing that not all people saw my art as art 
• My learning about Dubois and the viel and how it perfectly applied to where I was as an artist, wanting to be myself but hidign while trying to please people 

• Turning to  other artists  over the internet, community so small I have to search through millions of people to be able to connect with them 
• Discovering that most art on the internet( and in the world) is white dominated 
• Response to my “Black Art” and how I started to feel about my own art and how I started to act ( negatively, like I had to uphold this image the world expected me to be 

P2- Internet and Dubois 

• My looking for artists 

• My finding of Marcus the Visual  
• His thoughts on the veil and how his experiences relate to Dubois 

Possible Sources

• Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois 
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Heisi Coates