Today i had the pleasure of giving a artist talk at West side high school for the city with out walls mentoring program.
As usual I got to the school a hour or so early, i love to walk around any place that i am talking, so i can see the neighborhood and run my mouth.
Before i left for the lecture I spoke to My brother, Jerry Gant, he yelled at me, document document document. Ok Jerry i got my camera.
I walked around stopping at different places and soon i found my self involved in several conversations with store owners and people just standing around on the street. The street was alive with the walk out that students staged all across new jersey to protest, our great governors, destruction of the school system and programs.
But i wont get started on the governor, who by the way just cut my job, because i want to have a pleasant conversation.
Having said that
after at least a hour of talking and talking i entered the school. It was not crowded as many of the kids walked out to protest.
Ok I thought just my luck.
I found the teacher, whose class i would be talking too, a wonderful, pretty woman originally from Nigeria.
And i was delighted that many of the students stayed behind to hear what this crazy artist had to say.
Preparation, I have taught in Newark since 1981, so these kids are my kids and i knew what i needed to do to reach them.
The night before i had a long conversation with my daughter Lauren and son-in law rich. Who told me in no uncertain terms that my generation has to update our reference material. And make it more relevant to the my space generation.
And if there is one thing i know how to do its adapt.
So I decided, to include pictures of people from Newark and this area as a way of being more inclusive and making the kids identify with people who are just like them.
Kid like relate better to you if you are one of them and i am one of them
Having said that
I had a nice size class, of about 20 students which was great, because due to the walk out i could have been let standing in the cold
The kids were great, I joked with them right off the bat.
And This was a all black class, i mean all black.
It was marvelous.
I had just given a artist talk at Columbia, university’s teachers college the week before and that was wonderful too, but this was different.
So I started out showing slides of a dear friend of Mines work, Manuel Acevedo, who is from this neighborhood and they were enchanted.
Then i showed them allot more slides of Jerry Gants work, every one knows Jerry and has seen his work. But many didn't know who he was. Their ears perked up, i had their attention.
The teacher at one point told the class that Kevin is from Newark, his kids graduated from Newark schools.
He is one of us, that was very important to these kids, it was very important i was not a outsider.
My adopted sons, wife, lived just three blocks away, on west end ave so i had been up in the area for years
I went on showing my work, interspersed with slides of other artist.
Then I showed them a slide of James Wilson, my daughters best friend in high school and a kid that i had raised as my own, since he was left by his mother when he first started college…….
James was from the spires………….1st ave, projects, i had been to and knew the spires pretty well
James is one of the most talented young artist that i have ever met, I raised James as my own and he lived with my family and me, until just about last week. When he moved in with his girlfriend, ten years, praise the lord
In the mean time, three security guards came into the room and sat down with the kids to hear what i had to say, along with a few more teachers.
I continued talking about James
I mean this kid, is black and Puerto Rican,he is now thirty. His father died of a drug over dose when he was two. . But his mother is a devout museum who was married to a guy from Egypt until he was in high school.
James thought he was Egyptian until he was 16 when his mother finally told him that he was black and Puerto Rican.
I went on to tell the story of how I got James a full scholarship to the fashion institute of tech, he was a graduate of arts high school. And has worked in several major galleries in new York, …….this kids has had bit parts in three movies.
including being a associate producer on the Andy Warhol movie…….these kids got this.
And was the first skateboarder of color, serious one in Newark. When i mentioned this every one knew who he was.
The onto my daughter…………
He lived in Egypt for a time, has recently been to Paris and Dubai and is poor, but he wanted to do some thing and has done it..
Then i showed them this picture of my family that i took at a recent art opening of Mine at the American visionary Museum in Baltimore.
these kids were listening, i was showing slides of my work in between and describing what i do, and they were asking questions. Lot of questions………
Who are the people in the picture
Thats my family, my daughter, my sister who is a nationally known project manager
my brother in law who is one of the top aids doctors in the world ………a guy that chose to work in the black community in Texas tending to aids patients, a Guy just like them, who now lectures all over the world
man they got that
Who is the Asian guy,
That my best friend raoul, a guy who came from the Philippines, with just the clothes on his back. A guy who is now and has been the creative director for Amfar……a brilliant down to earth, amazing man Just like you
what is Amfar.
These kids ate it up, hungry for the knowledge that simple people can do great things
that any one with a desire can achieve any thing
After i showed this slides of my work, one of the teachers, looked at the slide and said, is your daughters name Lauren.
I said yes
This teacher whose name was Michael had done a summer program with my daughter and had attended arts high school a few years ahead of her. In fact he had Graduated with James and was still a good friend of James.
Michaela had gone through the city with out walls mentoring program him self. And he told the kids how this program exposed him to art and the art world
I called him up front and we began talking to the class together. Right, After i called my daughter on the phone and she and Michael who hadn't seen each other in ten years played catch up.
Some of the slides of my work dealt with Haiti…. and Michael is Haitian, so we wound up giving a short history lession of Haiti and Nigeria and the sameness of all of us……. I had done my homework and read up on Haiti and Nigeria thank God.
Now the class was entranced, the teacher jumped in, she saw the look in her students eyes.
And we began speaking of my daughter the annual funds manager at cooper Union. She made me tell them more about my daughter…. I told them of this little black girl just like them, who tried really hard. Who survived after losing not just her baby brother but her mother at 11 years old. Of how i raised my kids alone, poor but of how art and the exposure to the art world had changed all of our lives and opened doors to worlds that we didn't even know existed.
The questions began flying……….. i had them, we three teachers stood side by side and let it fly
We spoke of how different your life can be if you just take a chance on yourself
This wonderful Nigerian teacher, and I explained what a artist was.
We explained the beauty of making art and the freedom of living the artist life.
The girls kept saying how pretty my daughter was, how lucky she was. I told them that we as a family made our own luck and took advantage of what the world had to offer. I told them that I could never have imagined how rich my life would become, of how i had to claw my way back into living, and of how art became my salvation
those kids got me preaching.
I told them of how my daughter life got off to a hard start, but that we stayed strong as a family, we endured, and we flowered,
My daughter lives just down the street from this school in south orange
and these kids were amazed.
The teacher kept stressing how i was one of them, no different than their grandfathers or uncles
and they got it.
the questions came and came, the tears flowed from some
and boy did we break through
after the lecture, several of the young men came up and asked me could they make art with me
how could they help
I had showed them pictures of the murals that i had done in the city of Newark, and the teachers, both asked me to come back to this school to make a mural.
We don't have any money, but the kids are really relating to you,
will you come back
yes i will
and yes we can
I found a new way to speak to young people today, a new way to reach kids that some times just
cant see the possibilities.
and its restored my soul
Before i left i heard jerry Gant again yelling in my ear document document…..
so i took some more pictures ever though allot of the class had left…to join the protest
but…….. better late than never.
As i looked out over their young faces i saw the smiles and the promise…….
and I felt like a grandfather who had come home……..
many of the kids stayed behind to continue talking to me and asking for my number, and making me promise to come back
don't forget us
don't forget about us
At the end of the class ,I got together with these wonderful teachers, and I promised that I would return and help them do a mural.
we want Obama on our walls……….But We don't have any money to pay you
I told them …………you already have paid me
and we will do a mural,
we will find the money and I will hook in my daughter, jerry and more, because you deserve it
The governor cut the school budget……..
But he cant stop us,
he wont stop us
Ever time i give one of these talks, I am restored.
This High school is in one of the roughest parts of Newark
But it is so full of promise
and these teacher care so much and do so much, regardless of what the governor thinks…………….these teachers deserve our support and respect.
and no
I wont forget……….any of them
and like Gen MacArthur said
I will return
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