Everything & Nothing: Adrienne
Ex·pand·er: aka “seeing is believing” is a person that you identify with that’s already been where you are now and has gone on to become successful in, owns, or embodies what you want (job, relationship, house, success, friendships, relationship with self, etc). This concept is based on simple neuroscience and the creation of mirror neurons. - Lacy Phillips
Adrienne, the cool artist and mom who doesn’t think she’s cool which only makes her cooler. I met Adrienne some years ago. It was easy to become aware of her, being one of the few dope black local artists and all. We both somehow seemed to always lightly cross paths and give just enough recognition to establish that cultural warmth only certain folks know about. She has been one of my favorite painters since I officially saw her work in person at my first group showing. Ever since, we’ve kept a respectfully cool, or in my case shy, distance in person, but the warmth has definitely been nurtured over the years. So shout out to social media and just being a black woman who knows.
St. Louis to Virgin Islands to Watervalley, MS
A: I’m originally from St. Louis. I left there to live in the Virgin Islands for 9 years, and now I live in Mississippi..
D: How did you go from St. Louis to the Virgin Islands?
A: I was 21 and didn’t have anything else going on really. My boyfriend at the time moved to Saint Croix. I went to visit him. I was like “Ooh, I can live HERE? Yes please!”
D: What was it like?
A: It was great. I miss it everyday. Sunshine 365 days a year. Blue water. Black people. Everything’s green all the time. It was expensive though and we were having a fourth kid.
D: Are you gonna go back?
A: I wouldn’t mind living on a different Island. St. Croix has some other issues. The economy is shaky. It was like we could continue to live here, but I felt like it was becoming the projects in the middle of the ocean. I wasn’t trying to be trapped. I was like we’re not going to be able to leave if we have another kid and have to buy six plane tickets. So I was like we go now or we stay here forever. We moved in probably 30 to 45 days.
D: How’d you end up in Watervalley?
A: My cousin moved here the same year I moved to St. Croix. When we were like we have to get out of St. Croix, she was like, “y’all can come here”. I didn’t want to take the kids from island to city. My kids had never had any city experience — like they were used to running around in the backyard with no clothes on with chickens and iguanas. They would not do well in St. Louis or DC. So my cousin was like you guys can come here where it’s small, it’s quiet, it’s clean, it’s got an art scene. So we moved here sight unseen with three kids, six months pregnant. It was crazy and we hated it for like two years. Two years of me being like where are we. After a couple years, we settled in and found our groove. Oxford was Oxford, and so I started coming out to Watervalley for art stuff; like going out to art crawl. I was like Watervalley is really nice. The houses are nice. The artists out here. It’s cheap. I mean there’s nothing going on, but it’s 20 minutes outside of Oxford. My husband was like, “Uh I’m not moving to a smaller place. Are you insane?” I told him just come with me. So I started dragging him out to Watervalley and finally he was like, “Yeaaa alright, let’s move to Watervalley”.
Creating My Own Visual
D: How did you get into art?
A: I have always drawn. Since I was probably four. My mom says I once drew a helicopter that was very clearly a helicopter and she was like, “Oh!”. So like I would just draw on anything. My grandmother kept grocery bags and crayons and chalk. I just drew on everything. I loved Bob Ross when I was a kid. So everyday after school I would watch pbs. My grandma kept the ugliest painting ever of her 7 year old granddaughter of a bird flying over a mountain.
D: Is that where your tiny series came from?
A: I don’t know. I was like I’m gonna paint and it was the very first thing I painted. Between my mom and my grandmother they kept all of my terrible kid art. My grandfather was an artist so he wasn’t one to keep all of your kid art. So if he was one to approve of something, nobody could tell me anything. As long as I had his approval, I knew whatever I was doing was high quality.
D: What other mediums do you work with?
A: I mostly paint and draw. Custom paper dolls; which I started doing for my kids when they were itty bitty. Then it sort of grew into this thing.
D: Aside from commissioned projects, what do you prefer to paint?
A: My subject matter for the last 20 years has always been my kids. I prefer to paint black women and black girls exclusively. If I’m painting for myself, it is always going to be a black woman or a black girl. Not that I have anything against anyone else. It’s just my personal preference. I think black women are beautiful and like there’s just not a better subject for me.
D: What else inspires you?
A: Oddly enough, nature even though I’m a city person. I think Mississippi is really beautiful too and so the landscape of MS is really inspiring. Just wide open space, and like spring time Mississippi is insane — the wildflowers, the trees, and birds coming back, it’s insane. In between March and June, this place is heaven. Then June rolls around and it’s 147 degrees lol
Worst Roommates Ever
D: What it like being an artist mom?
A: It’s a lot. lol My kids are older now which makes everything a little easier. They’re pretty self sufficient. When they were little it was really not having the time to do it. Art’s not like any other job because it’s really personal and it’s necessary for my sanity and mental health and wellbeing, and so when I don’t have the time to do it everything else is so much harder. And so when I have to take time away that keep me sane, and I mean for months and years at a stretch, everything else in my life feels way more daunting. So that was really challenging when they were little. I was pregnant or nursing for 8 years of my life, so it was like I never had my hands or my body to myself — or like my brain or mental space to myself to do the things I needed to do so that I could be better at all the other things that I needed to do. Eventually I got to a place where I was like I just can’t do all these things. Once I got to a place where I was like I can’t do it all and nobody’s gonna die if I don’t do it all, I stopped trying to do it all at one. I still do it all, just not all at the same time. As my kids have gotten older, I have more time where I don’t feel like I’m neglecting things.
D: What’s been some of the most important values that you’ve instilled or wanted to instill in your girls?
A: I think I wanted my kids to have a sense of themselves. Like I learned when I had more than one kid that kids just come into the world as they are. Instead of wanting to make them into the people I wanted them to be, I’ve been trying to figure out how to nurture the people they already are. That’s not always easy because there are so many of them and sometimes the people they are conflict with the other people who are in the house. And so like trying to figure out how to raise people to be who they are but also understanding who they are has an effect on everybody else around them, and like you can’t just do whatever you want and it not affect people. But I also want them to know they can set boundaries for themselves — know what you want, what you like and what you’re comfortable with.
D: What have they taught you about yourself?
A: I’ve had to break the idea of who I think I am as a parent and try and listen to who they see me as, and that kinda sucks sometimes, but then sometimes it doesn’t. I talk about how hard and challenging it is to parent, but like I’m also in the throws of having all teeneagers, but I really love hanging otu with my kids and they oddly enough enjoy hanging out with me.
D: Who are some of your favorite artists?
A: One of my favorite artists right now is Lauren Pierce. She’s an artist in Ohio. We just showed together in New York. She’s actually younger than I am, but her work is amazing. We just showed together in NY and I was excited to get to see her work in person. I love Kehinde Wiley, of course. Basquiat is a house favorite. I oddly enough like the really old Italian Renaissance masters and my kids are always like why do we have to look at this work. I don’t love the subject matter, but the work itself, the technique is great. I think it influences my art in a technical way. I think it’s beautifully done. Artists who can paint light are amazing to me.
D: Why is it important for you to teach only black artists in your home?
A: Because I knew the moment my kids went to school they weren’t gonna learn about any of them. It’s been cool to introduce them to artists that look like them.
D: What are some important things art has taught you?
A: I feel like art is both a record of history and a creation of history. It’s a place where you can look back and see what was going on in a time you didn’t exist, but it’s also sort of a steering wheel for things that are going on right now, so that becomes history in the making. And so I think that’s been really important to understand about artists and people who create; is that they not only record history, they help steer it. I think just people expressing something that’s not superficial in a way that’s accessible to everybody. Even though like not everybody connects to all forms of art, somebody connects with all forms of art. I think to have something that anybody can connect to has been really important. That human connection with somebody…
Insert Cat trauma story
D: Where do your narratives stem from when you’re painting?
A: Directly from my kids. Or just the people I’m painting in general and their experiences and how they feel about how they’re portrayed. I want to paint others in a way that feels however they feel in that moment. Whether it’s beautiful or powerful or emotional or whatever, I want to capture that feeling for them in canvas, or for myself also. Because not everything is beautiful and lovely and all that, but even those ugly things are still beautiful and important and apart of people. People are complicated with all of these emotions, ideas and thoughts, and things that make us who we are, and I like to capture that in people. All of that is beautiful to me.
D: Through art, what’s been a big lesson that’s stuck with you throughout your career?
A: One of the things that’s come with being an artist is my disdain for doing whatever other people want me to do. I’m not interested in anybody else’s schedule or anybody else’s plan for me and what I should be doing with my time. I’ve learned to appreciate that. I feel like that comes from me directing my own life and creating my own visual for myself, and consistently visualizing something and bringing it to reality. Doing that on canvas makes me feel like I can do that in my life.
D: What do you want your legacy to be?
A: Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about that. I’m not sure. Most of my thoughts about leaving anything behind are about breaking the cycle about not having concrete equity for my children. I want to be able to leave my children something that helps build for the next generation. Like you may not have a brand new pair of Nikes but you do have a quarter acre of land lol
D: What do you want people to take away from your art, if anything?
A: I really like when people create their own narratives around my artwork rather than try to figure out what my narrative is because I think it makes the work feel more personal for them. I really enjoy talking to people about what they get from the work and what they see in the work, and it reminds them of and what it makes them feel. It feels like a connection to some part of them that they want to share.
D: Finish this sentence. Art is….
A: Everything and nothing.