Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Shakespeare's Face Reinterpreted: The Second Coming of Artist Rocky Bettis

3/5/2024

(“Shakespeare Considered Sepia” 2024 digital painting by Aberjhani based on original 1623 First Folio engraving by Martin Droeshout.)

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.”
– Stella Adler (from Stella Adler on America's Master Playwrights)

1. Different Times and New Places

Have you ever noticed how that ultimate icon of English literature, William Shakespeare (1564–1616), sometimes pops up in places where you might least expect to find him? That was my experience twice in February 2024. The first instance occurred while I was conducting research online for a James Baldwin Centennial Project and received several Google search results referencing Baldwin’s essay, “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare.” The great “Bard’s” name had not been included with my query, while Baldwin (1924-1987) had recently been the subject of a Google Black History Month doodle, so the search result seemed odd.

The second instance would occur after I learned an artist, Rocky Bettis, whom I had met only once before back in 2020 (when the pandemic was growing more lethal by the day) had a new exhibit at the Gallery Espresso Coffee Shop in downtown Savannah, Georgia. It had opened February 1 and was scheduled to close April 1, 2024. Our first meeting had been completely accidental and occurred when I happened to spot an installation of his paintings in a in a car port in a lane off Liberty Street. The unexpected discovery produced an essay titled “Encounter with Artist Paul Cezanne in Downtown Savannah.” News of the Gallery Espresso (GE) exhibition was exciting because in the midst of surviving the masks-on and masks-off days of the pandemic, I had lost contact with Bettis.

It was also exciting because at a different once-upon-a-time in my life, the GE coffee shop had been located at 6 East Liberty Street, where the world-famous Book Lady Bookstore is now nestled. Until 2003, it was a favorite venue where I joined many other poets on Friday nights to share our open mic joys and grievances. Various obligations had made visits, for me, to the relocated site at Bull and Perry Streets (just off Chippewa Square) somewhat rare. Space for works of fine art at the previous setting had not been as plentiful, but, many of the poems published in I Made My Boy Out of Poetry were written specifically to perform before its weekend late-night audiences. One example, titled “Two Poems & A Funky Red Rhythm,” was dedicated to a trio of troubadours, known as The Receding Wave, who hosted the open mic. The strength of their impact upon my literary aspirations might be evident from this excerpt:

… I stood behind a tree and watched as they flowed
toward each other, the two poems and the funky red rhythm.
And seeing them, the things they did, my clothes burned away
and drops of white flame poured from my scalp,
trailed wet fire down my spine and steam across my chest.

Was I insane, moving blindly towards them until they
pressed upon me, one swallowing me as if I were a sword
coated with chocolate, another lashing me with a flurry
of sacred tremors, and the third--twirling my soul like a baton?
I screamed, and I died, and my mind got lost in the flood of its tears.

(from I Made My Boy Out of Poetry)

Interior view of The Book Lady Bookstore at 6 East Liberty Street, former location of the Gallery Espresso Coffee Shop where open mic poetry nights were often held during the 1990s and early 2000s. (photo by Cedric Smith)

The times and location had changed but the city’s creative flow was still going strong. Once I found out the best way to message Bettis, I did so and asked if he might be able to join me one afternoon at GE and chat for a bit about his new work. Was I surprised when he answered “Yes”? In fact, I was. On the agreed-upon day, I needed to meet someone else as well regarding a different matter, so made it a point to arrive earlier than either of them. As I stepped through the door, the aromas of the shop’s signature Arabica beans flavor filled my nostrils and lungs at the same time that my eyes fell upon vibrant canvases filling nearly every wall-space above tables, fireplaces, and passageways, hanging next to people seated at every eclectic arrangement of vintage-style furniture and couches available. The overall interior design reminded me of a cozy country club lodge.

A few steps deeper inside the shop, hanging on the wall to my right was a large vertical portrait called “Muse 4# holding close” (24x48”) depicting in sun and earth tones against a background of charcoal shadows, a woman who appears to be breastfeeding an infant. She could, I felt, just as easily have been an American holding on to hope after escaping an extreme climate-change catastrophe. Or a mother near the edge of war-smashed Gaza praying her body still possessed what her baby needed to stay alive. The title gave no reason to believe either scenario but the calm blend of resignation and determination on the subject’s face led me to consider the possibilities. Another artpiece of the same size, “Muse 5# with braid,” hung to my immediate left and radiated an equal intensity, but with an alternative palette suggesting a different potential storyline altogether.

Part of the coffee shop’s appealingly unique interior design is a short banistered ramp that leads up to the slightly elevated service bar and divides the spacious seating areas in half. Joining the line waiting to order, I took note of two paintings above the fireplace to the left and a group of four more above a fireplace to the right. The top left canvas was titled “Forest by the tracks” (24x20”) and the one beneath it called “Dream State” (22x28”). Both struck me as exceptions to what I saw when looking from a distance at the collection filling the room. Common to all, I felt, was a respect, or passion, for the uncaged personality of the paint and other devices lending themselves to the purposes of the artist.

Much of the work struck me as neo-expressionistic character studies, homages to major influences, like “Mr. [Auguste] Rodin” and Gustave Klimt, animal portraits, and figures potentially inspired by Celtic mythology. By contrast, the dense vertical lines of “Forest by the Tracks” evoked memories of scenes which unfolded along the railroad tracks running through Savannah while “Dream State” showed a reclining figure adrift in painted mystical slumber. Of the four paintings positioned above the second fireplace, the two which captivated me the most were the enigmatic piece titled “Lady with Rose” (23.5x22.5”) and the starkly raw “Resting Boxer” (18x24”).

That Bettis can claim the distinction of being self-taught––like such notable creatives as Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)––to my knowledge is true. And yet, it is equally true that in addition to his own uncanny inventive instincts, he has been an exceptional student of the classic talents which animated his need to give visual expression to the intriguing layers of what it means to exist. His instructors by way of cultural arts legacies have been acknowledged on websites such as Pinterest and LinkedIn: “I am inclined to study more and more styles as my path unveils itself[.] Some of my most prominent influences are Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Courbet, Klimt and the prolific Modern Art Masters.” The story, moreover, is now a well-known one of how his move from a suburb of Chicago to Los Angeles to Savannah eventually resulted in a galvanizing, and perhaps transformational, face-to-face experience with the statues of geniuses standing outside the Telfair Museum.

2. Mr. Shakespeare, Is That You?

At Gallery Espresso, while my body moved steadily toward the line of customers near the back center of the shop, my attention went in another direction: toward an elegantly-dressed Victorian figure occupying a vertical canvas on the south wall. A canvas to its right, I believed, was Bettis paying minimalist tribute to one of Klimt’s romantic works. On both sides of the painting was a small antique-ish table occupied by a single young woman. Going by their focus on laptop screens before them and the plugs in their ears, I guessed they were likely SCAD students doing homework, or remotely-stationed entrepreneurs taking care of a different kind of business.

The painting which had attracted my attention, at first, reminded me of work by the Greek painter Dominikos Theotokopoulos, popularly known as El Greco (1541-1614). Staring at it, I could imagine Luther E. Vann (1938-2016), my late co-creator on ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love, musing out loud: Wow, check that brother out! What this brother needed to do was get a closer look. But I did not want to interrupt the people seated at the tables so decided to wait and see what kind of opportunity might present itself. While doing that, I ordered a small cappuccino. Then I turned from the counter and found myself confronted by an abstract “Male Study” (24x36”) composed of softly-colored geometric panels enclosed within the outlines of a form close to that of a humanoid robot’s. Things were getting more interesting by the moment.

The more I stood looking at the paintings arranged throughout the coffee shop, the more I assumed they had been produced over long stretches of time during the pandemic lockdown. That assumption would soon prove erroneous.

In the middle of trying to spot any painting which I may have seen at his 2020 car port exhibition, I noticed one of the young women near the portraits on the south wall packing up her laptop and preparing to make her exit. The moment she moved, I did too, and like an interplanetary explorer claiming a new planet for his own, draped my jacket over one chair and placed my shoulder bag in the other, then went back to the service counter to pick up my cappuccino.

Returning to the table with some minutes to spare before my expected parties might arrive, I took out my old-school pen and notebook to write down the name of the 24x48” oil-and-pastel-on board painting which had drawn me: Shakespeare. And there it was: my second unexpected encounter with the great author of timeless plays, sonnets, and histories within a week of repeatedly finding his name bound to that of James Baldwin’s. (I was now also prompted to recall not a poem from I Made My Boy Out of Poetry, but a story called, “Angels and Shakespeare.”)

()Photograph of Savannah-based artist Rocky Bettis at the Gallery Espresso Coffee Shop by Aberjhani C2024)

It is widely-accepted that the two most accurate portrayals of the historic Shakespeare are the image of him by English engraver Martin Droeshout (c. 1560s-1650), from the title page of the First Folio (1623) of the writer’s plays; and, the Shakespeare Memorial Bust at Stratford-Upon-Avon, debatably sculpted by either one Gerard Johnson (1612–1623) or his brother Nicholas (?-1624). Who lives, really, long enough to verify such things definitively? Given his historical status in the world-transcending multiverse of literature, admirable depictions of Stratford-Upon-Avon’s most famous son exist in many different mediums. Some attempt to conjure what the artist believes the author must have actually looked like. Others have sought to endow him with a form they believe most suitable for paying tribute to someone whose labors have provided the foundations of careers for generations of cultural arts workers after him.

Anyone physically viewing and contemplating Bettis’s Shakespeare can see that his approach bypasses attempts at imaginary realism to reach through time in quantum-leap fashion and propose a very singular take on the man often proclaimed more renowned and studied than any other writer (though Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison gains more traction with each passing year). Writing in scene 1 of Macbeth, Shakespeare’s King Duncan suggests, “There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.” Do I agree with that? Maybe not. Studying the canvas in front of me, I felt like I was watching a painted telepathic conversation between the playwright and the artist, a mind-to-mind and soul-to-soul chat which revealed at least some of the components of their psychic constructions.

The subtly-mixed palette and features which comprise Shakespeare’s face and torso, with an abstract expressionistic background of cool and warm hues embracing both, began to share stories and meanings with which others might or might not agree. The face is not a mask for wearing falsehoods on the outside but a collage of truths for living bravely on the inside. If the luminous forehead can be considered symbolic of the Elizabethan “Golden Age” during which Shakespeare lived, the region of shadows surrounding his eyes might be said to speak of moments which for some were not so golden during the same time-frame. The even darker areas of his iris and pupil, to certain viewers, might indicate something close to demonic while to others they might shine as metaphors for the mysteries of the human heart and spirit which the Bard explored through dramas, comedies, and verse. The sensitive lines of the mouth, surrounded by the stronger borders of mustache and dark pointed beard, communicate a quiet dignity and challenged strength. Although the broad elegant collar looks nothing like wings, it nevertheless brought to mind this sentence near the end of Angels and Shakespeare: “I picked up a copy of Shakespeare’s complete sonnets, a slim handsome edition done in classic black leather binding, and I thought about the theory that Shakespeare may have been an angel pretending to be human.” And yet that same collar also made me think of piano keys and within the rhythm of brush strokes and fingered pastels I saw the sounds of an innovative jazz flowing in every direction.

3. Human-generated Beauty

Various academics these days rightfully debate different aspects of Shakespeare’s legendary status and its impact upon what we accept as myth or authentic in our lives. Insofar as I believe in healthy dialogues that help correct bias-heavy narratives which encourage inflicting any form of social injustice upon someone else, I agree with them. At the same time, I support the intent of artists seeking to serve humanity through their visions of who we have been, who we are, and who we may yet become, and I believe Shakespeare was an artist who overcame whatever was least within himself to gift to the world the best of himself.

How, I wondered, might he interpret this interpretation of him if he could stand there beside me in a coffee shop in the heart of downtown Savannah looking at Bettis’s channeled vision of him in 2024? How would he respond if I said to him that the painting and his own treasured texts sang to me of such things as the codes, links, and encryptions, the sparkling laughter, shit-bitter tears, adventurous intimacies, and the dreams fulfilled floating beside the ones deferred? All of which, I would add, comprise the reality of one person’s unvarnished biography.

Exactly how long I stood there allowing my imagination to run as wildly as it did, I’m not sure. At some point, I was joined by a podcast project partner, and a little later by Bettis himself in the company of a friend (who did not stay long). The last time we’d met, I was wearing a COVID-resistant mask in the open car port where his art hung. He had been comfortable without one. Enough boosted vaccines were circulating through my system and the pandemic was far enough behind us that, this time, I also went without a facemask.

The purpose of our meet-up was supposed to be simply to say hello and express relief we had both survived the plague (that approximately 7 million globally did not survive is something too quickly ignored). I began to think it might have been a better idea if I’d requested a formal interview as I gave in to the temptation to ask how long it had taken him to paint the canvases surrounding us. The answer, I anticipated, would be one or two years. Instead, he said, “About three months, maybe a little bit more.”

“What? Really?”

That’s pretty ducking amazing, I thought, while scanning the room again. He explained that two of the larger pieces had been completed before receiving the invitation to exhibit at GE, but the remaining 18 were completed between October 2023 and the end of January 2024. Some had been in progress as sketches or evolving images. It would have been less surprising if we had been talking about art prints generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The whole world learned in 2023 just how pervasive AI’s presence already was/is in our lives. Museums and individual creatives alike had already started looking to it for solutions to challenges concerning productivity and innovative concepts to present to the art-loving public. While many experiments with AI art (including a few conducted by me) have proven irrefutably dazzling, one arguably major downside has been its often obvious artificiality. Among the most appealing qualities of human-generated beauty is its ability to accommodate flawed sincerity. However different critics, and time, might assess their value, the images which filled the Gallery Espresso at that moment spoke to me as much of the depths of spiritual legitimacy and intimacy as they did of future uncertainty and vulnerability.

Much more astonishing than learning Bettis had produced so much in what I considered a relatively short period of time, was hearing him describe the conditions under which he had done so. It turned out he had actually been in the process of making some major life changes. For one thing, he was relocating from the downtown Lafayette Square area where he had lived and worked in the shadows of the spires of the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Divine, and just around the corner from the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home. In addition, he was preparing to take on a new job. Particularly significant was that his art supplies had been depleted and he was not yet in a position to replace them.

As serendipity would have it, another artist who had decided to seek inspiration in a different country needed to do something with the art supplies she was leaving behind. Bettis’s dilemma became her opportunity to place the materials—complete with paint, brushes, canvases, and other essentials––in the hands of someone who could make good use of them. I considered that story almost as amazing as my own first sighting of the artist’ work when major surprises included a portrait of Hercules as Atlas with the world on his shoulders, and another Paul Cezanne etched with hieroglyphic-like markings.

4. In Conclusion

Exactly where the artist sits on the current spectrum of 21st-century artistic intentions may be less clear than some might prefer. His path is clearly his own and sits comfortably apart from contemporary powerhouses such as Ai Weiwei, Suzanne Jackson, Kehinde Wiley, Yayoi Kusama, Banksy, or Marcus Kenney, just to name a handful. The one thing I did not doubt as I left Bettis’s Gallery Espresso exhibit was that as much as he had already surprised me and those admirers who opted early on to invest in his creative gifts, he likely would continue doing so for quite some time.

By Human Author-Poet Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days

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An Encounter with Artist Paul Cezanne in Downtown Savannah

10/6/2020

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If a reporter were to ask how I ended up returning home with the 19th/20th century French painter Paul Cezanne this past weekend after traveling to downtown Savannah for a very different purpose, that would be a more-than-fair question. I actually made the trip to get some quick photos of the Lafayette Square area for a project related to my book, Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind. The encounter with Cezanne, notwithstanding the fact he physically departed the world in 1906, was not one I could have anticipated.

The first big surprise which greeted me was the discovery #COVID19 had not stopped throngs of tourists from visiting during this cooler more hospitable October time of the year. Many of the events for which a lot of people travel to the city this time of year would, after all, be scaled down to one degree or another if not completely canceled by the pandemic. Clearly, however, the city itself was enough for them. I was awed to see so many, some wearing masks, some not, taking photos of the sites and obviously very happy to be out and about in our coronavirus-challenged world.

Something Unusual and Unexpected

The second big surprise came while I stood at Abercorn Street and East Liberty Street Lane taking my own photographs of the majestic Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist. As I clicked away, something to the left started tugging at my attention. I took quick note that, a short distance down the lane, a number of art canvases appeared to be arranged next to an open door. Then I gave in to the urge to investigate further and started walking down the lane.

The closer I got to the canvases, the more I saw how exceptional they were in terms of the subjects, the artist’s technical skill, and applied individual style. The gleaming lustrous medium of choice appeared to be oil. One portrait struck me as reminiscent of the Mona Lisa and another made me think of the classic busts of Greek gods. If somebody’s throwing these away, I thought, they must be crazy because these are absolutely superb. My astonishment was growing stronger when a man casually appeared in the doorway and said hello. It turned out he was the painter of the artworks speaking to me in their own intensified language of visual style and philosophical concerns, and he certainly was not throwing them away.

Being ever mindful of today’s social-distance protocol, even though I was wearing a mask, when he took a few steps out I took a few steps back. The space behind him looked like a small car port or open driveway beneath a carriage house. A couple of trees were visible just past the far end and air flowed freely through the passageway. With the kind of ingenuity for which artists are well-known, it had been outfitted to function as a studio gallery and was filled with more art pieces. Would it be okay, I asked, to take a closer look? “Sure, come on in.”

I stopped at the entrance this time not because of concerns over coronavirus but because of a large captivating image, perched on an easel, fusing elements of figure painting and abstract art. As I stood before it, the thoughts running through my head started diving off my tongue:

“When I look at this,” I said, “I see a combination of Atlas from Greek mythology holding the world on his shoulders and Rodin’s famous ‘The Thinker’ sculpture. Atlas really stands out for me because almost all of us these days feel like we’re carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders since the pandemic has made us more responsible for each other’s well-being than ever before. It’s not something we can be casual about anymore and have to think about all the time.”

“That is Atlas,” he said, “and also Hercules.”

An Atlas/Hercules mash-up. That made sense.

“One day I hope I can make you a respectable offer for this painting.”

After our shared revelations, my eyes wandered from canvas to canvas in which I thought I detected the influence of classic art masters interpreted through the lens of a sensibility which was both modern and something not-modern. There were genuine (as opposed to forced or artificial) reflections of the brushes of Picasso, Francis Bacon, El Greco maybe, and even da Vinci. Isn’t it just like the universe, I thought, to hide a talent of such immense potential beneath a carriage house in a lane in downtown Savannah. Amid the flashing realizations, an 18x24 portrait painted and etched on wood, and hanging near the end of the wall, caught my eye.

“This one reminds me of a friend I used to have but who’s passed now.”
Looking at it actually made me think of several artist friends who are now deceased. It also reminded me of Walt Whitman. I was only a little surprised when he told me it was the French painter Paul Cezanne. The eyes on the painting seemed to be carefully reading my thoughts. Those parts of the portrait where scratches revealed deeper layers of the wood looked to me like stories from my life, or more likely from Cezanne’s, written in hieroglyphics. Or in coded algorithms.

The entire collection emanated such a powerful sense of human beauty intertwined with cosmic collisions that it might serve as an appropriate illustration of this passage from Andre Malraux’s overlooked survey of classic art, The Metamorphosis of the Gods: “…It is the relationship between the tidal rhythms of human life and a power that governs or transcends it that gives these forms their driving force and accent."

The Painter @YoungPablo1881

Having stayed downtown longer than intended and also feeling I had taken up too much of the artist’s time, I thanked him for indulging me, told him my name, and gave him one of my cards. He in turn told me his name is Rocky and gave me a sheet of paper with an abstract sketch on it. At the bottom of the paper was his Instagram handle: @YoungPablo1881. Beneath this was the name he’d just told me paired with another I could not quite make out: Rocky B________.

I turned to leave and was halfway toward the cars and pedestrians still flowing up and down Abercorn Street on this late Saturday afternoon when, again, I turned around. Would it be okay, I asked the artist known as Rocky, if I took a couple of photographs of him standing among his paintings. While snapping away, I explained that I might use them with a blog or article. He thought that would be great and put up with me taking more than the couple of shots for which I had asked.

Aberjhani holding painting of Paul Cezanne by the Artist Known as Rocky a.k.a. @YoungPablo1881 on Instagram. (Photograph Bright Skylark Literary Productions C2020)

Although I had been mesmerized by the painting of Atlas/Hercules shouldering the agony of beauty’s battle against chaos in the world, it was, to my astonishment, the amazing portrait of Paul Cezanne tucked under my arm as I made my way through the glow of early twilight. I called a friend and asked if she felt up to a short social-distance visit so I could show her something fantastic. She said yes.

To find out what happens next please click & read Shakespeare's Face Reinterpreted: The 2nd Coming of Rocky Bettis.

Aberjhani
author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

9/9/2019

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Title-art graphic featuring artist Suzanne Jackson in conversation on stage at the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts. (Art graphic by Aberjhani)

Anyone on June 27, 2019, attending the opening of the Suzanne Jackson Five Decades retrospective at the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia (USA), or involved in its production prior to that historic evening, could tell something exceptional was happening. In addition to the mesmerizing kind of vibrant textiles and stunning canvases one might expect to discover at such an opening for a contemporary artist, there were seven vitrines (display cases) filled with family photographs, vintage 1960s flyers advertising a "Revolutionary Art Exhibit," sketchbooks, program notes, letters, photographs, and other revealing archival materials from different chapters of Jackson's, and America's, life stories.

The items made available went beyond career highlights to illuminating an artist's considerable immersion in a significant historical moment: the 1960s-1970s Black Arts Movement as it rooted and flowered in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. For those observers of African-American history who contend America's West Coast contributed much less to the Harlem Renaissance than other regions because it lacked, during the 1920s-1940s, a heavy representation of the traditions and institutions then associated with Black culture in the South, the 1960s may be considered the bridge which connected history and geography.

Ideas of how and why that might be the case, within the context of Five Decades, first struck me as apparent while listening to the on-stage conversation between Jackson, fellow artist Alonzo Davis, and Telfair Museums curator Rachel Reese. Jackson's and Davis's stories of establishing art galleries in downtown Los Angeles, building a sustainable cultural arts community, and balancing commitments to careers and political struggle with commitments to family life were not completely unlike what we find in the life stories of East Coast predecessors like Lois Mailou Jones and Augusta Fells Savage.

This observation does not contradict the contexts of ecowomanism and black feminist ethics contexts in which the brilliant essays by Reese, julia elizabeth neal, Melanee C. Harvey, and Tiffany E. Barber place Jackson's work in the forthcoming Five Decades catalog. It simply acknowledges one more powerful aspect of the place she now occupies as an influential contemporary artist of historical importance. In her foreword to the catalog, artist Betye Saar alludes to the significance of Jackson's role as someone whose art and advocacy have bridged gaps:

"In the 1960s, black artists in Los Angeles were struggling to be recognized. Some public venues had integrated exhibitions, but generally speaking black artists were ignored... Suzanne made a concrete imprint when she opened Gallery 32 on Lafayette Park Place..." (Appropriately enough, work by the 93-year-old Saar herself is currently undergoing a kind of revival with forthcoming solo shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.)

After Jackson's, Davis's, and Reese's dynamic conversation, the feeling when walking among the dozens of artworks hung with dazzling appeal in the Steward North and Kane Galleries, absorbing the full impact of the actual exhibit, was like glimpsing a long-hidden priceless American treasure. Those who have yet to treat themselves to the experience still have until October 13, 2019, to do so at the Jepson. Just as importantly, the exhibition catalog is due out September 25 and orders for it are being accepted now.

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Artist Suzanne Jackson (right) speaking with librarian Mark Darby (left) at historic 2004 "Harlem Renaissance in Savannah" book signing and lecture presented by Aberjhani (center) at the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah, Georgia (USA). (Photograph Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collection)

My journey toward the almost magical evening of June 27 actually began on August 28, 2004, when Ms. Jackson attended my "Harlem Renaissance in Savannah" lecture and book signing at the Carnegie Branch Library in Savannah. Since relocating to the city eight years earlier, she had been surprised to discover the African-American cultural arts scene was as vibrant as it was and included someone who had co-authored (with the late Sandra L. West) the groundbreaking Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance.

I was surprised and impressed to learn she had lived on the West Coast--just as I had in San Francisco--and now taught at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). If I'd had the slightest prophetic clue of the visual marvels that would be revealed 15 years later, I would have been flat-out amazed.

Mounted wall screen showing video images from life and career of artist and educator Suzanne Jackson. The video was part of the opening for Jackson's Five Decades Retrospective at the Telfair Museums Jepson Center for the Art in Savannah, Georgia, on June 27, 2019. (Bright Skylark Literary Productions photograph by Aberjhani ©2019)

That early meeting was genuinely fortuitous because in those days my responsibilities as a caregiver had already started to limit participation in public events. I nevertheless did make it out occasionally and during the years which followed the lecture our paths crossed enough for an acquaintance to become a friendship. As it turned out, we had more than the cultural arts and California in common. We had both also spent time in Fairbanks, Alaska--she as a child growing up there and me some years later as a U.S. military journalist.

We came to know many of the same creatives and shared enthusiasm over their triumphs. Grief, too, demanded acknowledgement when experiencing the loss of such individuals as painter Allen M. Fireall (1954-2014), his fellow artist and friend Luther E. Vann (1937-2016), and author-educator Ja A. Jahannes (1942-2015). More personal, more blood-connected losses inserted themselves into the stories of our individual lives as well, both stalling and fueling painted poems and poemized visions that would manifest in coming years.

NEXT: A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 2): Jazz, Art, & Partying

Aberjhani
author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player

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Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections and renewed hopes (part 1 of 2): remembrance

5/2/2018

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May is Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love Month at Bright Skylark Literary Productions. (Title art graphic collage by Aberjhani)

"He used the word 'nourishing' to refer to Vann's work. And the more I looked through the work seriously, and took my time, that term [seemed] quite apropos. The art and poetry of Elemental nourishes the soul, the mind, and the aesthetic."
--Ja A. Jahannes (from remarks delivered May 29, 2008 at Celebration of Release of Elemental: The The Power of Illuminated Love)

Every now and then I get a good sense of what it might feel like to be a phoenix waking up as a pile of ash and bones which suddenly burst into new flaming life. It was kind of like that recently while continuing my ongoing recovery from the hurricanes of 2016 (Matthew) and 2017 (Irma) to prepare for the 2018 stormy-weather season.

In the course of going through yet another pile of unsorted thumb drives, DVDs, CDs, and mini cassettes, I discovered a lost treasure: a DVD filmed by the gifted polymath Benjamin Bacon (known to friends and colleagues as BeBe) labeled "Elemental, Early Morning Light Productions, by Luther E. Vann, Final Cut, Jepson Gallery, Savannah, GA, May 29, 2008." It is not something which will ever challenge the global impact of director Ryan Coogler's game-changing Black Panther film, but it has added immeasurably to the 2018 10th Anniversary Celebration of the publication of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love (ISBN 9780972114271).

The video, shot just as YouTube and social media were developing their considerable digital muscles, captures in raw fashion a singular moment in the history of cultural arts in the United States. The program that evening included my friend Luther's debut effort as a videographer, a short bio-documentary titled Coming Home, in which he recorded me reciting the poem from which the video took its title, and chronicled his days in New York City pursuing his craft while living in the basement of a friend's apartment on Washington Square.

Artist Luther E. Vann honing his skills in the basement of a friends apartment in NYC circa 1973. (Photo by Chris Torres. Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collection)

In addition to Luther, program participants included: Dr. Ja A. Jahannes, musician Travis Biggs, The Telfair's Friends of African-American Art (who did so much to make the evening possible), its then director Steven High, curator Harry DeLorme, and many patrons, supporters, and fans. They all combined intentions and resources to demonstrate art's ability to endow a diverse community with a single beautiful purpose. That potential is one which has eluded too many in 2018 as educational institutions and organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts have seen their budgets butchered at a time when what creatives gift to society possibly has never been more needed.

The current political assaults on freedom of the press and individual expression make it even more important to savor the kind of rarity represented by Elemental's launch ten years ago. Moreover, the event takes on greater and greater significance because some of the key geniuses who made it happen are no longer with us on the physical plane and others have taken on new missions in different cities or countries. Vann died April 6, 2016, and Jahannes on July 5, 2015. (I last communicated with violinist Travis Biggs a few months before Luther passed but since then have not received any responses to phone messages or emails).

Sensory Brilliance

Dr. Jahannes' contribution to the celebration remains particularly memorable because with his eloquent, insightful, and often humorous comments on the art and poetry of Elemental he both "stole the show" and gave it back to the audience as a perfect gift. He had been asked to introduce the Coming Home video precisely because of his familiarity with our work both as individuals and as a team. In his words:

"Aberjhani and Luther Vann have dynamic synergism in their poetry and their paintings...'Luther Vann's paintings will enrich our community for years to come,' said Steven High in a preface to Elemental. So will the poetry of Aberjhani..."

He spoke with infectious ease when comparing Luther's work to that of painters as diverse as the Norwegian master Edvard Munch and the iconic Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. He did the same when pointing out parallels between it and musicians such as the classical composer Antonin Dvorchak and giants of jazz John Coltrane and Miles Davis. An accomplished photographer himself, Jahannes further described as Vann as "a remarkable storyteller" and "a sensory artist" whose images engage viewers' attention on multiple levels:

"He's a master of sensory brilliance. His work is visual, captivating, and viscerally engaging... If you look at these paintings, you can almost hear them. They are auditory. There are voices emitted by color and arrangement. They're kinesthetic. Energy [is] generated by the arrangement of pulsating hues... They are tactile. You can almost feel the texture by the way he layers and juxtaposes color and arranges symbols and images..."

These observations have since helped various scholars and art lovers to more fully understand what they are viewing when going through the pages of the book, or standing in front of Luther's work at the Telfair Museum of Art or elsewhere.

The Deep Road to Infinity

Long before Elemental made cultural arts history in Savannah, I had become an admirer of Dr. Jahannes's poetry and essay collection, Truthfeasting. For that reason, I felt more than a little honored by his generous comments on the body of my published works and was thrilled to hear him recite the following passage:

We take the deep road to infinity.
From the silence to the sound
to the cross to the mosque
we bleed through the hidden tunnels of history
tapping the jingle of empires and chains
to the beat of memory gone astray.

We take the deep road to infinity...

(from the poem "More Than You Know," Elemental, p. 16)

His willingness to lend his voice in service to something greater than either of our individual ambitions was a large part of what defined Elemental's thematic substance. It brought to mind the great Lucille Clifton’s famous dictum that when it comes to identifying yourself as a poet and actually writing poetry, "One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated."

The celebratory evening of May 29, 2008, marked the culmination of an almost two-decade campaign to breathe life into a project which had survived, and in part been shaped by, the turbulence born of two creative individuals' private, social, political, and professional lives. The luxury of having finally reached a point of relief nearly overshadowed the excitement of having achieved a long-sought triumph. We soon realized we had completed only one more stage of a perpetually interactive process which would, much like the book, continue to unfold in layers of color and sparks of revelation.

NEXT: Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections & renewed hopes (part 2): illumination
Aberjhani
©May 2018

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The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love

11/15/2016

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"The universe said, 'Let me show your soul something beautiful." quote by Aberjhani from ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love. (Postered Poets Art Graphics)

The edits on my current book in progress were close to complete when Hurricane Matthew came to town and rearranged my priorities. President-Elect Donald Trump, at the time still a presidential candidate, contributed his fair share of distractions as well but that’s another blog for another time.

Along with its unexpected destructiveness in my hometown, Hurricane Matthew also delivered a few gifts. One of the most important of those gifts for me was the rediscovery of research materials in the form of notebooks from the 1990s long thought lost in the shuffle of previous relocations. The material turned up while storing and salvaging valuable to keep them safe from the hurricane.

The discovery of the notebooks themselves became part of my account––now included in the previously-noted book-in-progress–– of surviving Matthew. One of those notebooks contains an unvarnished story of the birth of ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love. Because of the death of Luther E. Vann, my co-creator on the project, earlier this year, the notebook was a startling find.

Discussing the Possibility

Had he lived, Luther would have turned 79 on December 2, 2016, so it seems appropriate that notebooks and early recorded recitals of poems from ELEMENTAL should have started popping up at this time. The excerpt below is taken from notes dated September 11, 1992, more than a year after I first met the painter and sculptor.

At this point, I had been experimenting with writing poems based on his art but this was our first time discussing the possibility of working on a book together. Also during this period, comparing our developing friendship to the meeting between Jalal al-Din Rumi and Shams Tabrizi helped me visualize the possibility of working with an artist who had been practicing his craft much longer than I had been plying mine.

Detail from "For the Love of the Poet" painting by Luther E. Vann featured in Elemental the Power of Illuminated Love.)

Called Luther around 8 tonight to make an appointment for our interview next week. As with the week before, I found myself extremely nervous about calling but then realized I was allowing silliness to impede our mutual progress. When I did call, he greeted me with uninhibited enthusiasm and all of my reservations vanished in the sudden light of his pleasure.

He took the opportunity to thank me for the poem [“For the Love of the Poet” based on painting with same name] I left him and Sandra last week.

“Man,” he said, “that was really beautiful. I don’t know if Sandra told you or not, but the idea we came up with—because your words seem so spontaneous, from a gut level––was to do a book together. If you can do something that spontaneously for all the pictures in the book, that would be just great.”

I repeated my tired line about my genius not matching his.

“I don’t know about that. Like I said, the poem has a strong spontaneousness and it has that same multidimensional quality as the picture.”

“Well, it really is an extension of the portrait because when I saw it, the words started writing themselves. In fact, all of the pictures and sculpture inspired me so strongly that I just started composing poetry right then and there.” [At an exhibition of his work]

Could it be we were really having this conversation? How many times had I sat or walked or worked while imagining the possibility of the very thing we were now discussing. The first time I saw his work, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that I should compose a poetic commentary to match the images. What astonishes me more than anything else is that he seems to view my work the same way. How can that be?

Whereas in the recent past I’ve allowed myself to indulge in comparisons between my meeting Luther and great historical personalities meeting with the same, lately I’ve tried to refrain from doing that. But there seems to be in it some appropriateness independent of my own speculations. Shem Friedlander wrote of my two favorite Sufis that theirs “was a friendship based on the discovery of God through each other at a time when both beings had a lesson to impart to one another.” I think possibly it would have been more accurate to say that an overwhelming affirmation of God is what Shams and Rumi experienced through their friendship…

Luther has made a psychospiritual transition which I have, in a way, only casually reached for, while I as yet possess a sense of focus and drive (a bit weakened thought it may be) which seems to have atrophied within himself (quite understandably so give his spiritual disposition). Ours is, I believe, meant to be a true and good partnership. [end of excerpt]

Concluding and Beginning Anew

This post concludes with Carol Phelan Aebby’s poem, The Young Poet and the Painter, which is a rare kind of homage to my work with Luther written in the bibliographic profile acrostic form originated by Andre Emmanuel Bendavi ben-YEHU. The poet’s voice captures a lot of the mystery and wonder that many artists experience when striving to honor a difficult but ultimately rewarding task.

Aberjhani
© November 2016
Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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Shakespeare's Face Reinterpreted: The Second Coming of Artist Rocky Bettis

1. Different Times and New Places

2. Mr. Shakespeare, Is That You?

3. Human-generated Beauty

4. In Conclusion

By Human Author-Poet Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days

Feel free to use this form to contact author-poet Aberjhani at Bright Skylark LP. To comment on the above story, please use the form in the next section.

An Encounter with Artist Paul Cezanne in Downtown Savannah

Something Unusual and Unexpected

The Painter @YoungPablo1881

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Contact the Author

Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections and renewed hopes (part 1 of 2): remembrance

Sensory Brilliance

The Deep Road to Infinity

The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love

Discussing the Possibility

Concluding and Beginning Anew

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Shakespeare's Face Reinterpreted: The Second Coming of Artist Rocky Bettis

​1. Different Times and New Places

2. Mr. Shakespeare, Is That You?

3. Human-generated Beauty

4. In Conclusion

By Human Author-Poet AberjhaniCo-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days

Feel free to use this form to contact author-poet Aberjhani at Bright Skylark LP. To comment on the above story, please use the form in the next section.

An Encounter with Artist Paul Cezanne in Downtown Savannah

Something Unusual and Unexpected

The Painter @YoungPablo1881

A Hidden American Treasure Comes to Revelatory Light (part 1 of 3): Geography & History

Continental Crossings & Fortuitous Connections

Contact the Author

Elemental's 10th anniversary inspires mindful reflections and renewed hopes (part 1 of 2): remembrance

Sensory Brilliance

The Deep Road to Infinity

The Birth of Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love

Discussing the Possibility

Concluding and Beginning Anew

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

1. Different Times and New Places

By Human Author-Poet Aberjhani
Co-Author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days