Conversations » Kevin Cole
Melissa Prunty Kemp

Kevin Cole
© Kevin Cole

Kevin Cole is one of Atlanta's most exciting mid-career artists. I first saw Cole's work at a show at Hammond House Galleries and Resource Center of African American Art, along with Freddie Styles and the late Michael Ellison. The striking combinations of pastels mixed with primary, vibrant acrylics applied to twisting and curling canvases were a fascination diversion among visual arts. Cole's pieces literally burst off their backing. winding and twising within each other a cacaphony of Afrocentric symbology and meaning. Cole's website discusses the origins of these pieces, tying them to the ancestral Civil Rights history of African Americans in Pine Bluff, Terry and Star City Arkansas, areas which saw much violence during this time.

Kevin Cole was born in 1960 and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and attended a historically black college, the University of Arkansas, in the same city. Cole attributes his artistic strength to a strong family that spring-boarded him to strong, committed art instructors and mentors in college and graduate school. Cole was fortunate to have strong educational preparation, which he continued by completing a Master's degrees at Clark Atlanta University and Northern Illinois University. His is a prolific artists whose works are widely collected by the likes of Bill Cosby and NBA basketball players like Michael Jordan, Darryl Walker, Harvey Grant, Ed Pinkney, Doug Christy, Rod Strickland, Alvin Ware.

If his accomplishments as an artist were not great enough, Cole is a committed high school arts educator who is one of only three blacks in the United States to be selected as a judge for the National A.P. Arts Competition. His students at North Springs High School regularly top ranked in the competition.

Kevin Cole is an outspoken, articulate, and expressive artist who has much to contribute in African American art history, pedagody and artistic expression.

Kevin, how long have you been a practicing Atlanta visual artist?
Eighteen years.

What advantages has living in Atlanta offered you as an artist?
Not many right now, due to funding, I think it's a great place for emerging artist. But on the other hand, there is good group of young art collectors emerging. It's like a different era now, and one that I don't like here in Atlanta. People who are my age, who are over forty, understand more the struggle.

Absolutely.
How black artists were really helpful to each other. But then, like now, the new people out here, the new guys we call them, they don't. And then a lot of people who are on top now, the young artists, I helped them out.

You are certainly prolific! I wish I had a camera; I'm looking around at all these fabulous pieces of art!
Thank you, thank you. A lot of these pieces have been sold already on this side.

I'm sure that you move a lot of artwork.
Yes, yes, I have been blessed.

One of the first things I want to know more about you as an artist is this business of "neck-ties". I read your website, and I found your words such a profound piece to influence you, and it seems to have made a serious mark on your work. So, can you talk more about what your grandfather told you and why it has stuck with you as far as it has.
Well, you know I graduated in 1978, and you know how your parents. . .

College? High school?
High school, high school, and I had just turned 18 years old in January. My grandfather was always on me about going and registering to vote. He was a major part of the Civil Rights Movement. He was fortunate to have his own property; his parents owned property and he inherited it. So older people, you know, he had a cane. And he kneeled down and he drew in the dirt. And when I say he drew, you know old folk do, they say, "go here, go here, go here."

So he was drawing in the dirt and he said, "Now I want you to you to go and stand beside this tree."

It was about maybe a block, or a block and a half. that area was free. It may have been about a 100 or 200 square feet that was tree, but there was this big branch hanging over this area. I went there and I looked at the tree because it was such an unusual tree. It has this one particular branch that hung over, everything else was growing vertical, but this one particular branch was real high. It may have been 30 or 50 feet off the ground. I went there and I just sat for a minute. It was like you could almost feel the tears that came through my body. For me it was like I heard sounds.

I ran back to my grandfather; he said, "Well, how'd you feel?"

I said "It was scary. I felt like there were a lot of people around looking and you could almost hear moaning sounds."

He said, "Well, I know you sayin' I'm on you about registering to vote, but African Americans, they were lynched by their neckties [on that tree] on their way to go vote."

So that stayed with me subconsciously, but I didn't know it because I would always include ties in my work at an early age. Even in college, I was doing the same thing. Then once I got to grad school, I somewhat abandoned it a little bit. Then I came here, and I did a series called "Tied Up in Politics" that was based on South Africa and the different ties that your congressmen wear. I was talking about people who make decisions for our lives; they wear neckties. Then it wasn't until later that I would ask myself, "Why can't I get away from the neckties?" It was one night in 1990 I said, "I gotta get away from these ties."; but I couldn't."

Jitterbug Waltz
© Kevin Cole

I'm a writer, so I find that some symbols are so profound that they become the foundation for so many other pieces of creativity, so many other ways to interpret. So I've always been interested in what kinds of events and what kinds of symbols would stamp themselves on a person, such as the ties have done on you. You were in Arkansas, you say?
Yes, in Pine Bluff. I lived in Pine Bluff, he lived in Terry, Arkansas which is close Star City. If you look in most history books, there were a lot of lynchings that took place in that area.

Another part that I seldom talk about is that he was always involved in telling me how you take something that's a negative and turn it into a positive. And I always tell, when I do my lectures, that you have to look behind the ties. People see all these nice bright colors based on the relationship between sight sound and color in terms of music and a lot of African patterns. One nice art critic said that these become sound boards of human experiences. And they are that because of my experiences as an artist and an educator. And being a black male first, cause that's the first thing you see. Then you figure out I'm an artist and later you figure out I'm in education. So that carries on in the work. I like what Dr. David Driskell (1930 - ) said, "Who buys [art] for Bill Cosby?". He said that the work had a spirit, which I thought was a very powerful statement.

One of the things that happened to me growing up in Arkansas was that I went to college at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff-a historically black college. I had eleven scholarship offers when I graduated. There were some in sports and some in arts. The late John Howard, who studied with David Driskell here in at Atlanta University under Hale Woodruff (1900 - 1980). And one of John Howard's ploys for getting me there was that he introduced me to the work of David Driskell.

And he said, "If you come here, then one day David Driskell will write about you."

He told me David bought for Bill Cosby and sure enough, it happened.

So you came to Atlanta, and that was the start of your life as a professional, famous. . . .
No, my start was in graduate school. I got my second Masters from Northern Illinois University, and I did a show entitled "Have You Checked The Closet?" The show was based on clothing of kids who had been killed in drive-by shootings. I was teaching in Northern Illinois University; I had an internship. Then I taught part-time at this Boys and Girls Club in Chicago. Well, being from Arkansas, I had never heard of drive-by shootings. And the kids would come in and tell me things about people who had been killed. I noticed there was a pattern in all these kids who had been killed. All of them were somehow involved in drugs; somehow they were on the edge. So, I asked them to bring me some clothing of these kids. At that time, my assumption was that people associate you with the things you wear. You dress a certain way; you're treated a certain way. Once they brought the garments in, I had them to write about these people.

So I did a show called "Have You Checked The Closet?" It was in our Student Center Gallery. Most big colleges like that have a hotel on campus. So this guy by the name of Charles Price, the vice president for Johnson & Johnson products, couldn't sleep. So he came downstairs and he saw the show. He thought they were real clothes, then I told him what they were about.

Then he said, "I want this one, no, I want this whole wall."

I said, "Sir, if this is a joke, I don't think it's funny."

He went upstairs and wrote out a check for the whole show. It was one of the first times a graduate student had ever sold out a show. I talked to my professors, and they had told me not to worry about putting prices on it because students don't sell. But I sold out. So that was my first experience.

Then I moved here in 1985. I won the first prize in painting at the Atlanta Life Arts Show. That year I won a lot of money. I won first prize in painting there; I got a grant from the Bureau of Cultural Affairs; I won another big national show. So when I came here, I was winning some things.

And I painted in a walk-in closet.

And why a walk-in closet?
Because I couldn't afford a large space.

And how long did you stay in that closet?
I was in there for about eight months. And then I moved to another apartment, got a two bedroom. I stapled foam core to the walls and put plastic on the floor and painted there.

It's amazing what artists have to go through, truly amazing.
Just trying to find a space.

I know several artists who are not as famed as you and Louis [Delsarte] who struggle quite a bit, who can barely walk around in their apartments because of all of their paintings. And there of course there's always the struggle to get the materials.
Right. The thing was, at the second National Black Arts Festival, I was with the Mackintosh Gallery, and I met Al Loving and a few other artists out of New York. They said to me, "You got a studio and a house?", cause they were out of New York where that's unheard of, for artists to have a studio and a home. They know that you're serious; it's on a whole different level.

I agree, and I think that so many times there are many struggles that young artists have in front of them. One of them is moving from the student art to the professional selling artist. It's such a huge jump. Since you're in educator, I'm going to ask you about education. I'm very interested in artists who teach for a living and what it is they are really trying to impart to their students. There are a number of things they need to know besides techniques. So what are some of the most important things you want your students to learn?
The first thing is discipline. People find it interesting because many think I don't teach, that I just live off my work. And I could; I've been fortunate that I make as much off my work as I do teaching. For the last seven or eight years I have done that. But it just so happens that I like them both. I talked to a writer out of New Jersey who asked me what was the thing that I was most proud of. And I told him that I had won as many awards for my teaching as I had for my art. I've got as many fellowships, grants or whatever for my teaching as I have for my art. I'm able to balance that and it works for me. The main thing I teach is discipline. Because no matter what you get into, you can go into business; it's gonna take discipline. You gotta go when you don't wanna go. You have to get up in the morning.

I always tell my students I'm a living example. They come in with excuses about homework and I tell them, "Look, I just got off the airplane. I came in, taught my class, then got back on the airplane to teach a slide lecture. Then fly back to Atlanta to teach you the next morning. Then that evening, I'm going to my studio and paint." My idea is not to accept any excuses.

I agree with what you say about discipline in art. I'm a poet; it takes the same kind of discipline; you have to practice, you have to work at it, write, study, study with people if you're fortunate enough. You will learn a great deal from others if you can. So, I really appreciate discipline, absolutely.

One of the things you wrote me I found to be very interesting, and you repeated when I came in. As you look at generations of artists, depending upon what age they are, whether they're young or whatever: they are doing many things that have been done previously. So here the big question is, how do you make original art?" How do you teach someone to do that? How do you not recycle?
There's nothing that you can do that has not been done before. What you do is that you add your own personal touch to it. I may compare with Sam Gilliam (1933 - ), who I think is one of the most spectacular artists that there is; he is the man! What I bring to it is my personal statement about the neckties and my experience. I've been fortunate that being compared to him is good.

How would you describe the visual arts scene in Atlanta?
Slow compared to major cities it's size but has a lot of promise. I tell young artists that they need to go and read and see. A lot of black artists are not in books. So, to the white establishment who don't know anything about black artists, if a black artist comes and he's cutting and pasting something down, that's new to them. All of a sudden they have to acknowledge him because his stuff is what they can recognize. It's what they see.

Detail, Jitterbug Waltz
© Kevin Cole

It's what they think art is.
And then they call it "black art." So those of us who are abstract, then we are not black enough, and we're not white enough. We're not gonna put you up there with the white boys because you're doing abstract. Only white boys can do abstract. But then you are not black enough. And that's what i don't like about Atlanta. You can be quickly labeled, but then you're where you're all dressed up but no place to go.

I wanna ask certainly about the art environment here as far as a professional artist's ability to be widely collected. Are you going to be collected in established major museums, so to speak. What do you think about the issue of "god bless the child who has his own" which equals a black museum to put her or his black art in?
Well, I think that African Americans as collectors, there are starting to be a few, but they have been used to buying posters and prints. So trying to get them to buy something that doesn't look them those things, that don't have faces to them is hard. I have friends who live in the Cascade area [affluent African American neighborhood in southwest Atlanta], I had one friend who was my fraternity brother.

Which fraternity?
Kappa Alpha Psi. So I went into his house and I see prints. And everybody in their neighborhood had the same print. He thought he really had some artwork. That's the problem with the collectors here. They have that disposable income to buy original work, but they don't have the passion. Halima Taha's book, "Collecting Works by African American Artists" is the best book that's ever been written because it's educating people. And there are starting to be more people who want to be educated. I'm an art collector myself. I buy on a personal standpoint because I enjoy. I buy as an investment. My son already has in my will that he'll get a Sam Gilliam and a Norman Lewis (1909 - 1979). My daughter will get the Romare Beardon (1914 - 1988) and the Jacob Lawrence (1917 - 2000). We've established that groundwork already.

I've found the artwork in Atlanta is "you can either come up," or you'll be "all dressed up with no place to go." The second thing about Atlanta is that it is only going to recognize so many black artists.

But there are gazillions of black artists in Atlanta.
But look how many are how many black artists are represented by white galleries.

Are there any?
Well you've got some who are; there are a handful of us who are represented by white galleries. Then when we are represented by white galleries, and during the National Black Arts Festival (and I'm gonna throw this in), I've been showing, I've shown for two National Black Arts Festivals, and I've never been reviewed, never got even mentioned by National Black Arts Festival because I'm showing with a white gallery, which is reverse discrimination. My work doesn't look like something you could actually recognize as being black, except for those people could look at the African patterns and say, "This boy is black. The way he's painting these patterns on, these Afrocentric patterns, this boy is black."

But then on the other hand, you have to ask, "Should it matter?" So that's another point. But number three [third perspective on art collecting in Atlanta] is there is not one black-owned fine arts gallery. Kubutana Gallery sells basically African Art. Camille Love was the only thing we had. So we are still stuck out in the cold. Atlanta is a wannabe. It is, it's a wannabe. We don't wanna face it, but you still got people buying reproductions, framing them and putting them on the wall and calling them art. But I have been working with a group of young black art collectors who are sharp. And they are coming into play; but it's only like .05% of them who are doing it. How many blacks do you know who would travel to New York during the National Blacks Fine Arts Show and buy art?

I knew a few who would, but that's because I've been dabbling in the art world for a long time. Most people wouldn't.
Most people wouldn't travel to an arts show, no. But it's an educational thing; once they educate themselves, then they will do it. I've been fortunate to have a wide variety of clients who are former NBA Basketball players, like Michael Jordan, Darryl Walker, Harvey Grant, Ed Pinkney, Doug Christy, Rod Strickland, Alvin Ware, I can go on and On. And it was ironic cause I was in New York and this guy said to me, (I guess he didn't know what to say,) he said, "Well I heard you got the NBA connection." (laughter). Which I don't feel that way, but I've been fortunate because Darryl Walker who plays for the Chicago Bulls and who is from Chicago (he went to school in Arkansas) when he first started buying, he consulted me. And Bernard King, who played for the Nicks, Bernard and I helped Darryl build his art collection. So when he showed his collection at the Univ of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, I was the one who pioneered that show for him, he was the youngest black coach in the NBA with this fantastic art collection.

I hope that he can blaze a trail because as you say, you look around here in Atlanta, and there are extremely affluent black people who collect things, but they don't know to collect art, and that's so important.
That's why I was hoping Hammonds House could be that avenue. I'm hoping the new director can be that pioneer.

As a curator in my hometown, I did a lot with emerging artists and even high schoolers to encourage them to take up art as a profession. One of the things Harrison Museum of African American Culture in Roanoke, VA did was host the High School Arts Show. It was the most wonderful experience to see these budding artists exhibit their work, sometimes for the first time. I can't believe that something like that does not happen here in Atlanta.
Well, let me say that I have always thought about and tried to do something like that. I am the only Advanced Placement reader who goes to Princeton from this region to judge art. They only have three blacks; I was the third black that they have ever gotten. You're talking about the top advanced placement teachers around the country. Maggie Davis just came over to a private school. Maggie was in Florida. At Tri-Cities, out of 75 students, the highest score is a 5, I only had one 4. The rest of them were fives, from 1989 - 1994. We talked about doing something there, it never happened.

Wrapped in Pride
© Kevin Cole

It's hard work, but it's such a beautiful thing.
It is, and that could be the pioneer just for collecting, because people wanna know. I've done a few home shows, and this past summer I curated a show of young black art collectors at the Atlanta College of Art. They had Beardons, they had Hughie Lee Smiths (1915 - 2000) , they had Charles Whites (1918 - 1979), Elizabeth Catletts (1919 - ). And then I put in a lot of young artists. I always want to give young artists a chance. I've always been that way. I know with me, I showed with Benny Andrews (1930 - ) and Larry Walker. I did my graduate thesis show on Larry Walker, and he turned around and hired me here. Then Benny Andrews I met when I was 13 years old. Then all of a sudden, here I was. It was three Georgia artists, me, Benny and Larry. I did a slide lectures and I was standing beside both of them, and they were and had been my heroes.

As an educator right now, I'm in North Springs High School where I'm Chairman of the Visual Arts Magnet Department, but at the same time, I don't have that many African American Students. David Driskell told me something interesting. I said, you know David, I don't know of that many college positions willing to pay me what I'm making now. He said you have to go with what you're doing because you're building minds on a high school level, and taking them to a different level.

That's right; you're making people who are ready to come to people like me, prepared and ready to learn. And it makes a difference.
But it's discipline.

Yes, it is. Well I think it's discipline, and I also think it has a great deal to do with having an instructor with vision, one who can show you technique, but who will also push you to develop you own vision and your own style. I wonder if, since you are a very educated artist, have you found that your instructors in colleges have been open to fostering your own style?
My influences were my Professors in undergraduate at University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff: Terrance Corbin, Ernest Davidson, Henri Linton and the late John Howard. I would read about them winning art exhibitions and they told me I could do that. Terrance Corbin and I talk every other day. He was basically it. I saw those cats when they were winning shows. When I came to the art department in 1978, he has just won the Delta Show, a big art show in the southwest. He was the second African American artist to ever win it. To give you a little history, John Howard won it in 1934 for a piece called "A Letter to Picasso." But they wouldn't give it to him because they found out he was black. Later on the Arkansas Arts Center bought it from him. Then Henry Linton won the Arkansas Art competition, a black artist. He did a portrait of a WWI or WWII vet. So that's why I say that the black institutions are fostering and producing black artists.

Where do you see the visual arts heading? What are some of its future themes, media, and foci?
The arts are becoming more involved with technology and mixed media.

Where do you see yourself moving as a visual artist? What are some of your future projects?
My works are becoming more three dimensional. I have exhibitions scheduled through 2006 in Augusta, Newark, Oakland, New York and Philadelphia. I am also completing a commission for the new Georgia International Convention Center. My artwork is really a type of painted wall sculpture. I have always been torn between painting and sculpture.

Melissa Kemp is a College English Instructor at Bauder College in Atlanta GA. She is a freelance writer and poet. Originally from Roanoke, VA, she has resided in Atlanta for the last five years.