FURTHER, Further Adventures of L. O. Sloan

Leni Sloan chapter 2

From the Center for the Study of Art and Community this is Change the Story / Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland.

Welcome to the second installment of our conversation with a creative force of nature named Lenwood O. Sloan. In our first conversation with Mr. Sloan we talked about tango’s waltzes, and the like as healing prescriptions, art and the war on democracy, the aging artist in America, the Birth of a Nation, and the genesis of the 13th, 14th, 15th, 11and 19th Amendments.

This time around our discussion continues apace with the desecration of “woke”, the abuse of Juneteenth, the replacement of confederate monuments, the many uses of the 14th Amendment, and 9 reports on the arts and race relations.

Act 5: Nine Reports

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[00:35:17] SR: Bringing stories that are seemingly invisible into visibility for people in such a way that it's harder to abandon them. or another phrase that we use is it's harder to hurt someone if you know their story.

[: 00:35:33

Now, Leni, I know that you have worked in places where the folks who've invited you in, assumed that you have that script, that your just being there fulfills an obligation to advance racial equity And don't necessarily know that, like BIGhART, what you are up to is essentially a process of learning and discovery. That t the script will show up covered with the fingerprints of dozens and dozens of community members. and there will be struggle. Right?

LS: Yes.

BC: So the question to you. Where did this understanding come from. Has that always been obvious to you?

[: 00:36:58

To the young white men, ages 18 to 30, who were trying to be woke when that whole term was co opted and turned against them, and, but are trying to struggle with. What is white identity in America? And who are my icons? And who are my models? And, how can I avoid being stereotyped into one of them, and still skate on the invisibility of white privilege, you know?

And there are no, curators or moderators or conveners in that conversation. And, I thought how interesting it was for the right to, jump on that whole notion of being woke, when it was what all the transcendentalists tried to do. It was what all the Harlem people tried to… everybody's trying to be woke… every major art movement

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[00:38:23] LS: Yes.I feel for the young men who get splattered, but at the same time, I feel this intensity that I didn't feel, with the Nixon, Reagan, Bush bumpers of how did we rise or fall in our racial consciousness. And I pulled out nine reports, Billy, all the way back to you and I with Bill Moskin in, Sacramento actually went back to the whole San Francisco Arts Commission and, nine reports that were commissioned about how to deal with race relations.

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[00:39:10] LS: We've been naming it, different things. We had the “Association”for this and the “Organization” for that. States, cities, Heinz. you… at foundations, Duke, all commissioning reports about how to deal with the simplicity of respecting each other in the shared space, and that's why I've turned in these, vintage years to public art, because the public art projects created dialogue

[: 00:39:42

[00:39:43] LS: …between the commissioners, and the residents, and the users of a place. And actually since 2017, every time a community takes down a Confederate monument, we work with them and talk to them about what should be put up in its place what is more reflective of the time.

taking place in the summer of: 2020

Amy Goodman: In Richmond, Virginia, protestors toppled a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from Monument Avenue. Wednesday night in the nearby city of Portsmouth, protestors used Sledgehammers to destroy a monument to Confederate soldiers in Washington, D. C. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined other lawmakers demanding the removal of 11 Confederate statues from the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol.

LS: So public art is a like visual literacy against the landscape, about how we should conduct ourselves and what common language we share, in the, common ground, the holy ground. In West Africa they calls it the Bantuba, which is the dancing circle. So if the monument or the statue or the Peace Park or commissioned work, creates a place where people can just rest for a minute before they put back on their, um, selfie face.

[: 00:40:44

But we actually know, in many ways, that, the making of those reports provided a veneer of OK-ness over something that was just sitting there. And actually… so I started this question by saying, knowing that you don't know. And, it's very clear from the history you just described and those nine reports. No, we do not know how to deal with this. And we keep, doing the same thing over and thinking that we are dealing with it. Right?

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[00:41:53] BC: And meanwhile, you have people, four, five, six generations after the fact going, I'm sorry, but those nine reports are not changing anything. And, but the thing that you've just described, the public art world. Could be thought of as the most stayed, thing that we're going to put up in the park and there it is But, what you understand, is that every one of those Confederate monuments was a spear in the blood and soil conversation that was taking place that we never dealt with.

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They were put up in 1920s and the rise of the 20th century Klan, they were put up by communities, of D. A. R., and, and so the argument that you're doing it to retain your history and your culture

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[00:42:53] LS: Doesn't wash….

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yes, people go, well, yeah, okay. And then they hear the story, like the one you just told, about Thaddeus, right? and Lydia Hamilton Smith his quote, servant, right? and all of a sudden people go, wow, that's inspiring, isn't it? Yes, it is. What's a monument for? My whole MO is about the story and how to change the story when it needs to be changed.

And that's exactly what you're doing.

[: 00:43:46

That's why in the, with the, Eighth Ward Monument Project in, Harrisburg,We immediately say, we're not building Disneyland.

businesses and over: 1100

These two red letter days cross each other at the corner of this block in June. of 2020. We thought that the notion of that, that vanished neighborhood was important. We thought that the notion of those men and women, black and white, who pushed for civil rights and civil liberties were important. So we proposed to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that its citizens raise the funds to place A monument at that corner in commemoration of those two events coming together at this point in history.

ss programs, hunting down the: 1100

[00:44:58] BC: And for Harrisburg, I mean, to one way or the other, recognize this is your story.this is is your story.

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[00:45:52] BC: But, These moments can also be interesting turning points. Something as simple as a monument or a museum that reveals the third dimension of flattened good guy-bad guy history, a forgotten story, or even a shameful story. that not only stimulates reflection but provides a new choice. Old story- New story. Not everybody will rise to the challenge, but some will. Choosing breeds agency and no choice breeds fear. humans who lose their sense of agency, are dangerous.

If you don't have an indigenous story that you believe, that, your neighbors believe, that defines your community, that is meaningful to you, and makes you feel safe, Then you're susceptible to someone from somewhere else coming along and saying, I got a better story here for you.

Come on down, join the parade.

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[00:46:13] BC: Which is Okay, everybody gets a chance to make their pitch, right? But this is why I think, when it's the call to artists is so important. It's like there are entire cosmologies that are being invented and shared new stories about the way the entire world works. It's like everything is in question and this is a moment that calls for extraordinary artistry and as Scott Rankin says, extraordinary virtuosity.

LS: It does. And an extraordinary understanding of who am I making the art for, you know, if for me, and maybe someone will discover it or not, am I making it for profit? Or am I communicating a message or a call? Or am I putting a symbol on the wall?

Now, if it's a symbol, then you need to get the symbol right. Like, one of my concerns, I decided that I couldn't change the course of the current, but communities in their eagerness to support Juneteenth have adopted a red, green, and black palette of iconography and imagery.

To use as a loom on which they weave on Juneteenth, you know. Well, Juneteenth was a horrible day for black people in Texas. It was high cotton and tobacco season, and Granger was sent there to tell the enslaved people to get in the field and harvest the crop because we need the money. Since you were free already by the Emancipation Proclamation, we're going to stay here for 90 days or the planting season and cover you.

Yeah. And then they rolled out after 90 days. They left one regiment of United States Colored Troops to guard the freedom. Of 250, 000 Texas enslaved people from the Confederates and the masters who just took them back. So, you know, all these picnics and parties and disco things that at Juneteenth, I have a real problem with.

Uh, you need to, any of your listeners need to go and look at, uh, what Granger did. So resolution was, and in the article three of the resolution, he suggested that enslaved people go to their masters and work out a contract that actually, is not okay.

But here's the, here's the thing that I started with Billy red, green, and black is Marcus Garvey. It's the movement of Pan Africa, it is not Juneteenth, you know, Juneteenth's flag was red, white, and blue because Carter G. Woodson was trying to say that we are Americans and he reconstructed the American flag, the red, white, and blue flag, with the star of Texas breaking apart. into many, many pieces.

Juneteenth’s got nothing to do with red, green, and black. You know, and so if you are an organization pushing the misuse of this iconography. If you are a shopkeeper taking sacred kente cloth that was used to wrap babies in and making handbags and visors and wallets out of it, you'd think you'd be a black.

me folks sure wanna pretend. [: 00:46:42

[00:46:50] BC: Right.

[: 00:47:13

I so now was talking about Frederick Douglass, in Ireland.

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[00:47:55] LS: No, no clue who Frederick Douglass is, and I'm like, how did you get How did you get here? they, and they said, Mr. Sloan, we went to elementary school doing gun drills. We went to high school doing COVID.we don't know what you're talking about. We have pass felt courses. We have no civics.

We don't know. we like you. We're not trying to juke you. It's just that I have no idea what you were talking about. Oh my God.

[: 00:48:27

It brings us back to what we started talking about, and that's this.

I've been talking with,Barbara Shaffer Bacon, and Pam Korza the Animating Democracy folks. who see art as an essential stimulus for democratic practice and Ken Grossinger, who's a wonderfully creative labor guy, who believes organizers and artists need to work together to craft the new narratives that are needed make meaningful change. And in these conversations one thing rises to the surface every time. And its pretty simple and staring us the face. We say we live in a democracy, that many say tis America's bedrock and that it is being threatened. OK, But If you ask most folks to define democracy, more often than not it will come down to elections and voting, and not much more. But, of course, it's so much more than going to the polls and checking a few boxes.

Harry Boyte from the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of MN who talked to us in an earlier Episode describes democracy quite simply, as the work of the people, a practice that is learned and maintained by just that, constant and ongoing practice of citizens working things out together. But the problem is that we don't grow up learning how to do that. Most of our education is didactic, call and response with Very little collective listening and reflection and problem solving, and almost no exploring the intrinsic connection between rights AND responsibilities.

LS: We have this program here in Lancaster. It's called, uh, Way-station Project. And it's for emerging artists, contemporary artists. But it's built on the model of the Underground Railroad because Lancaster was such an important site. And, so there's agents. And those are folks who identify young BIPOC artists who need the freedom to work. And then there's, conductors who lead them to galleries or theaters or community centers and leave them there. Those become safe houses where they can make their work until they, they get to free towns, which are… “I now I understand the process from vision to sharing through community and engagement.”

And a very generous man gives a $5,000 fellowship and $5,000 materials. And all you have to do is come up with. two things. You have to have an open studio so that the community can see and share the process. And you have to have a closing thing…a charette model, a party, but some engagement, some platform and some destination, because we felt the majority of the artists in our community were used to getting fellowships in which they had no obligation to anybody to deliver anything, you know?

[: 00:51:27

[00:51:33] LS: Well, we asked the artists in their opening narrative to define how their work and their aesthetic impacted the cultural climate of their community. So putting those three C's together, the cultural climate of your community. So many of the applicants had never really thought about the cultural climate of their community. And so the question was, do we reject all these people?

[: 00:52:02

But, because his goal was that they raise each other up in the process of open studio they're required to see each other's studios.But I felt a generation of artists who have not been confronted about their work,

:: 52:46

Act 6: Chinatown

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[00:54:05] BC: That's right in the middle of town. ha.

[: 00:54:08

Yeah. and I thought, well, now most people approach the 14th amendment through their civics class, that it was about black citizenship, but in the last six months, The 14th Amendment has been the battle shield for women and, the womb.It has been the battle shield for gay marriage, and, for equal funding of schools and that notion of citizens. so I thought instead of us all, using it in our own silos and It'd be an incredible year of, of embracing citizenship, in every aspect. Of our American lives.

[: 00:55:22

[00:55:53] LS: In the first half of the 20th century, Australia declared that the aborigines were not citizens, and therefore they could not get passports to leave, because they were not citizens. So they were in the entrapment. In this, Asian movie, about San Francisco in the play and using Thaddeus Stevens 14th amendment to get their inalienable rights reminded me of there are whole coalitions and communities that are protected by just being here, it.

I actually, being a romantic, believe the Golden Door bit.

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[00:56:44] LS: to collect the promise bill, We have expired coupons.

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[00:56:50] LS: you know.

[: 00:56:50

Well, Sloan, So, how long until you get to, dance?

[: 00:57:02

Yeah, I'm learning to walk It's humbling and humiliating. At the same time that it's given me a much, deeper respective for the simple ability to walk, and that constant struggle for me, brother Bill, is to stand up right and to live up right.

BC: A social gravity and the earthly gravity are both pulling on you.

LS: Yes, indeed. Thank you very much, my brother.

[: 00:58:30

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