Southern University studying oil
painting one of my teachers Murray
Cochran asked me a question that led me
to eventually develop a mixture that I
use to create dimensional images that I
call sculpted paintings now the question
she asked was why are most of the
subjects of your paintings white women
like in this piece here and first I took
offense but as I thought about it a door
to consciousness opened inside me and I
realized that I had the power to have
critical thinking and that led me to the
really to the realization that I had the
power to choose why did what I did
through purposeful questioning so even
though the fact that I was born in
Kingston Jamaica none of that was
reflected in my work it was like I’ve
been living in a fog just imitating the
things that I had seen on TV or in
magazines and I was oblivious to my own
consciousness so even though this fog
was open or the door to this was opened
when I was in college I was still
technically in that fog about 20 years
later oh and even though I my work had
become more self reflective and I have
had some modicum of success with having
pieces in the collections of Luci Baines
Johnson who’s the daughter of LBJ and
Lady Bird Johnson and also in call :
Powell’s collection Queen Latifah
I still had felt pretty mediocre and
after my fifth child and and hitting my
40s I said I know everyone has a purpose
to their life but mine could not be just
having babies so so I need to figure
find my purpose because I believe that
everyone is born with a purpose in life
so that led me to ask my first conscious
question where I said to myself why are
you here literally and figuratively
and the answers led me to get a divorce
remarry quit my job and focus on my art
work I had created this piece a few
years later but I still felt really
stuck and I that foggy feeling kept
coming over me again and why I had
learned when you’re in the fog when any
of us are in the fog we ask ourselves
how can I get out of this fog safely and
you know that when you see brake lights
in front of you that’s probably a safe
direction to go in and you’ll be safe so
I applied that to the question for
myself and after I created this piece I
felt really really stuck so I started
asking myself questions and I realised
that when you’re in this place right
here you have to start asking yourself
questions and the questions that I asked
myself was what in art created this
image why was this image important and I
discovered that you the premise that
this image is based on is you as a piece
transporting you into this place
by creating an illusion through
dimensionality and it
when oil painting was created in the
fifteenth or seventh century whatever
your belief is when it was created those
images were necessary but today with the
proliferation of imagery a flat image is
kind of redundant so I thought what
would happen if I could actually get
that image to come off the canvas
instead of just creating the illusion of
coming off the canvas so I started
trying a bunch of different things to
mix it into my oil paints to try and
achieve that anything from sand to dryer
lint and none of it was really working
you know one day I noticed that there
was some sawdust in in my studio that I
had used in the past to create images
like these where I had mixed the sawdust
into the oil paint just to create
texture so I said well let me try that
so I mix the oil paint in and the result
was pretty gummy and plus it it took
forever to dry so I decided well
acrylics dry faster so let me try Alex
so I mixed this sawdust in with the
acrylic and it was still gummy so out of
water then it was way too soupy so I had
some acrylic medium and I said well let
me try add that to it and it was a
little better but there was way too much
pigment so I finally said well why don’t
I just add the sawdust directly into the
acrylic medium and then Eureka I found
and what it did was this idea of
following your your breadcrumbs and
finding your bright lights in the fog I
I call the break light my breadcrumbs
because they leave you to the path of
your own life’s purpose so even though I
developed this mixture I know one of the
world to do with it and develop it ain’t
easy and this image made me realize I
need to do some more research and uh
because I quit I equated it with being a
hot mess so I kept doing more research
and as I was doing my research a past
breadcrumb came to mind where I am at
which is high relief sculpture and the
piece on the right is a piece by the
artist Luca della robia who was a
sculptor back in the fifteenth century
and I created the piece on the left to
try and work my way into this sculpting
thing but as I realized as I worked on
it I realized that I could a couple of
things I realized first that the image
on the right
was created by the sculptor removing the
material the marble to create the image
and the image on the left I created I
was adding material to create the image
and I was like that’s pretty cool and
radical right there so but then I also
found out that I was sculpting as I was
creating this image so I had always
loved sculpting and painting and it was
allowing me to do that so it was coming
together but it still was really wasn’t
very cohesive then a few months later my
husband and I took a trip to Barcelona
Spain and while we were there I saw
these trees
that had this bark that looked like
collages I’m like what in the world of
his trees I find out there were sycamore
trees and I thought okay it’s coming
together I’m seeing it this little great
with my sadhus it’s perfect culmination
and it also had knots in it and I was
like well the knots are created by
removing a branch a negative thing has
happened to this tree and I thought I
would change it to a positive by
changing that to a face so all that led
me to create my first sculpted paintings
and I call these are part of the Signum
or series that I created my husband um
after he saw these pieces he was like
that looks pretty innovative you should
probably get that patented so I did more
research and I want to compare trees to
humans and I found out that humans are
35% carbon
trees are 50% carbon and the stars are a
hundred percent carbon and I was like we
can’t waste this carbon so we have to
use it to do something and I thought
this is a perfect thing to create with
that carbon and also in my research I
found out that the components of trees
are cellulose hemicellulose and lignin
so my research led me to file a patent a
process patent that’s pending for Hemi
Seligman paint which I call him as he’ll
for short and um as I fell term follow
your breadcrumbs came to me as I was
leaving trails of sawdust all over my
studio so I was like yeah
follow your breadcrumbs I like it um so
all of these things uh these ideas came
together to create what I call
tie establishment art and through this
anti-establishment art I use recycled
sawdust that I mix with a clear acrylic
polymer and I use my paintbrush to form
it into like the dough and then I use my
face paint brush to form the images and
to create the dimensional images and I
use reverse sculpture an additive as
opposed to a subtractive process to
create the image and they are best
viewed to fully appreciate the dimension
in person as opposed to sitting on your
phone and flipping through I also wanted
to promote the awareness of preserving
our natural resources and encourage
touching which is a no-no in the regular
art community and highlight the need to
cherish one of our most significant
resources that has been taken for
granted since the beginning of time
women and to stand against societal
expectations gender bias and human
trafficking so Einstein said that
imagination is way more boring than
knowledge because knowledge is anchored
to the past but imagination is where the
future lies so as I hold my craft and I
create each new piece my imagination
evolves and expands like with this piece
that I call blue grouper where I
incorporated in the fin the recycled
plastic bottles to highlight the
overfishing and pollution in our oceans
so I don’t know where my next
breadcrumbs will what they are or where
they lead but I am in awe and humbled by
the fact that a question asked by my
teacher could lead me and have such a
profound effect in my life because I
acted on a question that didn’t make
sense to me instead of just blowing it
off
now I believe that each of us here has
our purpose and if you act on it you
should be able to follow your own
breadcrumbs thank you
[Applause]
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you [Music]