Converge+Vertex artists discuss creative interconnection
Alicia Piller, Donel Williams and facilitator Cole James spoke on Black interconnection, archiving and rabbit holes that inspire their creative works at the panel on Tuesday, April 1. James, the curator of Converge+Vertex, started the conversation with prepared questions for both artists.
Converge+Vertex: Traversing the Minor Gesture of Timeliness is the current exhibit at Barrett Gallery, featuring pieces from Black artists in Los Angeles.
When asked how they archive and collect the content of their work, multimedia artist Piller said she utilizes her phone’s camera: “I hate to say it, but it's become a tool.”
Aside from photo documenting, she archives with physical objects. “I’m constantly collecting historical material!” she said. “Fossils, minerals, all things that can be infused into the (art) work.”
Williams, on the other hand, said he is a living archive and doesn’t have an organized way of archiving.
“I love reading things and going down rabbit holes, but I do it in a way that does not have a method of focus. I just go in and I find something (that) I have a link to and I can make work about that,” he said. Williams used his piece X as an example, which is based on his father’s last signature before death.
“I discovered that slaves used to petition for freedom with X’s. Someone would help them make a similar mark… They made that mark because they could sign their names because they did not know how to write. My father, ironically, was functionally illiterate, except the only thing that he knew how to spell was his name. And when he had the stroke it robbed him of that ability. So, like, having that link, that personal link to the moment, I thought was very sad, but also kind of tangible,” said Williams.
James brought up that she went through a rabbit hole before curating Converge+Vertex over the fact that women are born with all of their eggs. “So our eggs were created in our grandmother. The eggs that made us was created in our grandmother. So we still have pieces of her memory in our bodies. And then in our bodies, we hold 150 years of mitochondrial DNA,” she said.
“Right now I’m working on another body of work that has to do with space and politics,” Piller said, referring to her current theme for her art pieces, “lost in space.”
“I'm looking at a lot of people who just personally touched me and infusing them into this sort of new palette of materials that I'm working with that includes some images from the 1980s, early 80s. Like the year I was born,” Piller said. She credits Black author Octavia Butler’s "Parable of the Sower" as a prevalent inspiration. The book was published in 1993 but is set in 2024.
The book “is kind of parodying what's happening in the world. But I was asked to work with her archive, which is at the Huntington and it was so mind blowing to just tap into her mind. She was researching for all her novels, but she was doing kind of what I do, which is collecting news headlines and or news articles,” Piller said.
All of the artists mentioned their appreciation for the youth emerging from community college. James, whose first job in Los Angeles was at Santa Monica College (SMC), said, “We come from community college, so it’s nice to be back. It’s like coming home.” Williams said that he came to the panel because he loves community college.
“I hope that some students see art as a way to help push us forward as human beings. Maybe help us to remember history,” Pillar said.
This event took place in the Art Complex, room 214.