[ Mechanical sound, applause ]
>> Oh, the prejudice.
The stereotypes.
The marginalization.
I'm an artist.
I can't help it.
[Laughter] I was born that way.
And then, to make the whole worse, right, so, you know,
I'm sort of born with this condition.
And I figured, well, so what am I supposed to do about it.
So, I go and I do what any sort of normal person does.
I seek help.
I went to -- I went to an art school.
I trained.
They were very helpful.
I trained for many, many years.
And it was the -- to do --
to learn how to properly be introspective
and to communicate my ideas visually.
Right? To go up into my studio and emote.
To understand myself.
So with all of that, it's coming.
It's coming back!
[Laughter] So -- so with all of that introspection,
right, what happens?
You know, you're sitting --
what happens whenever you're sitting alone at home
in the room, and you're being introspec- -- guilt.
So, you're consumed by guilt.
So now, all of a sudden, I'm been consumed by guilt from,
you know, looking at sticks most of my life.
So, what do I do?
So what do you do when you're alone at home?
You're sitting in a room.
And you're consumed by guilt.
You go and volunteer.
You volunteer in an -- in an inner-city school.
And you help inner-city black people learn how
to use the arts in a constructive way that relates
to their educational prospects.
Right? Okay?
Yeah. So I'm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and I was working at something called the Manchester
Craftsmen's Guild.
And I was working with these -- with these young people.
And I'm trying to figure out how to make the arts, you know,
make sense to them somehow -- educationally.
And I encountered the requisite challenge.
There was -- you know, there's always the challenge.
This is what happens.
So, there was -- there was a --
there was a young fellow named Charles.
And so I'll tell you the story now.
Along with all the other things that I mentioned earlier,
there's -- there's sort of two issues.
That was the first one.
Here's -- I'm going to start to tell you
about the second one.
This guy, he would come.
He would show up.
He made me a little nervous.
I'll just -- I'll admit that to you now, in --
you know, in private here.
This world, being very private among a thousand people
in the room.
I was a little nervous.
See, he'd come.
He'd commandeer the office, lay back, put his cap down,
turn the lights out.
We would leave.
We'd leave him in private, you know,
so he could have the office to himself.
I'd go out and teach a lesson or something.
Week after week this happened.
Then I started to worry that, you know, this was my --
this was my challenge.
This was a problem student that I wasn't getting through to.
What am I going to do?
I'm the -- I'm the -- I'm the innovative educator.
Right? I'm coming up with new, emotion --
educational ways to --
to address these problems, to help students.
And now I have a challenge.
What am I supposed to do?
So I thought, okay, well, I'll confront him.
Yeah, okay.
I'll confront Charles.
I said -- well, I said --
so I, you know, I came to him one day
in the office, and I sat down.
I pulled up a chair.
I got a little business card.
I woke -- you know, after he woke up, I said, Charles,
I said, if you don't mind, you know, this is photography.
Right? So, you know, one day if you're --
you know, see something that you're interested
in photographing, anywhere, you know, we can take --
we can just take the class.
We can go out there and we can do some photography.
If that's okay with you, you know.
[Laughter] So, you know, he says, Okay, fine.
Weeks passed.
And it -- it -- it happened.
To make -- so, make --
to make a long story short, it finally happens.
He used the business card.
He makes the telephone call.
The phone rings.
And I'm sort of going out of my mind.
I'm very excited.
I get all the things together.
I have my little kit by the door,
just in case he would call.
Right? So I -- I grab the camera and I run out,
get in the van, drive over, you know, to wherever he is,
and into the inner city.
The deepest, darkest parts of the inner city.
And I -- you know, I jump out.
He's there.
And we got in the van
and drove around for a couple of hours.
And I let him out at the McDonald's
and gave him a few dollars,
so he could get something to eat.
But he called back.
He called back.
He called again.
He calls again.
And we went through the whole process.
This happens a few times.
I'm not going to, you know, bore you with the whole thing.
It -- finally, we start to photograph.
Okay? So we're making -- and things are progressing.
You know, week after week, we're photographing.
And, you know, I'm thinking, okay, this is going well.
This is going good, you know, I'm --
I'm getting through to him.
I'm getting through to this --
you know, this -- this student.
And, you know, I -- I -- I guess, you know, I -- okay, fine.
I -- it's the ego.
Right? The most profound hallucinogen.
So it was kind of, you know, I'm the artist.
And I'm thinking, okay.
So, I -- maybe I got too big for my britches.
Or something.
And, you know, here -- here we are.
You know, we got the -- I gave --
because I gave him the good stuff.
We've got the old-fashioned camera,
the tripod, the four-by-five.
You know, the little thing you throw over your head,
you get under there.
And you're focusing a Polaroid four-by-five,
right, large format.
Okay? And we're taking these pictures.
And I figure, what the heck.
You know, if we're out here, you know,
we might as well make the images good-looking, you know.
We might as well make some beautiful photographs.
Right? So I say -- so he's framing
and he's getting the thing and he's --
he takes another picture and he hands it to me.
And I'm -- I can't stand it.
And I say to him, I says, Look.
I said -- I said, Charles.
I said, you know, I said, In order to -- to enhance the --
the aesthetic properties of the image, I said,
in order to improve our composition, I said,
why don't we just -- you move --
move the camera over, just slightly to the left.
And maybe pull back a little.
And, you know, I just --
I feel that it would really make this image kind
of really sing, you know.
Say what? [Laughter] And I said, Well...
[Laughter] I said, You know.
You know, I'm just talking about composition.
Right? [Laughter] And he said, What you mean?
What you mean, aesthetic?
And I said, Well, you know, it's the -- it's the --
improve the overall aesthetics of the --
of the picture, you know.
I said, you know.
He said, Mr. Lonnie man, he said, aesthetic, man.
You talking about some art thing?
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, oh, my.
I said, Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes, Charles.
Yes, art. I'm speaking about art, yes.
He said, man.
He said, this isn't about no art thing.
I said, No?
He said, No, man.
I said -- I said, What -- I said, What do we -- what --
what is it, exactly?
I said, What -- I said, Hold -- hold on a minute.
So I run back to the van and I get the Polaroids.
I come back and I get the --
I get my little stack of pictures.
And I'm going, Well, what -- what is this?
He said, Man.
He said, That's where Bobby got beat up.
I said -- I said, What's this one?
He said, That's where Kiki got raped.
I said, What's this one?
He said, That's where LaVelle got shot.
He said, Man, this ain't got nothing to do with me.
He said -- he said, Look.
He said, When people in my community look
at these photographs, he said,
they will know what the pictures are about.
He said, these pictures are for all the people
that live here with me.
The light went on.
It was the -- it was the epiphany.
I mean, for years I had traveled all over the place,
you know, looking for the arts and trying to figure out.
All of a sudden -- all of a sudden, this makes sense.
Right? These artists make sense.
These individuals that are working side-by-side
with the members of their community
to produce work that's inspiring, that's sharing,
to cultivate these ideas.
Right? This stuff is beginning to make sense.
No, it's not beginning to make sense.
It made perfect sense.
And then I started to think about all the artists all
over the world that are producing artwork like -- like this.
Right? Okay.
So there's a wedding.
You paint the house.
These are -- in [inaudible], South Africa.
You know, somebody gets married, they --
they -- they paint a house.
There's adornment, these -- self-adornment.
You've seen them in the National Geographic, you know.
You've seen all these people getting all dressed
up for whatever occasion that they happen to have for --
if there's a -- if there's --
there's an artist involved, the artists are involved at a --
at a -- at a fundamental level in the community.
They're about the community.
These traditional artists.
Here's a guy that knows nothing about the yards.
Right? He doesn't care about the arts.
Has -- it -- doesn't even allude.
He doesn't want to --
he doesn't want me to mention the word.
But here -- here he is an artist in its most --
in its most essential and fundamental fashion.
And here we have it, now.
Generation after generation of artists being trained
in these arts schools, as it is.
Right? We have communities that have needs, basic needs:
Food, clothing, housing, education, communication.
Okay. So here you've got a whole bunch
of organic problem-solvers, these creative problem-solvers.
And over here, you know,
you've got a community that has needs.
What the heck!
What you going to do?
Right? Okay.
Because whenever you get these people together communicating
these ideas, whenever you get all
of these people together fostering understanding -- right --
those fears are dispelled.
Enlightenment occurs.
People begin to share and understand
and communicate with one another.
This is the role of the artist.
This is what I'm talking about.
Now, what are you going to do?
[ Applause ]