Wiz Kudowor - The Black Stars of Ghana - Art District

Out in the backwoods.

Rural living at one time, about 100 years ago was the place that most people lived. as the Industrial revolution kicked in there was a giant shift from rural to city.  For people of colour especially in the united states the end of the slave trade  and the begining of jim crow saw the "great migration" millions moving north from the south. i imagine in Canada the shift from rural to city happened because of the lack of ownership of land and the Canadian Jim Crow.  blah blah.. so the Artists black artist, me artist always working in urban centres. except for outsider artist like Thornton Dial. the Geez bends women. Or Bill Traylor.
 I have moved to this small town with next to no people of colour, as a matter of fact there was a bylaw that forbade non whites to  sleep in the town after sundown.(they no longer have that law) it's crazy up here there are very few rural areas with a community of people of colour.  Can i still be a black artist, and what does that mean?

looking at my work (above)  I wonder if it will be transformed by moving from a city like Montreal. to a backwater( as my mother called this place) will i lose my black search, as i think thats what my work was all about. it was a search not for a definative "Blackness" but an acceptance of that which resides in me.

Art as life

Clutter, Hoarding, keeping stuff. I'm in the art as reduction world. I have in a short period of time, I have moved all my stuff out of my apartment in Montreal and moved to Meaford to help my mother move out of her house and downsize. things i know; All those handy space saving devices on sale? they are really enablers for hoarders. every clutterer will buy these units to organize their junk, see that sliegh of hand? organize instead of get rid of. Hide, tuck away instead of giving away. its part of our ridiculous consumerist life , instead of cutting back buy more to organize the stuff. One industry that is growing is the storage industry.

the ancestors

I was directing a play a fantastic work by a very talented actor writer, Cassandre mentor.  it was called "Blue colored girl" ( yes we know in Canada and other British places we spell it coloUred )  in it she mentions being called by the ancestors, even though she cannot identify them, she knows they are constantly in her consciousness.  There are many similarities between  her play and the one i wrote a decade and a half ago. and i was and have been for the past two years constructing these ancestor pieces, they have gone from one large piece of wood to three  imagine if you will the painting is the "house" i'm going to have to reconstruct the pieces as one in another crazy assembly, i will meanwhile here is the new ancestors of montreal.

this time i spread them out. harder to destroy.

very late

NEW LIGHT

Whats good about blogs and journals,or any writing of a personal nature? Realizing when I'm stuck in a loop. Is creativity linked to a Mania ? Because every so often I find I'm going back to the same point starting over again. relearning, being scared,getting over fear, creating then falling back into the process. That's it! It's my process. it too damn  tiring. Time to ( yes, i'm gonna say it) start again, with a new light. Audre Lorde said (I'm paraphrasing) the difference between pain and suffering ; Pain is going through trauma and unsing the experience to change, knowing that you have been through the experience. Suffering is not using the experience for change,but repeating the trauma over again and again.

Thanks to; the nice poster folks who glued my work up rather than tear it down(which happened to the other work i put up if you go to grumpy's on Mckay in Montreal.
and big big thanks to Cassandre Mentor and Rabbit, who are performing "short and sweet" at the end of the month. Cassandre is a great actor  Rabbit is a wonderful writer with a fantastic reading voice.

moving and moving on.

It occurs to me the more i think i know the less i most likely do. this doesn't even stop me from thinking i do know more. Its age or something , the idea that i lived this long it has to be skill and not just by the grace of god, luck or other unquantifiable experiences. I have a new collection of work. some of it a repeat. like for instance back in the day in ottawa i set up some work in the parks and on the street one group that i was really happy with was called the "ancestors" large pieces,  four sculptural bits which called me to daughters of the dust and  recollection of seeing African scultpures( thank you Althea knight, who always is an inspiration and motivator) so once again i set them out on the lawn so to speak this time in montreal along the lachine canal. and paintings on St. Antoine,( they were quickly removed by poster people,, damn you ! don't you know art man!

i still am figuring the documentation bit. theses are the inside versions.

collective reason

Collective creation blog #2

As we move through this creative space, I realize not only are we talking in terms of space we share publicly, we have to think in terms of space in time in space and time. We are a group of people who span many years and have lived in different countries, because of this we see space and time differently. Even on a simple level, in Montreal there is an Anglo space and a French space, As gender we occupy space differently ( take a look at how much space  some men occupy on a bus compared to some women) go to a public event and see the lines of women wanting to utilize the washroom, while  men, So, who is afforded space?  think of People with disabilities who cannot participate in activities because of accessibility. I started thinking of this while listening to CBC this morning, they were talked about the segregated Canada, there were Indian hospitals, towns like Dresden Ontario which would not allow black people to eat in restaurants or use  bowling lanes etc. and who could forget viola Desmond being removed from the cinema in Nova Scotia. I think how older folk look at and use public space, I certainly do look at it differently from the younger participants.  In Quebec  women could not even acquire a bank account, lease a house or get hydro  hook up without the signature of a male.. so an exercise, as marginalized folk, either by gender, race, sexuality,  religion,disability etc;

 Could you jump in a time travel machine and go randomly to anywhere in the past? As for that matter we can never tell what the future has for us. As for the other space, cyberspace, I have to look to the young, I have to look for them because they are too busy texting or tweeting or face booking to look up. In many ways they share public space in a greater way over continents, time zones, semi publicly in places and in languages I can’t even begin to comprehend.  In that sense we have to talk about what is private in cyberspace?  and how can they be so private in public?

I am cheating I think because this will be posted on our collective  site which I urge you to go to