Maya opened her first art installation at Fire Arts Collaborative, visualizing her five year plan in a unique way.
Let's check it out.
Well, isn't this awesome?
I feel kind of like a queen in a castle, but I think you are the queen according to your earring, Black Queen.
Maya James Art Studio, we are in, well, an installation of yours.
I'm gonna say right away, congratulations.
This is cool.
- Thank you so much.
I've had so much fun creating this.
- All right, who's Maya James?
- Well I am a lot of things.
I'm an artist, I'm an activist, I am an author, I'm an illustrator, I'm a graphic novelist, a muralist.
And now I make installations.
- As a little girl, was this the dream?
- I was one of those kids that wanted to do a lot of things.
So one week I was gonna be an actress, and the next week I was gonna be a veterinarian, and then the next week I was gonna be an artist like my dad.
And then the next week I was gonna be an author, and then the next week I was gonna be the president.
And I think I kind of settled down to what I just do and this is what I do.
And even down to the wall collages, this was something I did when I was a teenager and I would just cover my entire room in wall collage.
- You mentioned your dad was an artist, is an artist.
I mean there had to be some DNA, you had to have been exposed to art as a little girl.
- Oh yes, so one of my favorite things to do was to go into my dad's studio and work with him.
I would make little dolls out of his like woodworking materials.
I would paint with him, I would collaborate with him, and he would teach me things, and there was really no limit to what I could create.
And he always told me, just go for it and do it.
And so this is where that led.
- When did you realize you could go for it?
High school?
Did you do any extra study?
Why did you craft your talent?
- So I started my studies in political science.
I actually got most of my degree in political science, and then a really great friend of mine said you just need to quit school and pursue art full-time.
And I think that was the best decision I ever made.
I'm going back to school in the fall, but really my art is now my full pursuit, my full career.
And it's the thing that I do and that I love.
- So what are we doing?
Where are we sitting?
- We're sitting in my first ever art installation that Kalamazoo Fire, this wonderful arts and historical organization and cooperative of youth has allowed me to just kind of dream up.
I saw this space and it was a storage space and there was just like a lot of cardboard boxes and materials.
So I dusted and I cleaned it and I threw a bunch of cardboard boxes down the stairs and I made this.
- What is this?
How do you describe this?
And then let's get into how you want your visitors to be exposed to it.
- Yeah, so my installation is called "Five Year Plan" and as you can see, some of the numbered little boxes have goals for the next five years.
So the premise was, and I guess the question was from my mentor, you've accomplished everything you wanted in your first five year plan coming to Kalamazoo.
And I've been in Kalamazoo exactly five years, so what's next?
And I didn't know what to say.
So I let this be an expression of that and I kind of came to my own conclusions through creating this work.
- So we're at number six, number seven, does it expand this whole attic area?
- So another part of my five year plan is I have seven books that I've created that are hidden through the space.
These are little art books that I've created.
So they have collages and they have little affirmations that I've created and just like stickers.
And this is really how I process my thoughts.
I can't be a linear journaling type of person, but I wanted to add this and just the process of everything as well.
- What's this up here on the wall, Maya, right to your left?
- This is a self portrait I made when I first came to Kalamazoo and I covered it in a veil because I really do love, well this is actually my prom dress material.
So this is a piece of a prom dress that I had and I used the rest to make a different painting.
But I thought that this was very apt.
And I think this is kind of the centerpiece because this is where it all began.
Like each painting is from every single year that I've been in Kalamazoo.
- The process from maybe writing it on a white napkin to my goodness, this, is there a favorite part?
Do you like that idea part?
Or do you like this part where we've talked about a finished project?
- I would say that really my favorite part is the ideation process.
I've been trying to do a lot more of creating concepts because every single piece of my work and every single piece that I've ever created has been based in a concept.
I'm very much conceptual.
And so I love just writing down 10 ideas and then watching them kind of become realities in the next like five or so years.
- Number five, publish more books and graphic novels.
Tell me how you'll be doing that.
- So my first graphic novel, "Lukumi," it was actually featured at the Brooklyn Book Fair this past year and it's just been all over.
And I'm like hearing from a lot of people like, oh I read "Lukumi" and I really loved it.
So I wanna do even more.
And I have a superhero series that's gonna be coming up pretty soon that I'm excited about.
- As your audience comes to check it out, how do you want us to meander, and of course what do you want us to take away from this?
- Yes, so I have little arrows that guide you through this space, and at the end there's a interactive little piece with boxes and little sticky notes and some markers.
And I ask if anyone feels so inclined to leave affirmations or advice after they're done experiencing this that I can have them.
And I think during the finale, like in our final presentation that we definitely are going to post all of those on the walls as well.
- Couple of deep questions.
What is it for you to have this much passion?
Someone's watching us now and saying "I want Maya's passion."
How does one find that?
- I read a book called "Eloquent Rage."
It basically delineates how we can use our rage as Black women to push us forward and create sustainable change.
And all of my art is a byproduct of pent up emotions and I think ancestral emotions and ancestral traumas and very much current traumas that I want to transform into something powerful and into something positive.
- You feel good about what you're doing?
- Yeah.
- Why support the arts in Kalamazoo?
- So many reasons.
There is something in the air in Kalamazoo really.
I think everybody who lives here is passionate about what they're doing, and for every negative thing that happens in Kalamazoo, there's something transformative and something creative that's happening at the same time.
So I think that this is the beginning of a renaissance that might lead us to be a national force.
- Well let's meet back here in five more years to see if everything's been accomplished.
And then I wanna know your next five year plan.
How's that, president.
- [Maya] Beautiful.
- That's what it is.
Maya James, thank you.
Continued success to you.
- Thank you so much.
- [Announcer] Support for "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of Greater Kalamazoo.
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