Looong story...but it's a good one :)
I
came across the Black Arts Cultural Center when I went to the Art Hop of May. I
went on a class trip with my Interrogating Contemporary Art course with Jessica
Santone. We had to pick out an art work and write a review about it for our
class website. One of the exhibits was the BACC gallery. I never knew that
there was a BACC. I looked and enjoyed all the art, but I couldn’t focus and
pick out details from them because our class had to keep moving and go to the
next gallery. I didn’t like the fact that my whole trip to the Art Hop was very
rushed because there was so much to see. So I decided to go back downtown on my
own time, specifically to the BACC because it is not often that I hear of an
African American organization in Kalamazoo other than the Black Student
Organization in Kalamazoo College.
That day I went back, Mrs. Jones
came out of the back office and she welcomed me, asked me who was I and what
interest I had in the center. I told her I was a student at K and I wanted to
write an art review on one of the paintings. Right at that moment, a man walked
into the BACC who Mrs. Jones introduced me to as Mr. James C. Palmore. She said
he made the painting that was hanging out in the hallway in front of the BACC.
I told him how I really enjoyed that painting during my first visit. It looked
very realistic, it stood alone on a red-ish wall as a background. The
background within the painting was black so it made the figures specifically
pop out in their elegant white gowns, elaborate hairstyles and diamond,
dangling earrings. Mr. Palmore explained the four women were a singing group
called The Velevelettes. Their record label was Motown during the 1960s. Two of
them still lived in Kalamazoo and did performances. Then, standing up for a
good thirty to forty minutes he started telling me the whole history about the
Velvelettes, Motown, how he came to do the portrait. All of it sounded so good!
I got really excited and thought it would be a great idea to write an art
review of the painting for my art class and write a profile on Mr. Palmore for
my Narrative Journalism class. The assignment was not even introduced yet by
then, but I didn’t want to let the opportunity slip away.
We exchanged contact information and
set up an appointment to meet and talk more about the painting. When we met the
following week, Thursday, May 17th at noon, we took a couple of
chairs and sat in front of the painting in the hallway. He continued to talk
about African American history, his career as an artist, and his artistic
techniques. We met once again, this time it was an interview for the profile I
wanted to write. During our interview he seemed to talk about the BACC history
more than himself so I started getting more interested in the center itself.
Right when I was having this thought
as Mr. Palmore continued to talk, a tall, dark and very professionally dressed
man walked through the doors and he introduced himself to me as Sidney Ellis.
Mr. Palmore told me he was the executive director of the BACC and that I should
talk to him. After the interview, Mr. Ellis had stepped out so Mrs. Jones gave
me the number of the center to set up an appointment with Mr. Ellis.
In our first interview, Mr. Ellis
said a lot of great stuff, all within thirty minutes. His thoughts were
gathered very well; it was naturally easy for him to talk about the center, and
I really enjoyed that. I really got the sense of what the BACC is, its involvement
within the community, and all the great work they do. But it kept bugging me
that people didn’t seem to know that the BACC even existed, like me. So I
wanted to know more why that is. And we couldn’t come up with an answer.
When it came to writing the profile
on the BACC, I realized all I had was a whole bunch of information. I couldn’t
figure out how to write a narrative. I became really frustrated because the
more I tried, the more it was just all very informational and objective. So I
waited until our workshop to see what others thought should be the story.
During the workshop, I was still really frustrated that I couldn’t figure it
out, so I went into a mini rant about the BACC and what I thought that stood
out to me the most. Right when I finished, my workshop group said, “Wow, that
should be your story.” But I had no idea what I said. I had them repeat to me
what I had said in order to re-collect my thoughts and take notes.
When I went back to writing mode, I
still couldn’t figure out a good narrative. And the thing that kept bugging was
why is it that people don’t know about the BACC?! They do so much within the
community, they put up annual events, they have different forms of media as
advertisement, and they collaborate with so many other organizations that
people are familiar with.
But anyways, I didn’t actually
believe that they were involved with the community until I actually saw it in
front of my face; it was like a slap on the face. I bumped into Mr. Ellis on
the Thursday morning, the day right before the Art Hop of June. I walked into
the library to run and get a tape recorder because I was actually on my way to
the BACC. I had sent an email to Mr. Ellis the night before to ask if we can
meet again for follow up questions. I thought the center was going to be busy
all day preparing for the Art Hop.
But here I was, in our campus library,
and Mr. Ellis was getting a lid for his Biggby’s coffee. I did a double-take
head movement when I saw a tall, dark, very professionally dressed man wave hello
to me. I was really surprised. I stopped to greet him and told him I was
actually on my way to the BACC. He told me he came for a presentation an
economics marketing class was going to have. I guessed it was a ten o’ clock
class because it was 9:30 a.m.
I accepted that we wouldn’t meet
that day, but I went downtown to take the pictures for my audio slideshow.
At first, I went through a lot of
problems with creating this slideshow; my audio recordings were saved under
windows format and Garageband on imac was not accepting it. So I decided to use
Windows Movie Maker, which I thought was going to be a bad idea. But once I
started playing with the program, I patiently figured everything out. I saw
what the “divide” button did, so once I got the hang of that, I began to edit
the recordings by cutting out parts I didn’t want. I had to listen to
everything over and over again, and I experienced how time consuming this part
of the project was going to be. So I was happy that I started at least a week
before it was due and had went through all the problems I could possibly have
in getting started.
The audio slideshow was pretty fun
to do. I saw the project as a game; I had to hit the divide button at the exact
right moment to separate the fragment of recording and use the part that I
wanted and delete what “ums” and pauses in between sentences. And this was
specifically hard because I ended up using what I recorded the first time I
interviewed Mr. Ellis for that half hour. He spit out a lot of great stuff so
fast, it was really a game to divide the fragments because he hardly had any “ums”
and pauses.
While I was putting the audio
slideshow together and listened to the audio over and over, I tried to figure
out what my story should be. I had an idea of what should be included after
workshop, but I still didn’t have a cohesive narrative.
But then the thought came to me that
it would be really cool for my final assignment to be about my experience of
finding out who are the BACC, what do they do, where they are, who are
involved, and so on. It kept frustrating me that they do so much, but for some
reason, people didn’t seem to be paying attention to the actual center itself
and the people who run it.
Then finally I had a narrative. I
mentioned when I first came across the center, what I was doing there, what
interest I had in coming back. And then everything just unraveled from there. I
thought that my encounter with Mr. Ellis at K was significant.
I also actually bumped into one of
Mr. Palmore’s paintings in the office of Student Accounts. My encounter with
the painting was such a coincidence. I took a picture of it with Mr. Palmore’s
signature for the audio slideshow.
Going to the Art Hop on Friday, the
day right after I bumped into Mr. Ellis was a good experience. I took the
opportunity to ask people randomly if they had been into the BACC and see their
show. One Caucasian woman said yes and she loved it. Three college students
never heard of the BACC and they went to the second floor but didn’t think
there was anything past the first exhibit on the hallway, which was completely
ridiculous. I built up a lot of frustration because of that.
Mr. Palmore was having a show of his
own across the street from the Epic Center in the Midtown Gallery, and that was
fun. I saw Mr. Palmore and he looked really happy with the audience; I took
pictures of that too. And I asked an African American and another Caucasian
about what they thought of the exhibit and if they went over to the BACC. Both
said they truly enjoyed it so that was good.
Then Mrs. Jones came into the
gallery and she was very happy to see me. She said, “I usually don’t come out
to the Art Hop. But I’m so glad I did! It’s amazing how creative one can be!”
She was completely enjoying herself. I wanted to include what she said within
the writing assignment, but I couldn’t go over the word count.
There was a lot of stuff I wanted to
add to the writing assignment. It would’ve been cool to have at least 1700 or
2000 words. But I’m content with what I have.
I’m happy I decided to include myself
within the piece to walk my reader through my experience of learning about the
BACC. And in doing that the reader would also ask themselves why they don’t
know about the BACC if they do so much and advertise themselves in so many
ways. Why is it that the BACC is not being recognized? The question still bugs
me but I hope my readers get what was my intention in this project.
I want to thank the BACC for allowing me
to have insight in what they are all about. It was a great experience, and I
wish them the best. J
And, of course, I want to thank my
professor, academic advisor, SIP advisor, and dear friend, Marin Heinritz for
all of her support!
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