 Click here for both interviews. The short version (6 minutes) is at the top of the page, and printed; Scroll down for the long version (19 minutes), which goes into further detail and covers issues like fare, shields, and back-door boarding. Further context:
I post new material at the start of every month. Check back soon!
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 I always called him by his full name because it made him laugh. Shawn and I crossed paths in the lunchroom, on the road, at our lockers, the bullpen, the layovers, and everywhere else. We moved in similar circles. He and I both had the seniority to pick away from Atlantic Base, home of the hardest and most challenging routes; and we both had the seniority to pick away from night work, but for different reasons we wanted to be there, working our night shifts together downtown. I do it because I like the people and the pace; Shawn did it because he needed the money, and overtime is best found on the routes, times, and places that are least desirable.
But the 70 is such a cush route. It doesn't even go to 12th and Jackson. It's too short for sleepers. It's just the 70. Shawn wasn't downtown, either. This happened in the U District. And, reading this at home, you might think 3 AM is a uniquely dangerous time, but it isn't. In post-COVID Seattle there's no difference in safety between 3 PM and 3 AM. Both are equally fraught. Remember the new full-timer who, perhaps because he was African, was recently attacked by three men who pulled him off his bus at 3rd and James and stripped him naked and beat him to a pulp? That happened during afternoon rush hour, broad daylight with tons of people around. Our city allows this sort of thing. Let the terrible sentence live now as it did then, in that poor operator's horrific experience. He will never forget those minutes. The same is true for the ten people recently stabbed near 12th and Jackson within a 36-hour period, by one deranged individual who attacked all of his victims unprovoked and mostly from behind. There are good folks up there at that notorious intersection, from the small business owners to the seniors in affordable housing to yes, the youngsters outside struggling with drugs. I happen to really like some of those people. They don't deserve to be stabbed. Neither did Shawn. I consider his final moments with the paralysis of intimate sorrow, intimate because I’ve probably driven the very same vehicle was sitting in, and because I know exactly the terrain and timbre of his final time and place. Shawn Yim as he stumbled away from the bus, making it only a short distance before collapsing on the concrete, over there in the alley behind Wells Fargo, a young and healthy 59 year-old dying alone, collapsing not just in loss of blood but also in belief. How could it possibly end this way, so badly and so soon? All the things I'd planned for, hoped for, wanted to do, fix, see, live…. You remember that I was in the Paris terror attacks in 2015. My next book dives deep into that. But you also remember how decisively Paris, as a system of governance, took action in responding to something even as nebulous as terrorists, taking preventative measures while pursuing the appropriate action behind the scenes, swiftly and with the use of considerable resources. They ensured safety when the enemy was unknown and few. Our situation is different. Seattle’s problems and dangers are not hidden but obvious. They repeat in predictable and terrifying ways. Violent behavior happens here without intervention. Life-destroying drugs can be used in broad daylight without consequence. Unstable souls with desperate needs, dangers to themselves and others, are dumped on the street and left to rot amongst the crowd. Hundreds of millions of dollars and years of lip service are expended in the name of solving these crises, while 3rd Avenue remains exactly as unsafe as it was four years ago. The fact that it was Shawn Yim crushes me. A robust and friendly man, one of the few Korean-Americans at Atlantic Base besides myself. I rarely brought up our shared heritage but it was always there between us, an unspoken bond the others couldn't share. We would joke about the miserable state of things, the jesting laughs of our brief interactions emboldening us to carry onward. “I don't know how you do it, Nate," he'd smile, watching my enthusiasm as I prepped for another night on my 7. It happened five minutes into his last trip of his shift. Home stretch, almost done. He probably took the piece (we call shifts pieces) thinking this'll be easy, route 70 at night no big deal, nice easy route during the hours when there's no traffic, even better. What was he saving up for, working all those hours? The pain of losing Shawn is the fact that I always hoped to know him better. We were both of us continuously in motion, rushing through our lives, aware that we'd get more out of knowing each other but, you know, duty calls. Our friendship was a lifetime of unfinished conversations. Who was he, deep down? The two of us standing by the microwave, Shawn with his polished wire-frame glasses and trademark light blue oxford–only senior operators wear those, because the uniform store no longer makes them–with a reflective vest on top. His bald head and thoughtful eyes plus the professionalism of the glasses, contrasted with that safety vest, cast him as a sort of urban intellectual, the kind of person you can’t quite pin down, because they don’t fit into any one box. I always wanted to ask another question, share a little more. He knew my partner, and would joke about how good her Korean is. “That’s so creepy, you sound like my sister!” he'd tell her, laughing with that handsome, tired smile of his. Other times he'd be driving the bus I was riding, and we’d wax reflectively about human nature and the state of the city. Of course I wish I could remember our exact conversations. But how can I, sitting as I am in the shell-shocked immensity that is violent death? At least I can still recall the feeling, the easy sensation of another day with one of your favorite coworkers, joking the trip away while watching the road together. He was so good at letting me be myself, even when he had different views. I did the same for him. We never tried to change each other. Talking with him brought me joy. Why do we delay the things that matter most? It is the City’s responsibility–our leaders and ourselves–to make Seattle safe. To foster environments where people don't have to risk damage and death by merely using transit. After all that has happened and continues to happen, who among our leaders would dare to say meaningful progress has been made? My friends on the street and I know differently. We watch and wait as ever we have, waiting for legislation that could so easily reverse a lot of the things Seattleites have to suffer, waiting for someone with the agency and power and courage to come forward and make some real moves. That person will be named a hero. But whoever they end up being, they will be too late for Shawn Yim.  Stalkers are no fun. They make me uncomfortable. It's something female operators and I commiserate about– the problem is more common than you think. One night a colleague walked into the base after her shift with three massive– and exquisite– bouquets of roses.
“What's the story?" I asked. “Oh, they're from my stalker," she replied. “I can't say no, or else he flips out. These are hunnerd dollar bouquets! I'm like, sure! Now I'm ’onna go put ‘em on my Dad's grave! Din't tell him that though!” "Right?? Hey, makin’ the best of it!” She grinned with relief when I and another operator listening shared we have stalkers too. It's an occupational hazard that isn't discussed enough. In past days I was always embarrassed to share about mine, though in retrospect I have no idea why; maybe I thought I was the only one. Shame follows us in curious ways. Of course, stalkers never think they're stalkers. They think they're boyfriends, or girlfriends. For the longest time I thought the best way to deal with them was to stay on their friendly side– you know, “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer"– by giving them what they wanted in a boring, unfulfilling, and boundary-ridden manner that would hopefully make them lose interest and finally stop bothering me (newsflash: this doesn't even come close to working). I've always been too nice. I didn't know the first thing about speaking up for myself, or how to ask for help. And I'm particularly at risk for stalkers because I have a high threshold for what I think constitutes friendly behavior: more than once have I been accused of sending mixed messages, and more than once has my friendliness been misinterpreted for flirtation. I can hardly blame such accusations; people (myself included) see only what they're looking for. All this to say that there's an antsy knot that appears within me when people refuse to leave the bus, especially at terminals. The invasion of privacy that is someone refusing to let you take your break alone is (strangely) similar to the sensation of being stalked. Both involve an ignorance of your need for personal space. It can be hard not to take personally. That anxiety manifested itself in frustration this afternoon, when I noticed a man in his eighties nodding off when we arrived at the Queen Anne terminal. I told him we were at the end of the line, that it was time to hop out, but he couldn't be bothered. He gazed up from behind his walker with glassy eyes, staring fixedly out the window, then at me. He wore green corduroy pants and a clean oxford button-up. He had a large Nordstrom Rack bag. It looked brand new. I took a deep breath and sat across from him, resigned to having lost my break due to his presence, trying to hide my irritation while reminding myself that this was no stalker, obviously, just another bewildered soul who got on a bus without reading the destination sign, trusting to fate that it'd take him where he wanted. I said, “Where you tryin’ to get to?" "Boren and Minor,” he said. My brain hiccuped. Aren't those parallel? “Well, lemme take a second and look that up. Boren and Minor, that's tricky. You got a good one. Usually I know where stuff is!” I've removed all web browsers and social media from my phone, but I still use Maps. Together we confirmed that there was no such intersection, and that what he wanted was the Capitol Hill QFC on Pike. Still bewildered, he said, “You always drive this route?” “I've done most of the routes, but usually do the 7 and the 49.” “The 49, where's that go?” I reminded him. “That's right, the one I'm spossa be takin’.” I was coming around to the guy. His slow-birthing confusion reminded me of early childhood, the age-old puzzlement we feel looking out at existence, so full of questions we never find answers for. He had that quality of paralysis I've felt in times of grief, when just being takes great effort. “We'll work it out,” I said. “How's your day been otherwise?” “Been good. I woke up this morning.” “Exactly yeah, good to be above ground, nice beautiful day like this. I like this job.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. I been driving these buses 17 years.” “Oh! Long time!” “Yeah man, 2007. I still like it. Where’d you work before?” “Postal service. It was real uh, blue collar type work.” He had a soft voice, thin, and no teeth, but there was just barely enough articulation to make out his words. “Hey, that's you and me both,” I exclaimed in agreement. "I respect that so much, real work doin’ somethin’ with your hands. Feels like you've actually done something at the end of the day. Did you like it?” “Hell no, I just wanted that retirement!” We laughed. The silence he wore so well couldn't stay put for long though, a silence of memories lived and lost, hazy, emotions waiting in forgotten rooms. He said, “My twin sister she passed just as you was startin’, in 2008. We were real close.” “I'm sorry to hear it.” “Thanks,” he said, with real appreciation. “We were real tight, every day. She taught me to read and write, taught me how to cook.” “Sounds like a good person.” “She was.” “What was her name?” “Kathy. Kathy –.” I paused. Somehow it was important to continue, to respect his presence with spoken interest, engagement. You get ignored too often in later age. No one likes to feel invisible. “You been in Seattle a while?” “You bet. Came here 1953.” “Oh 1953, wow! I bet you seen some changes.” It's a line I often share with the old-timers, the better to make their memories feel heard. It unleashes the wound-up slipstream of memory inside them. Having been here thirty-plus years myself, there's always a lot to share, here in this metropolis even I now barely recognize. But he had a different answer. “Um. Not really. It's pretty much the same.” No one's ever said that about Seattle! But I realized he was much older than most of the old timers I chat with. He wasn't fifty or sixty; he was at least mid-eighties, if not moreso. He had the perspective to have seen not just one rise or fall, but several of each. I found myself grinning with newfound optimism. By way of paraphrase, I said, “…Everything changes, everything stays the same!” “Ha! You got that right!” “People are happy, people are sad, joy and sorrow, highs and lows.” “Highs and lows for sure." We learned each other's names and shared further words and silences, as I let his humanity reach me. He was about as far from being a stalker as one could be. When we finally arrived at his stop, I went back to alert him, and walked out with him together, showing him how to cross the street and where, for his connecting route. I'm often moved by the solitary figure walking away from the bus, and was once again as I watched him. The figure striking out, alone, amidst a vast throng of indifferent souls, all moving and thinking faster than he. We can only hope that when we are one day as old as he is, if we're fortunate enough to live that long, as rich in memory and perspective, that a youngster or two will take time out of their day to slow down and help. To meet us at our pace, and trust that once, long ago, we were kings.  In reviewing the recent electoral catastrophe, I find myself seeking answers. Am I wrong about my own views? Is it me or them? How did this train wreck happen, and why? It's similar to how I feel when confronted with cruelty and apathy on the street. I'll witness a moment of extreme selfishness and wonder, where is their best self, their considerate self? Why this instead? Selfishness happens most naturally when one's survival is at stake… or when one thinks one's survival is at stake.
Rural white poverty has always been, numerically, the largest type of poverty in the US, and as ever, it remains the least studied. Sociological studies of the poor tend to stem from major cities and the diverse demographics within them. Many of us have relatives who live out there, with baffling perspectives we cannot share. And don't forget– they find us equally baffling. Perspectives come from education, whether in school or from lived experience. What sort of education do we imagine exists out in the red states? To what degree are our rural and working-class neighbors equipped to decode the clever messaging politicians send their way? 1. Breaking it Down Literacy comes to mind as an effective unit of measure. And literacy is more than being able to read and write. Let's briefly review the PIAAC’s (Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies) six levels of literacy (more here). -Below Level 1: basic vocabulary only; can understand info on a familiar topic. -Level 1: can fill out basic forms; can't make inferences from written material (unable to understand correct dosage on a medicine label). -Level 2: able to make comparisons and simple inferences; unable to evaluate reliability. (can understand product reviews. Able to write a paragraph about your day). -Level 3: able to read multiple pages of text. Can evaluate sources and infer complex ideas; can identify inappropriate or irrelevant info (can compare two bus schedules and plan a trip). -Level 4: can understand non-central ideas from multiple texts to evaluate subtle claims and persuasive discourse (able to detect subtle bias and form one's own conclusion). -Level 5: can synthesize contrasting points of view; select key info to evaluate conceptual models of ideas; aware of rhetorical cues and high-level inferences requiring specialized background knowledge (can write a PhD dissertation). These are not measures of worth. I write the above without condescension. There are numerous types of knowledge, including all those the PIAAC system can't even begin to measure. Many of my favorite people, from the street or otherwise, are exactly those whom the above criteria would deem limited in their ability to decode written or spoken messages. I happen to like some of these people, and I respect and learn from them. I find something to admire in a certain freedom they sometimes exhibit, a freedom from the homogenizing intellect-based worldliness that becomes so tiresome after a while. But when an election is going on with this much at stake, you need to be able to understand what you're looking at. And as it turns out, 54 percent of the US is below a Level 3. This means they can't identify bias, evaluate reliability, or make inferences about what's irrelevant. They can read headlines, but not multiple pages of text. This map has breakdowns of literacy levels for every county in the US. You might be surprised to discover how many counties are mostly illiterate at levels 3 thru 5. You'll also notice a certain vast, recurring and undeniable correspondence between… you guessed it, counties with limited literacy levels and a high Trump voter response. 2. Feelings & Distractions All of us humans nurse a loneliness we pretend we don't have. We yearn to belong, to be seen and heard and wanted. What vast pocket of Americans has been continuously ignored, ridiculed and overlooked, by the wider culture, by media, news, politicians and governments? You know the answer. They have spoken now. They don't care about your needs, because survival is a selfish act and they imagine their survival is at stake. They believe the lies they've been told, the reassuring pronouncements that their needs will finally be addressed. They've fallen for the urgency capitalism wants us to think is true: that only some can survive. A person who feels ignored, especially in the sense of being able to sustain their livelihood, as rural and working-class folks today do, is going to respond enthusiastically to a politician who claims to see them, not condescendingly but equally, who claims to be one of them, who will save them from the rest of the world that ignores them and their needs. Who wants to burn down the whole broken system that's sidelined them for so long. Fear and frustration: these are the ways to manipulate the masses, especially if they're not looking too closely. Which is where the literacy part comes in. Trump is not “one of them,” and never was. You know this. He's an unstable billionaire with dementia seeking to make life easier for himself and other billionaires. He’s a convicted serial rapist and 34-count felon who absolutely does not care about poor white people, as his previous administration makes numbingly clear. Those folks are doing just as badly as they always were. No, he cares about rich white people. He distracts the poor with hot-button social issues that shouldn't even be political, taking advantage of people's shortsightedness on class, while making economic decisions that disadvantage everyone besides his own tax bracket. Only in a country that turns such a blind eye to class could voters fail to comprehend this massive and thoroughly obvious oversight. I'll refrain from discussing the many other oversights. Literacy. That's what this election was about. The ability to decode rhetoric. To read through advertising, to perceive the culture's political tricks for what they are. They fell for it, millions of them, to the point that they voted against their own self-interests. 3. In Summation This great, young country of ours strikes me now as an adolescent, a fiery, brilliant, impassioned creature who seems fully formed but isn't, who has difficulty understanding basic truths, who responds not intellectually but emotionally. Puberty. It's when you make your worst decisions, when you think only of yourself and ignore the needs of others. Sometimes there's nothing harder than having to share the room with a teenager. Especially when they get to make all the decisions. --- What lies ahead? As a society, we have no choice. It's a cancer diagnosis. As individuals though, we do have choice: to help the person next to us. To foster community locally. To remember we do better when those around us (different as they may be) do better. Helping others takes patience and effort. Let us breathe. We don't get to choose the times we live in, but we do get to choose how we live in them. I'll see you out there. --- Sources and Further reading: Trump
Literacy
Rural white poverty
Although I feel compelled to share the above, this won't become a political blog, I promise! As Paul Currington said, politics and opinions push people apart... whereas stories bring people together. Right now we need the latter.  I post at the start (or before) of every month. Check back when bills are due!
Celia just called me, a spur-of-the-minute decision as she sped down Rainier late tonight. “This is Celia,” she says in the voicemail. She adds her last name, as though I might have forgotten after all these years. Not a chance. “I saw you driving the 7 just now, and I thought I would call. You were northbound on Rainier at Rose. You had your light on, as usual. I was reminded of all the good times we had together, all those rides and conversations.” I am suffused with a kind of bewilderment, the melancholy joy that comes when we are reminded of the size of existence. Her voice brought back a flood of– not so much memories but the sensation, the bodied recall of an effortless peace, when the clutter was benign, those sections of our lives that did not feature pain or stress as their principal ingredient. You remember. She worked at Italian Family Pizza and brought me slices regularly. Those were the days when I got so many meals gifted from passengers I didn't know what to do. Her and I, laughing at the terminal. Or the two of us quietly absorbed in the world moving by, me driving and her up front watching, one or the other of us periodically punctuating things with a comment. The genial silence of relaxed friendship, easy, uncluttered by romance or goals or futures. Or later, speaking softly in her family’s kitchen, the two of us building ideas after the rest of the house had gone to bed. Was she the sister I never got to have? Celia sitting on top of the wheelwell because why not, she's light enough. And me so happy she made it running all the way down First Hill from work to downtown to catch me, just in time, a long jog in the dark hoping for this moment, her flustered smile still scented with cardboard and dough. She was carrying leftover slices in a box under her arm. Why do I remember this moment better than all the others? Memories. They overwhelm me now, the surprise that once upon a time this was the biggest thing that ever was, the present, a Tuesday night bus ride home. Catching up over rain-slicked neon pavement. We echo into the deeper past, unknowingly, a gift for our future selves. If the only intelligent response to the incredible gift of life is gratitude, then the only meaningful interpretation of the past is through forgiveness. We must forgive, others for their hurtful actions and ourselves for our faults. Why dwell on ignorance, laziness, selfishness? There is no time. The time that was is gone. Let the gauze of selective memory paper over the pain, work its magic, that we might more fully recall the rest of the picture: all of the joy, the lightness and normality, the neutral afternoons and the textures that become real when we forget to rush. Tonight she continues in the voicemail, telling me she tried to make my recent art show, plus an update: she has a newborn now. It was going to be a surprise at the gallery, but here we are. Her voice is at peace with itself. The times we shared could only have happened then. That was our season. She makes no mention of “we should get together.” We humans drift closer and then apart, pulled by the tides of ourselves, new projects and people. It is the way of things. Friends once, now acquaintances. They're living their life now and so are you, and you're busy. But you find yourself pausing, now. You tarry tonight in a still room, alone with your memories even if someone else is sleeping nearby. You go to the kitchen for water and remain a bit after turning out the light, appreciating the darkness and the liberating fullness of time. How the faint light catches the rim of the water glass. You say to yourself, “She was a good friend of mine.”  I've got two interviews for you this month, both centering around the creative process. These were conducted in relation to my Gallery 110 solo show from last year, which you can learn more about here (including video of a very fun art talk!).
I post once a month, at the beginning of the month– check back soon for an epic piece about the very last 7/49, which by super special request I was lucky enough to drive!  My jaw dropped in amazement and pleasure.
“Sho Luv!!!” I exclaimed, as he stood before me at Third and Columbia, a resurrected friend from my bygone 358 days. "Oh my goodness!!!" He burst wide with a grin, the same grin he's always had, the kind of beaming smirk you feel is letting you in on a secret. Maybe he shares that with me because we hail from the same neighborhood in South Central LA, South Gate. I exclaimed, “I'm so happy to see you!" Sho Luv was too, and told me about recently seeing a driver just like me, getting his keys replaced, and other sundries of the morning. He settled in, sprawling out in the front side seats. Reflecting. “Last I seen you I think you was goin’ through a breakup,” he said. “Did you end up findin’ someone new?” I was impressed by his memory. (I'm just the bus driver!) The reality of the mess he alluded to was, and remains, too complicated to sum up in a sentence. You've been there. I’m in a better place now than I was, and by way of so intimating I said aloud, “I sure did!” He cackled. “Ah knew you would! Tha’s my dude! I knew it, you're still young….” “Your prophecy was correct!” “They say when somethin’ is taken away from you, the next thing to come around’ll be that much better.” “You know it! It's just so hard to see in the moment, right?” “Yeah, you were in deep feelin’ it. I remember. I used to call you Chris but your name is Nate, right?” “Yeah!” “Nate the Great!” “Exactly, Nate the Great. I'm not that great though!” He moved to deboard, here at 3rd and Pike (or simply "Ross,” as we call it out here), but changed his mind upon seeing the melee outside, which was a touch worse than the already unsightly norm. “Naw, I'll go to Virginia.” “Let's go to Virginia. Let all this mess die down a little.” He was looking outside. “What d’you make of all these zombies?” Maybe the term sounds derogatory from the remove of an office or home armchair. I know how using the right vocabulary is of utmost importance in today's more educated circles, and I appreciate such well-meaning value. But things work differently out here on the street. We find ourselves putting greater emphasis on action. The words don't have to be so perfect. If you spend enough time at “the Blade," not passing through it or going around it or reading about it but in it, Sho Luv’s intention reveals itself as less pejorative than mere descriptor: a blend of observation, sarcasm, dejection and concern. These are buddies of ours out here. “It's crazy,” I replied. “Yeah back then, that was, I was doin’ the E Line, it was the breakup, and it was pandemic, lockdown…” “That was the bad time. Everybody so dePRESSed.” “That was rough. All of it mixed together, I couldn't see straight.” “Whole city falling apart. And now we got all these zombies, kids killin’ kids, killin’ themselves, I don't even know.” “You know, I was driving this route, past Garfield last week when that kid killed the other kid. I was there right as it all got shut down.” “They were friends, too!” I said, “WHAT?” “Yeah. He intervened to break up the fight, and boom. All three of ‘em were friends, just horsin’ around. Kid was eighteen years old, jus’ ‘bout to graduate. And now, it's like they both dead now.” “Oh my goodness. That’s a heartbreaker. I had no idea they were buddies. He just got in there to break it up!” “Yeah.” “Like any reasonable person. Oh, man, that's heavy.” “And Garfield’s a Magnet school!” He'd read my mind. “Exactly Garfield that's one of our best schools!! I mean shootings shouldn't be happening anywhere, but they definitely don't happen at Garfield. It's Garfield!” And then it was time to answer someone’s question, how to get to the Trailside Apartments, route 24. I heard Sho on his phone: “I be there in a couple minutes. Ah ran into my buddy from the bus line. Nate from South Gate! Yeah!” Sometimes the fact that Life has to keep going on feels insulting. Why can't the whole world pause, and take stock of itself? Sometimes you just want to sit and watch the rain. A young life was pointlessly wiped out. Where is the space for the paralysis we feel? But eventually life begins calling out to us, calling us back into the fray. It happens gradually. The grocery list. Phone calls, errands. Then friends. Maybe Life’s continuous, nigh-maddening onward march is exactly what we need. What are we to do, but learn and move forward? Do we stay paralyzed, or do we tend with care to those who are still around? We will choose to help them. We will tell them how to get to the Trailside Apartments. It's about the person next to us. I know that's what gotten me through my own hard times, comfortable though they are by comparison. Receiving that energy from others, but most of all giving it out, or trying to. Love. It is a thing we attempt, a verb, a project, and finally a noun that we acquire by giving away, giving it all away, all the time. Tending to the living. These can be the first steps.  ***Stand by~***
Due to popular reaction this post will soon be reappearing here and elsewhere in more exciting fashion! Stay tuned!  This is a revised 2016 article focusing exclusively on Wiley's art and its relationship with craft and labour.
--- Some weeks ago I posted a glowing review of SAM's recent Kehinde Wiley show, which I loved. I stand by that review, but wish to add some context which I find troubling enough to consider necessary. I knew when I saw the show that Wiley didn't paint everything in the paintings, but the implications of both Wiley's and SAM's blasé attitude toward this enormous fact didn't hit me until after taking in the show a second time. The most disappointing element is the lack of demand by writers, thinkers and viewers to know who made the paintings and how. When concept takes center stage in the appreciation of art, talent, skill, and craftsmanship get relegated to secondary levels of importance, which means the authors of that skill and how they accomplish their work becomes less consequential. To look through every one of the books on Wiley at the show and have none of them even address the multiplicity of authorship question is not simply an insult to viewers (does SAM really expect us to think a thirty-six year-old is this skilled and prolific in painting, glass, bronze, and marble?), but an embarrassment on the part of the authors and curators themselves. It guides the discussion into that tiring realm where concept is king, and craftsmanship is discussed only with superlatives because critics who have no experience in the art form can't talk about it in depth, and thus focus only on what they, and anyone else with extensive knowledge in realms besides painting and sculpture, can: content. This divide becomes immediately apparent when listening to the difference between how tour guides talk when discussing art before vs. after the Modern period. Take a look at Fred Wiseman's mammoth fly-on-the-wall documentary National Gallery and listen to how the tour guides discuss Vermeer and Hans Holbein II. They talk about 1) craft and 2) how it expresses ideas. Tour guides of the Wiley show are saddled with the awkward task of discussing only the second part. I recall a particularly embarrassing moment at SAM wherein a viewer who happened to be a skilled stained-glass artist asked how a human hand could possibly accomplish the texture and shading of denim jeans on a single pane of glass, to which the poor tour guide had to reply that she had neither any idea how that was accomplished, nor who, or what, had accomplished it. We can be blunt and overstate the point by quoting Tom Stoppard: "imagination without skill gives us modern art." But I argue the real villains in this case are not the artists but those who shape the discussion. Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word is instructive here. To forget that content and form are inextricably linked is to miss much of what is beautiful about art and the decisions artists make. We've heard the phrase "style over substance" leveled against films as a criticism; as I've written elsewhere, you generally hear that phrase from people who aren't filmmakers. The style in a worthwhile art piece is the substance. Style, or form, is the language through which the content is relayed to a viewer. Form lives and dies on the strength of the artist's talent. Wiley's works would remain striking, in my opinion, after learning that he only paints touch-ups on the faces and some of the skin tones, that the figures and floral pattern work are painted by Chinese laborers, that the sculpture work is done by assistants, that the models are only paid a measly $20, and that the stained glass works are created entirely by individuals skilled in that realm (using photographs by Wiley as a base). The only thing that would suffer is Wiley's massive ego. We might also more easily understand the strange lack of passion one always detects upon inspecting a Wiley up close; an intricate but flat, uninspired collection of brushstrokes. No wonder. That the above authorship information is difficult to come by is disappointing on the part of Wiley and SAM, but so too is the lack of outcry on the part of viewers. It thusly becomes understandable that Wiley declines journalist's visits to his studio, unless it's to have Martin Schoeller take a picture of him dabbing at a canvas while sitting atop a horse; that he tells reporters he doesn't want us to know to what degree his actual involvement is in the painting process, evading questions with coy comments about preserving his "secret sauce." This is where he differs from Brueghel and Botticelli. No artist of great skill hides his talent behind a cloak of coy false modesty. If you didn't paint it, but your students did, it gets signed "School of Michelangelo." There's an understanding that it was a group effort. Practices like these have remained better documented throughout history in part because the students et al nearly always, unlike the case with Wiley, hail from the same language and culture as the primary artist. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Chihuly. Koons. Crewdson. I say close, but no Kehinde. They're not quite corollaries; these artists and others like them, who heavily involve assistants, don't shroud their processes in secrecy, but hold it open for all to see and determine the worth of the works. For heaven's sake, we all know Koons doesn't make his own stuff. There's another, more troubling reason why Wiley stands alone here. Unlike the folks above, Wiley's work is explicitly intended to counter the subjugation of marginalized (black) people in Western Art. Personally I love the idea. So far, so great. How does he accomplish this? By subjugating and rendering nameless the marginalized (Asian) peoples who create these artworks for him. He's eliminating subjugation one heroic step at a time, using: subjugation. Let's flip the races around and see how it sounds. The twenty-first century's wealthiest white artist creates enormous volumes of high-impact portraits of Asians, rescuing them from repression and facelessness, by farming out the work to nameless black laborers in developing countries worldwide. In gut-busting levels of hubris, said artist refuses to credit or acknowledge the specific contributions of these black men and women in the name of preserving the mystique of his "secret sauce." We're in the middle of what should be the biggest conversation in art right now. Most items we consume are created by hardworking poor people across the world who get zilch recognition. As China continues to develop and labor costs gradually rise, many manufacturing entities are opening plants elsewhere in the continued search for cheap labor. I don't appreciate this exploitative trajectory, but I can understand it. Wiley follows the trend, citing cost savings. However, he's in a financial position where this behavior is unnecessary. Kehinde Wiley is quite possibly the richest American artist of his generation. He doesn't need to be using social constructs of oppression in order to righteously attack social constructs of oppression. As one of many thousands of struggling artists of Asian descent, you can guess my perspective here. No, the fact that Wiley is barely involved with the hands-on element of his final works is not the scandal. The scandal isn't even that the authorship is kept an unanswered question. It's that the laborers, painters, stained-glass workers and sculptors are kept nameless and repressed, and no one notices, or even thinks to ask about it. That's the scandal. --- Further reading: Outsource to China, a detailed NY Magazine piece on Wiley, who candidly admits he often abandons his celebrated "street-casting" process. Kehinde Wiley's Dilemma: How the Artist Painted Himself Into a Corner With His New Works. Ben Davis explores Wiley's portraits of women at Sean Kelly. Background Considerations: Christian Frock considers the issues during Wiley's 2013 launch at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Nay Sayin': John James Anderson explores the degree to which Wiley "keeps it real." Stop Lionizing Kehinde Wiley's Paintings. Stop Dismissing Them, Too, by our own Jen Graves.  Art Access, the longstanding monthly catalogue, is comprised mostly of lists and announcements, informing readers of the month's Pacific Northwest art events. In addition to these listings, there are always (about) three feature articles which open the issue. You can pay to be listed in the directory of announcements. You can pay to have your artwork in the listings, or shown on the cover. But you can't pay to be the subject of one of those three feature articles. They decide that. How do they decide? No one knows. It's their secret sauce. I didn't invest any thought into even hoping they might choose me for their July 2023 issue, back when my solo show (more here and here) was happening. What made them decide to? How did they even know about me? Who knew Elizabeth Bryant and I would get along so well, spending an afternoon looking over work and discussing everything under the sun, going well over our allotted time in excited bonding.
Like most of the special things that happen to us, I can't explain what led to this all transpiring. To some eyes it's just another article in another publication, quickly forgotten and replaced by other matters. But for me it is a thing I cherish, not because of the publicity boost it no doubt brought (my show had record attendance), but because of the serendipity involved, the people involved, the celebration of art and a fleeting but meaningful moment of connection. More than any other piece that's been written about my work, Elizabeth gets what my work is about, and what it aims to achieve. This is the best articulation so far of what I'm hoping to do with my practice. It's short and sweet, like everything about Art Access, but what Ms. Bryant conveys in a short space is admirable for being so accurate, and so succinct. Read it here! |
Nathan
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