Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer, those
are the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the
station it's staff, management or ownership.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, you'll find out Pete and the Poet Gold.
I'm Peter Leonards and I'm the poet Gold, and we're
on the ed this morning with visual ARTI named Ransom
and a curiated name, Jamie Ransom. And before we get
to both ransoms, we're going to go right to the
poet Gold for a weekly poem prayer incantation. Gold, please
let it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Okay, I'm going to do Rise Up today. I'm calling you.
I'm calling you to rise up, hey, from the ground up,
You that laid beneath the sound of leather souls, shuffling heels,
clickety clacking, You that lay beneath the unknown spaces, places
(00:54):
names long gone unrecognized. I'm calling you your shattered owns,
your songs and sweet lullabies for your children's children's children.
This may be your sweet lullaby imported from born in
soul to servitude, owned a home on a lot. Maybe
here in this spot Robinson Broadway, America's market Street of
(01:19):
slaves pauper's and the infirmed. Did you come here seeking
alms without reach? Palms a casting cast participants in a
hierarchy to sustain poverty. I'm calling you. I'm calling you
to rise up, hey, from the ground up, Rise up, Hey,
(01:39):
from the ground up. I hear the whisper of your
voice's echo as we walk through the halls of justice,
walls that are held up by justus, a foundation cemented
in a passage of time rewind there would be no
America if we did not exist, if you did not exist,
the African, the black man, the black woman, the black boy,
(02:00):
the black girl, the black person, the black, the black,
the black. I hear the weeps, the sorrows, the joy
through your excavated bones. I want to know your stories.
So I'm calling you. I'm calling you to rise up, hay,
from the ground up, in this Black History Month.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And boy, we're not going to do it better than that.
And I've heard you do that before. I never heard
you do it better, hey, I mean and yeah. So
on the air, as I mentioned with visual artist Ransom
and curator Jamie Ransom, Jamie, a lot of people hear
the word, everyone hear his word. Curator but not everyone
(02:42):
knows what that means. I'm on the border hard. I
think I know what.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
You explain it, Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I actually was teaching a class today that explain what
a curator is.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm very prepared for this question.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
A curator is someone who collects arts who like organizes
it into an exhibition. So they're a person who works
with living artists or if you work with a museum,
you work with collectors, or you work with the states
to formulate art into a coherent exhibition, whether that's based
on its chronological history or recognizing the process of the artist.
(03:18):
And they kind of use their research and their understanding
of art history and current history and art and understanding
and people to make an exhibition that the people can
understand and that the artists can that can highlight the
artists and what they're trying to do. So they're kind
of like they are literally the keepers of the art,
and they are the keepers of the history of the
art as well.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So curator is a broker between the artists and the.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
We like to think of it more as a bridge
between the artist and the audience. They're the person who
to that point, like holds and collects and understands the
context of the art, and so it's their job to
help the artists be understood and to help people on
understand are and why it's important to them.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Bridge is a more autistic way of putting it. But
broker and uh, broker and.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, exactly, yes, yes, I.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Noticed that you Ransom. You know your art. We're celebrating
Black History Month this month, but you're not only a black,
You're only black and an artist. Your art reflects your identity,
you know, a very pronounced way.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
Yes, my my art is actually very personal. It's really
about my family. So you know, I'm doing pieces about
my family. But there's universal, hopefully understanding that our people
can sort of understand their families and their lives through
my family's experience.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So I like to say, I'm I'm painting art.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Black history, which is American history, and we all can
relate to it. A large part of my art is
about the great, my great, because my grandmother is My
work starts with my grandmother, who was born in eighteen
ninety nine, and she her and her husband, Tommy Ransom,
had ten children, and nine of those children migrated north.
(05:14):
So my work first starts in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
With them.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Then it migrates north with those nine children two different
cities along the East coast. I don't deal a lout
with the West Coast or Central America, Midwest, I should
probably say, so, then it stays with them. These kids
who are growing up in cities, they have some connections
to the south, either they go down to the south
(05:38):
for the summers or there's different.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Celebrations in the South.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
But then they end up having children, and they have
children grow up in this city and they have sort
of further removed from the South. But the reverse migration
starts and those kids are now migrating back to the side.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So it's full circle.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
We go north and we come back South's over those
three generations of people that I might work deals with.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And a couple of things that you pointed out that
I didn't note. That your work does speak to the
wonderful diversity. You know that that is meaningful to the
world and also the country, particularly today with the eratio
of our story. But but what was the thing that
steered you in the direction as an artist? You know,
you do it as an art, but sometimes there are
things that steer us in that direction. Was there a
(06:27):
point in your life where you just sort of said,
this is what I want to do, or was it
something that wasn't very conscious and you found yourself in
this space.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
I always like to make pictures, like to draw. My
childhood memories are. I grew up with my grandmother in
North Carolina. I had lived in the North as a
young child and eventually ended up back in North Calina
with my grandmother. And I entertain myself by watching television
(06:57):
and drawing my comic book spread out on me and
a few other books I could get my hands on.
It was I lived in a desert library desert, so
it was very hard to get my hand on books,
and I would copy those images and make up stories,
and I was so I always had stories to tell. Eventually,
I thought that was going to take me into television
and slash films, but I as I the more I
(07:21):
investigated that sort of market, I realized I like working
by myself more so so being in my seal making work.
So that's what sort of started me off. As a
young child. In the third grade, I knew I wanted
to be an artist, so I sort of pursued that
off and on since the third grade.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You know, it's funny that you that you mentioned that
you thought you wanted to sort of get into film
filmmaking becauds. When I looked at your work, the ability
to tell the story is sort of like someone doing
a treatment, you know in a way, and I and
you know, having eat some film as well. That really
(08:02):
that really stuck out to me, the story behind the eyes.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
But that's that's parted part of it.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
That's something I learned in our history class when I
was at Pride Institute studying to be an artist. And
I love the idea of a single image which has
grown over me over the years of putting making that
image be able to communicate ideas to you. I should
also say about my work is I said, it's it's
(08:30):
very personal. Yeah, it's very universal as well, because my
story is very sim similar to a lot of African
American stories, which is similar to a lot of American stories,
especially when we talk about migration and immigration. You know,
there's only one native group of people who came to
this country who are at this country, in this country
(08:50):
before the Europeans game, and so all those people migrated
to this country. So you know, I grew I from
North Carolina, I moved to Bergenfield, New Jersey, and in Bergenfield.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I met a lot of people who were.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
The first generations of you know, our second generations, either
their parents or their grandparents came from another country.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So I can relate to those stories. And what I'm.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Probably trying to do is insert the African American experience
in those stories, because they're often forgotten the idea that
African Americans came from the South and came to the North.
They's sort of new territory, unknown, sometimes not knowing anyone
and having to relate and deal with it, very similar
to a European coming in from from Italy or you know,
(09:37):
or exactly. So these stories are relatable, you know, And
I just think for so often African Americans are not
made part of those stories. They've seen the separate because
they feel the Americans already were already here, but they
were not in the North.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Most of them were not in the North. Most of
them were in the.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
South, right right, And when they migrated, they migrated to Chicago. Second,
if you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding Out
with Pete and the poet gold. I'm Peter and I'm
the poet gold and We're here Today were curated Jamie
Ransom and the artist known as Ransom visual artist Jamie,
I want to ask you a question, what influence has
your dad art had upon you as a curator even.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I'm actually really excited to answer this question because we
never get to tell our stories parallel to each other
about like how our like initiation into like the art world.
So I grew up with my father as an artist
and my mother as a writer, getting books read to
me nightly. I'm the oldest of four children, so there's
(10:39):
a bundle of us, and we always loved stories and
my parents read to us. Yeah, like I said, nightly,
that encouraged my love of reading and my entire family's
appreciation of like visual storytelling. We all draw, I think,
except Layla, but even she still like is creative in
her own way. But yeah, yeah, she just doesn't flaunt
(11:01):
it like the rest. So I've always drawn the same
way my dad grew up always drawing. I grew up
always drawing, and I loved movies and I loved art,
and I thought that I was going to become a
comic book writer because I thought that I was going
to marry what my dad did and what my mom did,
and I was gonna like, Okay, I'm gonna make comic books.
I'll draw it and write it. And I had the
(11:23):
opposite response that my dad had, which is that I
hated working alone. I was like, not gonna like sit
there and draw all night, every single day by myself.
So I decided to go into filmmaking. So my undergrad
degree is in film. And then when I finished my
film degree, I realized pretty quickly that what I actually
loved about film was watching and writing about it, not
(11:45):
making it so much. And I got a job right
after undergrad me like a few years after undergrad, working
at art gallery as the assistant to the director. But
that led into me becoming the assistant curator, and that
led me to becoming the curator. And then I put
on my dad's exhibition that was happening at the time,
Two Sides of James Ransom, and then I put on
(12:07):
an exhibition, or I helped co curate an exhibition that
was just amazing exhibition of black graphic design inspired art
by a local artist, Jelil Campbell, and that show made
me realize that I could kind of have it all.
I could appreciate art, I could appreciate film, I could
(12:28):
write about art. I could be in this world that
my dad was in and that my mom was in,
and I could do it in my own way because
Julil was like a still is like an up and
coming emerging artist, like with a really amazing name in
upstate New York. And I was just like, yeah, maybe
I could like build something like that for like a
new generation of like young black, excited, interesting art loving people.
(12:52):
And so yeah, we kind of had like opposite trajectories.
We both like had a stint in film, had a
stint in like drawing, and then like kind of can
go right into this bigger, more socially conscious version of
that love of art where we both were like seeing
so much of ourselves and others and seeing so much
of what people responded to when they came into galleries
(13:14):
and saw the art up on the wall, and it
kind of created its own new ecosystem, I think. And
that's why I was really excited that my dad was
doing the show on Mainstream and Poughkeepsie because I feel
like Poughkeepsie really needs this. At convey Our Gallery at
two ninety nine Main Street, Sabrina. It's up until March thirtieth.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yes, yeah, breaking here and tell a quick little story about.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
It before you break his break with an observation. Both
of you are yids was the visual laws. But I
want to say both of you can really talk, and
I want to just in case you're interested, there is
such a thing as a comma.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yes, I know I need a but interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
In his stuff and you're making all one beautiful story,
so please break in on my breaking.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
I just wanted to tell tell a little story about
Jamie was talking about growing up. I just remember we
grew they were they were raised for ten years. We
lived in Poughkeepsie and we lived in the house there
and my studio was out was near where they played,
and they would come in all the time, and which
I a frame reminded me of this recently, and it
(14:30):
came in all the time, which I absolutely loved them
coming in and borrowing things, ask me questions, but never so.
They would sometimes share one drawing, so Jamie would draw
one thing that her sister Maya would draw another thing.
And at that time our son, Malcolm was very young
and they said he could draw the storm.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Like me. Then we would make the whole piece and
we would make sure it was perfect and great, and
then we'd hand it over to him be like all.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Right, Malcolm, time to draw the storm.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
And it was yes, collaborative or at a young age,
that wonderful.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And my sense I wanted to ask about, you know,
de curating. I was just I'm still trying to get
a handle on. Are you drawing to the curating with
an explicit perspective from a black perspective on things?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
No, I am not.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
It is something that I think about continuously, and when
I am asked to guest Carrie, as I have been
doing recently, those exhibitions have been leaning towards a black perspective.
But I do have some projects that lean towards some
of my other very intense interests. I have, like a
little bit of a witchy side. So I have an
(15:47):
exhibition coming up at a Woman's Work exhibition at Women's
Work Art in the summer that's going to be leaning
more towards like pagan like fun deity, female goddess feminist stuff.
I do. I am an art history teacher. I teach
fundamentals of art at DCC. Right now, I'm just an
(16:07):
adjunct professor right now. But that class is like a
history of art, and so I just tell the history
of art with a feminist and bipoc perspective. So those
are the two perspectives that I lean on the heaviest.
The exhpission I'm doing at and Straight Gallery in the
Spring is going to be an afrofuturism exhibition. It's going
(16:27):
to be opening March fifteenth. But those are just the
things that I have working right now. I'm always willing
to curate exhibitions that are not by black artists, especially
if they are by female artists, and any queer exhibitions
as well. But I'm I'm I guess what I'm trying
to say is that I'm really focused on marginalized communities
specifically and curatorial activism. Activism is a huge part of
(16:51):
my practice, which is the practice of incorporating activism into
curatorial practice to elevate the voices of marginalized and underserved communities.
So that is my fcus it's curlatural activism, and right
now it's been focusing on the African American experience because
that's what's closest to me.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Got You, Got You? How can people get in contact
with the both of you. I want I'd like to
have that inserted before we continue our conversation.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at j Ransom
dot curator.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
You can follow me on Instagram as well, which is
Ransom g Art on Instagram on my website which is
basically ransom art dot com.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Okay, all right, And if you're just tuning in, you're
listening to Finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold
Peter and I'm the poet Gold. We're here with Jamie Ransom,
curator and visual artists Ransom. Yes, known, it's Ransom.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
This is this is the very first time we've spoken together.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, we've never really interviewed at the same time.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well, this is wonderful. You know the I mean our
listeners you know or not obviously in here with us,
but you are in here with us. But to to
uh watch the energy between the two of you, it
is very wonderful to see I was.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Gonna say this, I'm like really grateful right now. We
never no one ever gets to like see like the
here the parallel stories and see us both at the
same time or normally like switching off. So this is like, oh,
my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
She said, James, my oldest daughter.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, yeah, how many did you have?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Four?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Four?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Okay, girls, boys, three girls and a boy. Three girls
and a boy.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
So when he was like when I was being made
and he was like thinking about me being this funkadelic
child and like my mom was pregnant with me, he
never expected that we would be like joint interviewed.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, you have to put it out there, know it
his manifesture, right, yeah, yeah, oneerful.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And you know, the idea is the first time you've
been interviewed together. It goes to the beginning of the
show when Ransom was talking about his work comes out
of his family. So, I mean the theme of family
is the origin of the art and also the continuation
of what people hold urist family.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Can they said it better? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Absolutely yeah, And you're you're just looking at it quickly.
You have a lot of images of black people and
the way they addressed with the surroundings of a very
vibrant I mean there's even one picture I sort of
a sort of an older black man, not older than
(19:26):
they been, older than you guys, old the black man
who has sort of a solemn face, but the background
is sort of bright, shining pink, and uh, you know,
I want to wonder how much you think of black
people as a vibrant.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
I do you know, you know, we're such a diverse
group of people. What I try to do is I
try to create portraits of people. I remember, we're going
through three different generations of people. Sometimes you're seeing people
who are in that sort of first part of the
South where they haven't migrated yet. Sometimes you've seen people
(20:12):
who are who are actually living in a city and
they all should sort of say something different about their
life experience.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
But you know, I use color.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
I love color, and backgrounds are and even the facial
expressions all that's part of making of the making of
the art.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And then it's and it's it's I'm sorry you about
to say something, Oh yeah. In the collage aspect as well,
so that it's like there's a there's a cut and
paced aspect of like the background will sometimes be the
same color as the shirt or the pants or literally
made of the same material. My dead collects a lot
of wallpapers and stuff like that to like recreate these
feelings of home. So there's a lot of that combination
(20:49):
to that point of that vibrancy where it's like sometimes
the actual background is depicting the internal monologue of the character,
and then sometimes you'll see that they are like literally
reflected in each other. And you know, you know, what
I found interesting is that there's a there, there are
two things, and and I don't necessarily like to compare
one artist to another, but but what stuck out for
(21:12):
me was, are you familiar with Barbara Masterson? Okay, she
does migrant workers, farm workers, very vibrant, very uh expression yes,
you know, very expressionists, and and uh and so and
she captures, she captures the image, she captures the story
(21:35):
right right, right right, And so for me there was
a a a sort of similarity in context and relationship
to telling the story and not not losing the colorfulness
that a human being brings to their story. And there
was also a musicality for me in your work. You know,
I felt not that the images were like dancing and stuff,
(21:58):
but there was a musical as I watched, you know,
and viewed show work that really spoke out. It was
sort of like a metaphor of jazz or you.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Know, improvisation is very important part of my work.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Where things happen on a moment and don't I don't
have any idea it's going to happen until it happens.
Where I grab a piece of paper, find something and
blew it down.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
But I could say talk about give you.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
As an example of my work, the show in Poughkeepsie.
It's a show portraits mixed in with lamps and suitcases.
So the show is really about home, especially this time
of the year. I was inspired by you know, your
drive around and the sun's going down and you see
(22:43):
warm yellow lights throughout a neighborhood, throughout a village as
you're driving, and I'm trying to capture that feeling in
this exhibit by having lamps in the space with the
portraits that warm for me sense of sense of security.
You know, at one point years in the past, a
fire and a stove would be sort of give off
(23:05):
a glow. Lamps and a house go for glow. Hopefully
there's joy and happiness happening in that home, and these
portraits reflect the different people who could possibly be living
in those homes, and the suitcases are references to migrating.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
You know.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Women of g has been a big part of my
work as well, their quotes, their patterns, and also, like
Tony Morrison, my paintings don't it's about the black community,
and it just it just so happens that white people
are not part of that community.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
In in in certain ways.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
Like for example, I grew up in the South, and
people often wonder, well, oh my god, it's so segregated,
But I lived in a community of African Americans and
rarely did we see are have any interaction with whites
around us. Only if we went into town where were
there they had their own community we had. So like
(24:07):
Tony Morrison her books about African Americans, it's not that
she's excluding whites, but that's the community that happens to
be built up around her. Also August Wilson would be
a good example as well. So that's that's that's some
of the things that that I hadn't talked about before.
I want to make sure I sur.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Right, and there's nothing happened wrong with that. It happens
on both sides. You know, we tell the stories of
the ecosystems that we're a part of, and then we
come together in the central market. You know, it's sort
of like a different religious background or everybody shopping at Walmart,
you know, you know, or the or the big or
the big grocery store.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
People then go back to their to their circles and
then they come they come together.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
In paintings that deal more with being in the migration,
coming to the north and in the cities. There is
some sort of connections there where you may see whites appearing.
It's more of a connection here and definitely do verse migration.
This more white as seen in the pictures also, so
it's not excluding them, it's just what time period am
I dealing with it at that particular time.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Well, it was, you know, so wonderful to have you
guys here. I hate to wrap this conversation up, but
hopefully we'll have it again in the future. Thank you
to our listeners listening to finding out with Pete and
the poeanent goal. Make sure that you go to Instagram
and the website at Ransom Art. Is that correct, yessumark
to find out more about these wonderful human beings and Peter.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Thank you, Amen,
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer, those
are the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the
station it's staff, management or ownership.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning, you'll find out Pete and the Poet Gold.
I'm Peter Leonards and I'm the poet Gold, and we're
on the ed this morning with visual ARTI named Ransom
and a curiated name, Jamie Ransom. And before we get
to both ransoms, we're going to go right to the
poet Gold for a weekly poem prayer incantation. Gold, please
let it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Okay, I'm going to do Rise Up today. I'm calling you.
I'm calling you to rise up, hey, from the ground up,
You that laid beneath the sound of leather souls, shuffling heels,
clickety clacking, You that lay beneath the unknown spaces, places
(00:54):
names long gone unrecognized. I'm calling you your shattered owns,
your songs and sweet lullabies for your children's children's children.
This may be your sweet lullaby imported from born in
soul to servitude, owned a home on a lot. Maybe
here in this spot Robinson Broadway, America's market Street of
(01:19):
slaves pauper's and the infirmed. Did you come here seeking
alms without reach? Palms a casting cast participants in a
hierarchy to sustain poverty. I'm calling you. I'm calling you
to rise up, hey, from the ground up, Rise up, Hey,
(01:39):
from the ground up. I hear the whisper of your
voice's echo as we walk through the halls of justice,
walls that are held up by justus, a foundation cemented
in a passage of time rewind there would be no
America if we did not exist, if you did not exist,
the African, the black man, the black woman, the black boy,
(02:00):
the black girl, the black person, the black, the black,
the black. I hear the weeps, the sorrows, the joy
through your excavated bones. I want to know your stories.
So I'm calling you. I'm calling you to rise up, hay,
from the ground up, in this Black History Month.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And boy, we're not going to do it better than that.
And I've heard you do that before. I never heard
you do it better, hey, I mean and yeah. So
on the air, as I mentioned with visual artist Ransom
and curator Jamie Ransom, Jamie, a lot of people hear
the word, everyone hear his word. Curator but not everyone
(02:42):
knows what that means. I'm on the border hard. I
think I know what.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
You explain it, Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
I actually was teaching a class today that explain what
a curator is.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm very prepared for this question.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
A curator is someone who collects arts who like organizes
it into an exhibition. So they're a person who works
with living artists or if you work with a museum,
you work with collectors, or you work with the states
to formulate art into a coherent exhibition, whether that's based
on its chronological history or recognizing the process of the artist.
(03:18):
And they kind of use their research and their understanding
of art history and current history and art and understanding
and people to make an exhibition that the people can
understand and that the artists can that can highlight the
artists and what they're trying to do. So they're kind
of like they are literally the keepers of the art,
and they are the keepers of the history of the
art as well.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So curator is a broker between the artists and the.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
We like to think of it more as a bridge
between the artist and the audience. They're the person who
to that point, like holds and collects and understands the
context of the art, and so it's their job to
help the artists be understood and to help people on
understand are and why it's important to them.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Bridge is a more autistic way of putting it. But
broker and uh, broker and.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, exactly, yes, yes, I.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Noticed that you Ransom. You know your art. We're celebrating
Black History Month this month, but you're not only a black,
You're only black and an artist. Your art reflects your identity,
you know, a very pronounced way.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
Yes, my my art is actually very personal. It's really
about my family. So you know, I'm doing pieces about
my family. But there's universal, hopefully understanding that our people
can sort of understand their families and their lives through
my family's experience.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
So I like to say, I'm I'm painting art.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Black history, which is American history, and we all can
relate to it. A large part of my art is
about the great, my great, because my grandmother is My
work starts with my grandmother, who was born in eighteen
ninety nine, and she her and her husband, Tommy Ransom,
had ten children, and nine of those children migrated north.
(05:14):
So my work first starts in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
With them.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Then it migrates north with those nine children two different
cities along the East coast. I don't deal a lout
with the West Coast or Central America, Midwest, I should
probably say, so, then it stays with them. These kids
who are growing up in cities, they have some connections
to the south, either they go down to the south
(05:38):
for the summers or there's different.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Celebrations in the South.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
But then they end up having children, and they have
children grow up in this city and they have sort
of further removed from the South. But the reverse migration
starts and those kids are now migrating back to the side.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So it's full circle.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
We go north and we come back South's over those
three generations of people that I might work deals with.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And a couple of things that you pointed out that
I didn't note. That your work does speak to the
wonderful diversity. You know that that is meaningful to the
world and also the country, particularly today with the eratio
of our story. But but what was the thing that
steered you in the direction as an artist? You know,
you do it as an art, but sometimes there are
things that steer us in that direction. Was there a
(06:27):
point in your life where you just sort of said,
this is what I want to do, or was it
something that wasn't very conscious and you found yourself in
this space.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
I always like to make pictures, like to draw. My
childhood memories are. I grew up with my grandmother in
North Carolina. I had lived in the North as a
young child and eventually ended up back in North Calina
with my grandmother. And I entertain myself by watching television
(06:57):
and drawing my comic book spread out on me and
a few other books I could get my hands on.
It was I lived in a desert library desert, so
it was very hard to get my hand on books,
and I would copy those images and make up stories,
and I was so I always had stories to tell. Eventually,
I thought that was going to take me into television
and slash films, but I as I the more I
(07:21):
investigated that sort of market, I realized I like working
by myself more so so being in my seal making work.
So that's what sort of started me off. As a
young child. In the third grade, I knew I wanted
to be an artist, so I sort of pursued that
off and on since the third grade.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You know, it's funny that you that you mentioned that
you thought you wanted to sort of get into film
filmmaking becauds. When I looked at your work, the ability
to tell the story is sort of like someone doing
a treatment, you know in a way, and I and
you know, having eat some film as well. That really
(08:02):
that really stuck out to me, the story behind the eyes.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
But that's that's parted part of it.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
That's something I learned in our history class when I
was at Pride Institute studying to be an artist. And
I love the idea of a single image which has
grown over me over the years of putting making that
image be able to communicate ideas to you. I should
also say about my work is I said, it's it's
(08:30):
very personal. Yeah, it's very universal as well, because my
story is very sim similar to a lot of African
American stories, which is similar to a lot of American stories,
especially when we talk about migration and immigration. You know,
there's only one native group of people who came to
this country who are at this country, in this country
(08:50):
before the Europeans game, and so all those people migrated
to this country. So you know, I grew I from
North Carolina, I moved to Bergenfield, New Jersey, and in Bergenfield.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I met a lot of people who were.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
The first generations of you know, our second generations, either
their parents or their grandparents came from another country.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So I can relate to those stories. And what I'm.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Probably trying to do is insert the African American experience
in those stories, because they're often forgotten the idea that
African Americans came from the South and came to the North.
They's sort of new territory, unknown, sometimes not knowing anyone
and having to relate and deal with it, very similar
to a European coming in from from Italy or you know,
(09:37):
or exactly. So these stories are relatable, you know, And
I just think for so often African Americans are not
made part of those stories. They've seen the separate because
they feel the Americans already were already here, but they
were not in the North.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Most of them were not in the North. Most of
them were in the.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
South, right right, And when they migrated, they migrated to Chicago. Second,
if you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding Out
with Pete and the poet gold. I'm Peter and I'm
the poet gold and We're here Today were curated Jamie
Ransom and the artist known as Ransom visual artist Jamie,
I want to ask you a question, what influence has
your dad art had upon you as a curator even.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
I'm actually really excited to answer this question because we
never get to tell our stories parallel to each other
about like how our like initiation into like the art world.
So I grew up with my father as an artist
and my mother as a writer, getting books read to
me nightly. I'm the oldest of four children, so there's
(10:39):
a bundle of us, and we always loved stories and
my parents read to us. Yeah, like I said, nightly,
that encouraged my love of reading and my entire family's
appreciation of like visual storytelling. We all draw, I think,
except Layla, but even she still like is creative in
her own way. But yeah, yeah, she just doesn't flaunt
(11:01):
it like the rest. So I've always drawn the same
way my dad grew up always drawing. I grew up
always drawing, and I loved movies and I loved art,
and I thought that I was going to become a
comic book writer because I thought that I was going
to marry what my dad did and what my mom did,
and I was gonna like, Okay, I'm gonna make comic books.
I'll draw it and write it. And I had the
(11:23):
opposite response that my dad had, which is that I
hated working alone. I was like, not gonna like sit
there and draw all night, every single day by myself.
So I decided to go into filmmaking. So my undergrad
degree is in film. And then when I finished my
film degree, I realized pretty quickly that what I actually
loved about film was watching and writing about it, not
(11:45):
making it so much. And I got a job right
after undergrad me like a few years after undergrad, working
at art gallery as the assistant to the director. But
that led into me becoming the assistant curator, and that
led me to becoming the curator. And then I put
on my dad's exhibition that was happening at the time,
Two Sides of James Ransom, and then I put on
(12:07):
an exhibition, or I helped co curate an exhibition that
was just amazing exhibition of black graphic design inspired art
by a local artist, Jelil Campbell, and that show made
me realize that I could kind of have it all.
I could appreciate art, I could appreciate film, I could
(12:28):
write about art. I could be in this world that
my dad was in and that my mom was in,
and I could do it in my own way because
Julil was like a still is like an up and
coming emerging artist, like with a really amazing name in
upstate New York. And I was just like, yeah, maybe
I could like build something like that for like a
new generation of like young black, excited, interesting art loving people.
(12:52):
And so yeah, we kind of had like opposite trajectories.
We both like had a stint in film, had a
stint in like drawing, and then like kind of can
go right into this bigger, more socially conscious version of
that love of art where we both were like seeing
so much of ourselves and others and seeing so much
of what people responded to when they came into galleries
(13:14):
and saw the art up on the wall, and it
kind of created its own new ecosystem, I think. And
that's why I was really excited that my dad was
doing the show on Mainstream and Poughkeepsie because I feel
like Poughkeepsie really needs this. At convey Our Gallery at
two ninety nine Main Street, Sabrina. It's up until March thirtieth.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yes, yeah, breaking here and tell a quick little story about.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
It before you break his break with an observation. Both
of you are yids was the visual laws. But I
want to say both of you can really talk, and
I want to just in case you're interested, there is
such a thing as a comma.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yes, I know I need a but interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
In his stuff and you're making all one beautiful story,
so please break in on my breaking.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
I just wanted to tell tell a little story about
Jamie was talking about growing up. I just remember we
grew they were they were raised for ten years. We
lived in Poughkeepsie and we lived in the house there
and my studio was out was near where they played,
and they would come in all the time, and which
I a frame reminded me of this recently, and it
(14:30):
came in all the time, which I absolutely loved them
coming in and borrowing things, ask me questions, but never so.
They would sometimes share one drawing, so Jamie would draw
one thing that her sister Maya would draw another thing.
And at that time our son, Malcolm was very young
and they said he could draw the storm.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Like me. Then we would make the whole piece and
we would make sure it was perfect and great, and
then we'd hand it over to him be like all.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Right, Malcolm, time to draw the storm.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
And it was yes, collaborative or at a young age,
that wonderful.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And my sense I wanted to ask about, you know,
de curating. I was just I'm still trying to get
a handle on. Are you drawing to the curating with
an explicit perspective from a black perspective on things?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
No, I am not.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
It is something that I think about continuously, and when
I am asked to guest Carrie, as I have been
doing recently, those exhibitions have been leaning towards a black perspective.
But I do have some projects that lean towards some
of my other very intense interests. I have, like a
little bit of a witchy side. So I have an
(15:47):
exhibition coming up at a Woman's Work exhibition at Women's
Work Art in the summer that's going to be leaning
more towards like pagan like fun deity, female goddess feminist stuff.
I do. I am an art history teacher. I teach
fundamentals of art at DCC. Right now, I'm just an
(16:07):
adjunct professor right now. But that class is like a
history of art, and so I just tell the history
of art with a feminist and bipoc perspective. So those
are the two perspectives that I lean on the heaviest.
The exhpission I'm doing at and Straight Gallery in the
Spring is going to be an afrofuturism exhibition. It's going
(16:27):
to be opening March fifteenth. But those are just the
things that I have working right now. I'm always willing
to curate exhibitions that are not by black artists, especially
if they are by female artists, and any queer exhibitions
as well. But I'm I'm I guess what I'm trying
to say is that I'm really focused on marginalized communities
specifically and curatorial activism. Activism is a huge part of
(16:51):
my practice, which is the practice of incorporating activism into
curatorial practice to elevate the voices of marginalized and underserved communities.
So that is my fcus it's curlatural activism, and right
now it's been focusing on the African American experience because
that's what's closest to me.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Got You, Got You? How can people get in contact
with the both of you. I want I'd like to
have that inserted before we continue our conversation.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at j Ransom
dot curator.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
You can follow me on Instagram as well, which is
Ransom g Art on Instagram on my website which is
basically ransom art dot com.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Okay, all right, And if you're just tuning in, you're
listening to Finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold
Peter and I'm the poet Gold. We're here with Jamie Ransom,
curator and visual artists Ransom. Yes, known, it's Ransom.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
This is this is the very first time we've spoken together.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, we've never really interviewed at the same time.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well, this is wonderful. You know the I mean our
listeners you know or not obviously in here with us,
but you are in here with us. But to to
uh watch the energy between the two of you, it
is very wonderful to see I was.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Gonna say this, I'm like really grateful right now. We
never no one ever gets to like see like the
here the parallel stories and see us both at the
same time or normally like switching off. So this is like, oh,
my god, this is amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
She said, James, my oldest daughter.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, yeah, how many did you have?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Four?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Four?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Okay, girls, boys, three girls and a boy. Three girls
and a boy.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
So when he was like when I was being made
and he was like thinking about me being this funkadelic
child and like my mom was pregnant with me, he
never expected that we would be like joint interviewed.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, you have to put it out there, know it
his manifesture, right, yeah, yeah, oneerful.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And you know, the idea is the first time you've
been interviewed together. It goes to the beginning of the
show when Ransom was talking about his work comes out
of his family. So, I mean the theme of family
is the origin of the art and also the continuation
of what people hold urist family.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Can they said it better? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Absolutely yeah, And you're you're just looking at it quickly.
You have a lot of images of black people and
the way they addressed with the surroundings of a very
vibrant I mean there's even one picture I sort of
a sort of an older black man, not older than
(19:26):
they been, older than you guys, old the black man
who has sort of a solemn face, but the background
is sort of bright, shining pink, and uh, you know,
I want to wonder how much you think of black
people as a vibrant.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
I do you know, you know, we're such a diverse
group of people. What I try to do is I
try to create portraits of people. I remember, we're going
through three different generations of people. Sometimes you're seeing people
who are in that sort of first part of the
South where they haven't migrated yet. Sometimes you've seen people
(20:12):
who are who are actually living in a city and
they all should sort of say something different about their
life experience.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
But you know, I use color.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
I love color, and backgrounds are and even the facial
expressions all that's part of making of the making of
the art.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And then it's and it's it's I'm sorry you about
to say something, Oh yeah. In the collage aspect as well,
so that it's like there's a there's a cut and
paced aspect of like the background will sometimes be the
same color as the shirt or the pants or literally
made of the same material. My dead collects a lot
of wallpapers and stuff like that to like recreate these
feelings of home. So there's a lot of that combination
(20:49):
to that point of that vibrancy where it's like sometimes
the actual background is depicting the internal monologue of the character,
and then sometimes you'll see that they are like literally
reflected in each other. And you know, you know, what
I found interesting is that there's a there, there are
two things, and and I don't necessarily like to compare
one artist to another, but but what stuck out for
(21:12):
me was, are you familiar with Barbara Masterson? Okay, she
does migrant workers, farm workers, very vibrant, very uh expression yes,
you know, very expressionists, and and uh and so and
she captures, she captures the image, she captures the story
(21:35):
right right, right right, And so for me there was
a a a sort of similarity in context and relationship
to telling the story and not not losing the colorfulness
that a human being brings to their story. And there
was also a musicality for me in your work. You know,
I felt not that the images were like dancing and stuff,
(21:58):
but there was a musical as I watched, you know,
and viewed show work that really spoke out. It was
sort of like a metaphor of jazz or you.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Know, improvisation is very important part of my work.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Where things happen on a moment and don't I don't
have any idea it's going to happen until it happens.
Where I grab a piece of paper, find something and
blew it down.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
But I could say talk about give you.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
As an example of my work, the show in Poughkeepsie.
It's a show portraits mixed in with lamps and suitcases.
So the show is really about home, especially this time
of the year. I was inspired by you know, your
drive around and the sun's going down and you see
(22:43):
warm yellow lights throughout a neighborhood, throughout a village as
you're driving, and I'm trying to capture that feeling in
this exhibit by having lamps in the space with the
portraits that warm for me sense of sense of security.
You know, at one point years in the past, a
fire and a stove would be sort of give off
(23:05):
a glow. Lamps and a house go for glow. Hopefully
there's joy and happiness happening in that home, and these
portraits reflect the different people who could possibly be living
in those homes, and the suitcases are references to migrating.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
You know.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Women of g has been a big part of my
work as well, their quotes, their patterns, and also, like
Tony Morrison, my paintings don't it's about the black community,
and it just it just so happens that white people
are not part of that community.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
In in in certain ways.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
Like for example, I grew up in the South, and
people often wonder, well, oh my god, it's so segregated,
But I lived in a community of African Americans and
rarely did we see are have any interaction with whites
around us. Only if we went into town where were
there they had their own community we had. So like
(24:07):
Tony Morrison her books about African Americans, it's not that
she's excluding whites, but that's the community that happens to
be built up around her. Also August Wilson would be
a good example as well. So that's that's that's some
of the things that that I hadn't talked about before.
I want to make sure I sur.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Right, and there's nothing happened wrong with that. It happens
on both sides. You know, we tell the stories of
the ecosystems that we're a part of, and then we
come together in the central market. You know, it's sort
of like a different religious background or everybody shopping at Walmart,
you know, you know, or the or the big or
the big grocery store.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
People then go back to their to their circles and
then they come they come together.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
In paintings that deal more with being in the migration,
coming to the north and in the cities. There is
some sort of connections there where you may see whites appearing.
It's more of a connection here and definitely do verse migration.
This more white as seen in the pictures also, so
it's not excluding them, it's just what time period am
I dealing with it at that particular time.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Well, it was, you know, so wonderful to have you
guys here. I hate to wrap this conversation up, but
hopefully we'll have it again in the future. Thank you
to our listeners listening to finding out with Pete and
the poeanent goal. Make sure that you go to Instagram
and the website at Ransom Art. Is that correct, yessumark
to find out more about these wonderful human beings and Peter.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Thank you, Amen,
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