Interview with Merv Aubespin, November 9, 2015

Wes Cunningham: This is Wes Cunningham on November 9th with Merv Aubespin (?) in a house off Cherokee Road. Merv, could you do me a favor and just tell me some kind of general biographical information-- where you were born, how you ended up in Louisville?  

Merv Aubespin: I was born in Opelousas, Louisiana. That is O-p-e-l-o-u-s-a-s. Opelousas is located in the southwestern part of the state and its where the Cajun and Creole complex is, where most of the people there speak a second language of French Creole and the food is different and the accent is different and the people are different. 

(Dog barking)

--So, I came out of that and went to college in Tuskegee, Alabama, at the 1:00Tuskegee Institute. Now, that college historically-- this is back from the 50s, I came out of school in 1954-- back in the day, that college was a major African American institution that was founded by Booker T. Washington and Dr. George Washington Carver did much of his work at that university. And, because it was located in the middle of the black belt in Alabama, it was able to draw some of the major African American minds who came to speak to the students or to do teaching or to make available their books and what have you. So, it wasn't a bad situation being there. Actually, it was my first time leaving home for any period of time because all of the African American intellectuals came. They spoke at chapel on Sunday, they spoke in classrooms, they brought their books 2:00down. So, it was really a learning period for a guy from Opuelusas, Louisiana who had recently moved to Louisville because my mother married a guy who lived in Louisville and they moved up here and I was going to college, planning to get into college at that time. So, I went straight from high school to college and when I finished college, I came back and settled in Louisville. 

There were some interesting things that happened at the time I went to school. Somehow, as fate would have it, I came to college and high school and growing up at a period when America was going through some significant changes that 3:00suggested that America would never be the same again. And, I graduated from high school in 1954. I was at Tuskegee in 1954-1958. I was pretty young at the time. I got into college, I was 16 years old. I made 17 on my birthday which was June the 30th. But it was an interesting experience because of the fact that I saw teachers that looked like me, guest speakers on campus that looked like me, there was a museum-- the George Washington Carver museum on campus-- I saw what this amazing man had done with lowly peanuts. All of the things he had discovered and other interesting things that had happened to African Americans who were interested in going a step further. So, that was quite an education and 4:00I enjoyed it thoroughly. And then I came back here and was going to teach school. That was my plan, I had majored in industrial arts and I was going to teach shop class which made sense to me because the philosophy at Tuskegee was you went to classes here but you also learned a trade there. That was an old Booker T. Washington philosophy: you learned to work with your heart, your head, and your hands. And so, I took bricklaying (?).

(laughter)

--Now you can ____ (?) but I still got going from that bricklaying (?) but anyway, it was a marvelous experience. And they need people from all over the country and from all over the world because Tuskegee had such a reputation that it attracted students from India, from the Far East, from Africa. So, we had a 5:00mandatory church service every Sunday and that meant you had to dress up and you had to literally march to church from one of the dorms all the way to the chapel. The chapel was a very famous chapel because it had what was called the singing windows which were windows that depicted the African American spirituals. So, they called them the singing windows. You got dressed every day-- I mean every Sunday, to march. And if you were in the OTC, (?) you had to bring a uniform and if you were in the Army when you were young (I was in the air force,) you had to wear my Air Force uniform and we marched and they ______ 6:00(?) sat on one side and the girls sat on the other side. 

(MA laughs)

--but the interesting thing was that our students from other countries also marched with us and they wore the outfits that were indicative from their countries so it looked like a little United Nations. It was just a fabulous experience because you would see all this color and all this diversity. Tuskegee at the time had one of the finest schools of veterinary medicine in the country and that attracted students from all over the world. So, you always had that group of students from elsewhere and it was quite an experience-- I had a ball, I mean I really did.  When I got to Louisville, I was ready to start teaching. Well, my stint teaching, there was an opening at a middle school called Duvall 7:00Junior High School (?) and I took the  job-- it was a shop class. I said, Well, I don't know a single thing about shop. So, I would take the books home-- 

(MA coughs)

-- and make the projects--

(MA coughs)

--to make at school the next morning and we'd try them out. 

(WC laughs)

MA: And that's the way I survived until I got involved with some people who were involved in the local civil rights movement. 

(MA coughs) I do apologize.

WC: Oh, you're fine.

MA: One of my close friends was a young man named Frank Stanley Junior whose father was the editor of the Louisville Defender (?) which was the local black weekly. And, Frank was determined that he had to participate in the local civil 8:00rights movement. As a matter of fact, as young as he was, he was one of the leaders.

So, next thing I know, he's got me on Fourth Street, watching the sign --taking sign (?) demanding that blacks be allowed to try on clothes. You know when I got here in the '50s, you could buy suits from the store at Fourth Street, but you couldn't try it on. We were making that demand and the merchants were not really suggesting that it bothered them whatsoever. And so, we decided-- ok, let's go to that pocketbook. And we decided that year, nothing new for Easter which became a rallying cry in the black community. As you well know, blacks and 9:00others always go to the store Friday's because that's when they buy their kids nice new outfits. And when we decided nothing new for Easter, we got their attention and ____ (?) because a couple of stores quickly let us know that our dollars were welcome. One store I remember quite well was Vick's-- the big family business. Vick became a very close personal friend because she supported everything we did. And, other stores followed her-- stores like Kaufman's (?) which is right on the corner of Chestnut and Fourth Street. And, so you didn't have a solid wall against. You had people that said, "Wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense."  But it was an interesting experience and we saw, 10:00first hand, how the civil rights movement can change things. So, that was a hell of an experience.

Meanwhile, I'm teaching school and I know that the superintendent of the school is not going to be happy to see me arrested. As a matter of fact, I'm sitting in front of one of the stores on Chestnut and Fourth Street, and who walks across us but the superintendent who was overseeing the people who taught shop and I said, "Oh my god" and he wasn't too happy to see me--

(MA laughs)

--and so, while I got out of there in time and next thing I know, I went to work for the-- it was a group of artists, black artists-- and we were having real problems. We were doing arts but we had no place to show it because all of the 11:00art galleries in the city were owned by whites and nobody would break the tradition. And so we showed where we could: we showed in restaurants, we showed in bars-- anybody who would give us face-- we showed in church. And wherever they let us hang, we'd have a show. As a matter of fact, we may have had the first show in Central Park because nobody would show us so we went to Central Park and we hung up clothes line and we hung our paintings and we had a two day event. Now the big thing is Art in the Park, but I can assure you, we were there before it even started so it may have been an idea that was carried from there. But it was a great time to meet other artists and to meet people who were interested in art.

And while I was doing that, the woman who reviewed our shows --because we ended up buying a store front-- I guess Bob told you about it, that we named it the Louisville Art Workshop. And, we had the storefront, and a friend of ours named Fred Bond (?) was also an artist, he and his wife lived in the rear of it. So, they carried the major responsibility because it was a house to them. And we would have our own shows that were fabulous because we had G.C. Coxe, Bob Douglas. We had Sam Gillion. We had oh, Bob Thompson. We had all of the black 13:00artists participating in this. It was a fruitful time because we would take-- and we would pool our money and hire a model. And then everybody would be sitting at their stations doing their model and it was just a fabulous time because when you finish something, you had people to show it to who could give you feedback and who would come to you to get feedback for what they were doing. And so, you had this interaction going and you just felt real good about it. 

It was about that time that a woman named Sarah Lansdale (?) who was the art critic for the Courier Journal. And she would come to our shows and she wrote about them and I've got her clips in the back and folded if you need to look at 14:00them-- and she talked about the black art movement locally and what have you. She was really a sweetheart. She told me one day, she said, "Merv, there is a job at the Courier Journal" because that's who she  worked for, in the art department-- "Why don't you go up there and talk to those folks, they'd be delighted to hire you if you talk to them." I said, "Oh, Sarah, I have no special training in art. I'm self-taught." She said, "I don't care! If you go up and talk to them you'll see if you like what they're doing and they'll see if they like what you can do." 

(dog barking)

--Well, she kept pushing me, so I went up there and I met the art director. His name was Louis Day, (?) I'll never forget it. And Louis said, "Well, you don't have a degree in art, blah, blah, blah." Well, what he didn't say was that not one single artist of the seven he had working had had a degree in art. 

(WC laughs)

MC: But he was going to use that time, that same old way to keep me out of it. I would let him know --we talked for hours-- I told him, "Look, I'll make you a deal. I'll work here for two weeks at no pay. You will see if I can do what these people are doing and I'll see if I like doing it." Because all I need to do-- I've been innovative all my life, is look over somebody's shoulder and see what they're doing. I noticed they were using airbrushes to fill out the background, what have you. They were using water base paints because everything was in black and white for the most part. 

(MA coughs) Excuse me.  They were able to take a whole tree out of the 16:00background-- a horse-- and I said, "Oh, well I can do that." Well-- he said, "Ok," reluctantly. "We'll give it a try." And so, I went and introduced myself to all the other artists. 

(MA coughs)

--I'd sit at the desk and watch how they were doing it and I could --one way to do it. When I had been in the army, and because I had a background in architectural drawing from Tuskegee, what I ended up doing while I was in the service for the two years I spent in service was map topography. I knew how to draw maps. And what they would do is sometimes they would take me out in a 17:00helicopter down at Fort Knox and I would have to map out where the movements were and where they were training and you know, I could do that very good. I discovered that all of the guys in the art department, the one thing they hated doing was maps. A teacher who was a nun-- a black nun who taught me years before, when I was in Louisiana, had always told me, "Merv, you can survive if you develop a talent and do it better than anybody else." It occurred to me, if these people hate drawing maps and I know how to draw, I can make this my belly weight (?). So, every time an editor came in and said, "Look, there's been a major accident at Fourth and Walnut. I need a map to show exactly where it was." 18:00"There was a train wreck down at so and so" I would sit there and get that map worked out. It got to the point where they would come and look for me and I said "Well Merv, how can you make this easier?" So, because the paper was divided into columns, I made base maps of Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, and the United States all four column sizes. So, if they needed one column, I had it already done, a two, three, four, five, six, half a page. And all I needed to do was just have the print. I could cut it out and just stick it right on the map because I had all the main streets and the highways. I began to set me up a whole system where they would come in and if you had all the major roads. You 19:00had Broadway, you had Chestnut, you had I-64, all you had to do was just cut out this stick-- the new place they were talking about. And that worked wonders. 

(MA laughs)

MA: I had a ball because I could put them back so quick it would make your head swoop. And they would come and try to find me and that worked out fine. And the more that happened, the more relaxed I got in the situation because I had found something I did better than anybody else.

Next thing you know, they decided to send me to a rally that was being held at Greenwood Ave and 28th Street-- that's the one that got really ugly. I told them, I said, "They're going to have a rally down there, you need to send a reporter down," and they said, "Well, Merv, yeah, we're going to send a reporter. Would you go with the reporter?" I said, "You want me to protect him?" 20:00And they said, "Yes."  And I said, "Well ok." Well, I wanted to see what was happening anyway and so the reporter and I went down there and baby, it didn't take long before I looked up and folks were turning over cars and breaking windows at the little shopping area. And I said, "Oh my gracious, I've got to get this reporter back to the paper." And I found a guy who I knew that I had taught in middle school, riding around an old beat up Caddilac. I said, "Will you take this man back to the Courier Journal?" He said, "Sure--" took him and I called the Courier and I said, "I will stay here and I will tell you on the phone and you will have some people in there to write it." And I stayed there 48 hours and it got ugly-- two people were killed in those riots and thousands of dollars of damage. But, I had people I knew from teaching who were out on the 21:00street and from the civil rights movement who was out on the street trying to get everything under control.

So, I was cool and I was the man calling in and when it was over with, they didn't even give me a ____ (?) but, the owners of the paper said "Wait a minute-- "and this was the ______ (?) with the family that owned the Courier. "Merv can be of much more use to us as a journalist than as an artist because we have nobody in our newsroom that looks like him. And this is an indication there are going to be some other things happening down the road and we need somebody." And so, they decided to send me to Columbia University in New York for special training because this was the time right after King had been killed where--

(MA coughs)

--other newspapers in Philadelphia, and New York, and Washington, and New Orleans, were evaluating their staffs which were traditionally all white. They had set up a special program at Columbia University in New York, funded by the newspapers and the Ford foundation, to train people like me to be journalists quickly. And so, the Courier Journal said, "You're going to New York, and you'll be there for four months." And I said, "Ok." 

So-- my wife at the time, and I said, "But I've got a wife and a toddler." They said, "Don't worry, we will make sure your check is in the mail every week and we will send you a stipend to live on."

Well man, I got to New York and my neck hurt from looking at the buildings-- 23:00first time I'd ever been on an airplane. I'll tell you, so many people knew I was going and when I went to the airport, twenty-five plus people that were friends of mine that worked with me were at the airport to see me off. It was going to be a special thing because there was now going to be a black voice at the newspaper. All these people were not black, these were whites I knew and people that I knew and I got to New York and I had a ball because the way that program was set up, they brought ________ (?). They brought some of the big names to Columbia to talk to us, to teach us as quickly as possible how to get the news done and man were those interesting times. And one of my dear friends, Bob Maintent (?) who ended up owning the Oakland Tribune and his past, was the 24:00head of the program. And Bob made sure I was involved in everything you could get involved in and it was just fabulous because we were putting out a newspaper-- it was twelve of us-- that other newspapers had sent (?) and we put out a weekly newspaper, and they sent us out on assignments and they had people that they had borrowed from other major newspapers who acted as editors and typesetters, the whole bet. And I would come in and Bob would just give a little sheet of paper and he said, "This is 21/23 Fifth Street-- there's a meeting going on and you need to check it out." And I said, "Well, what is the meeting?" And he said, "Well, I'm not telling you. You go find out." So, I'd get me a coin and get on the subway.

(laughter) 

--So, I learned New York backwards and forwards-- that subway. But it was a great experience. And, when it was over, I came back here and I felt like I 25:00could do the job. Well, next thing you know, they promoted me because the newsroom was still all white. And they said, "Well, now Merv, you've met a lot of people" And---

(MA coughs)

--I said, "Yes I have." They said, "Well--"

(MA coughs) I do apologize.

WC: I know what it's like.

MA: This has been a mess. Anyways, they used me. 

(MA coughs) Next thing you know, I got promoted because they said, "Well, we need to promote him." And they asked him to be the recruitment to see if I could 26:00find some other African Americans and others to put on the staff. I had gotten involved with a newfound organization called the National Association of Black Journalists. I later became president of that national group and raised the--

(MA coughs) --numbers of members from slightly over 300 to over 1,000 and became the ____ (?) because black journalists had gotten into these newspapers all over this country. So this is a way to come together and exchange ideas. We were rolling. They were having a ball. And, I enjoyed it thoroughly. They promoted me to associate editor for development. It was a new title, nobody else had the 27:00title. "And, so, we want to promote you, what do you suggest?" I said, "Well, you can make me assistant management editor, associate editor for anything you want." And they said, "Let's go with the associate editor." Well, fine, I'll name my own job. 

(MA laughs)

--And, it was a ball. I enjoyed myself thoroughly at the local paper because you could see the results of your effort when you picked up the paper. And since I was out recruiting, I said, "I'm not going to go out here and just recruit minorities, now, I'm not going to be your recruiter unless you allow me to use the same standards and recruit anybody I see that will ____ (?). They said, "That makes sense to us." Well, now we're cookin'. I am now associate editor/development and chief recruiter-- now we got it. And there's nothing that 28:00says black or white or green or purple. And so I evolved because I had to be involved with all the major editors organizations because I'd go to their conferences and-- because they'd made me associate editor, I could belong to their organizations and then I'd have to go to the National Association of Black Journalists conference, the Hispanic group conference, the Asian group conference, looking for people that I can-- _____ finally caught on and said, "Wait a minute, you don't need to--" they had bought the Courier Journal-- the Cadet Company (?)-- you don't `just recruit for Louisville, you recruit for Cadet. If you see somebody, you let us know-- go recruit them. So, that was a good deal. And I stayed there until I retired! ________ (?)  At the same time--

(MA coughs) I know I'm driving you crazy but--

WC: No, not at all

MA: At the same time, I met a young man named Javrell Dialo (??) and Javrell was from Senegal. He was a beautiful dude. He wore his long Boobas (?) with his fancy caps. He had two PhDs--one from the University of London and the other from one of the universities in Paris. He spoke twelve languages. And we became bosom friends and I was president of the National Association of Black Journalists at the time and Javrell said, "Merv, I'm going to open some doors for you where you're going to go where you never dreamed of--" and he did. He took me to Timbuktu twice-- it actually exists! I've got the pictures to prove it. 

(WC laughs)

MA: He took me all over Africa. He sent me all over Latin America and Central America and what an experience it was because I was meeting heads of state, you know. I met-- in Africa alone, eight heads of state--

WC: Jeez 

(MA laughs) And, they were very comfortable with me because they wanted the media to tell their story because they could look for help from Europe and from the United States and that was an experience. Man, we went to the desert, we went to the jungles. 

(MA laughs) And here's little old Merv, right there in the middle of it. I tell you, it was quite a trip. And so, when I finally retired, I felt good. I had 31:00made good contacts. 

(MA coughs) -- I had (coughs) --enhanced my collection of African art, as you can see. And, it was just an experience-- seeing new things and meeting new things. And the more you saw new and the more you went to new places, the more you saw how people with less resources than you were able to make ends meet. So, I didn't complain as much as I used to about what was happening in the United States. I went and I saw people who were badly eating and they took care of each other and they were innovative and it was cool. So, you just began to get 32:00another view of the United States and of the world. 

What else can I tell you?

(WC laughs) I'm actually-- let's jump back a little bit and focus a little more on art. Where did you first get involved in art? Where did you first get interested in art?

MA: When I first got to Louisville to teach, I didn't know many people and I met a couple of artists-- one named Bob Douglas, who you've already interviewed. The other named Fred Bond (?) who is deceased. And they were involved in coming together. They would come together in Bob's basement --I have pictures of us together in Bob's basement. We would talk about art and what have you. And, 33:00that's when I began to get really involved because I had somebody to show my work to. It was not an overnight thing. But if you've got somebody to show your work to-- people like G.C. Coxe, I'm sure Bob mentioned him when he talked-- Mr. Coxe was older, old enough to be our fathers, but spent so much time with us. When we would talk to G.C., G.C. would take time and say, "Now Mervin, this is the correct way to stretch a canvas." He'd show me-- I still have got the pliers and stuff that we used to do it and he'd say, "Now, this is what you should do. When you stretch a canvas, it has to be so tight, you could drop a quarter on it, and it will bounce back up." "Ok." And, he taught us. 

Meanwhile, I had just gotten a job at the BL Cutridge Plant (?) down in the West End because they weren't paying teachers anything and a group of us who were involved in civil rights had begun negotiating with them about hiring some African Americans. After all, they had a plant right down there in the West End and no African Americans other than the ones with the ____ (?). They did, and when I found out they were going to pay, I said "Hell, I'll take one of those jobs too."Well, the end product was, these people made little plastic chips that were remelted to make radio cases and plastic appliances. But in order to get the plastic products, they had to make these little beads. And they had to dye 35:00them, very, very carefully because they had a formula so that the colors all matched and they used raw pigments to get the colors going. They would put these things in vats that were as high as this-- about this size and all the way up. They would mix it, then they would put the color in, then they would mix it. Then they would pour that out and then somebody had to get in these big tanks that looked like mix masters and clean them out. And, I said, "Wait a minute"-- I would find sometimes they would have contaminated a bunch of raw pigments. And they said, "Yeah, you can have them." I'd take my little lunch bag and go up and 36:00take them. I got home and mixed them with lemon seed oil and I had fine paints just like you can get out of a tube. So, that became wonderful-- that would allow me time to do it, and at hardly no costs and I just had a ball with that and I passed it on to my friends. 

But, I just taught myself how to do it. I just learned a long time ago that you have to be innovative enough to survive. If you didn't have a trade, you should find one--find something you can do better than anybody else. I can mix those paints and if you didn't like it, I could still tell you I liked it. 

(Laughter)

MA: See-- that's one of my pieces.

WC: Beautiful.

MA: That's one of my pieces, that's one of my pieces, that's one of my pieces, that's one of my pieces. Majority of the pieces in here.  And, you just went with what made you feel good. 

WC: What was-- when you found-- how did you get in touch with the Louisville Art Workshop?

MA: We found it. 

WC: Yeah, how did you all come to find a place all together?

MA: Um, Fred Bond, who was one of our members, was a fine potter, needed a place to stay. He was living in a house that I thought was dangerous-- it was not in good shape-- and he had three children. And so, he was looking for a place. And then we found a place with space in the front and living quarters in the back 38:00which was perfect for him. And so we made a deal where he bought the place and we would help him on any shows and stuff we had and if people made donations, we threw it at Fred. And that's how we ended up with our workshop.

WC: And, how was it received in the Louisville art community as a whole?

MA: Well, much of the white community acted like we weren't there. But, we had others, especially some university people from U of L, and we had Sarah Lansdale, our art critic friend. And so, they couldn't act like we didn't exist. 39:00We then threw a show for George Joseph who was an editorial cartoonist for the Courier Journal and he was (?) an African American but we gave him a show. He knew people there. And people began to support us a little more. It was never a great scene. But somehow, artists survive. We were always suffering, but we survived. 

And other artists would come into town and they would look us up-- artists who would be stationed at Fort Knox who worked making maps and stuff for the army-- would find us because they would be looking for an outlet in the city. 

(MA coughs) -- and they would come and they would show with us too. So, we got a lot of people involved-- people began to know who we were. It was cool. 

WC: How did your all's art engage topics like race? 

MA: The same way most art does. Some artists, like Bob, painted figures in racially sensitive situations. That was-- I don't need to show you his work. I, on the other hand, liked to do abstracts. But the art idea that was realists (?) were a more positive form. I'm a Jazz fanatic-- I love Jazz. And so, I'll show you, there's a picture in there of a Jazz player, a base player. 

(MA coughs) I painted pictures that were a more positive look. If anybody is crying the blues, sooner or later, your audience is going to stop listening. And so, I painted musicians, a couple I'll show you. Because that was a positive thing. 

(WC laughs) 

MA: Now, do you need a bio or anything?

WC: What?

MA: I said, do you need a bio or you can get it off line. 

WC: Yeah, I can get most of the stuff off line. Just how did the art scene-- you 42:00and your friends in the workshop-- how did you all engage the black freedom struggle that was going on? 

MA: Much of the art we did were statements that related to the black people's struggle. And, whether they be abstracts or realistic, I've got the name, you know, see that one?

WC: Un-huh.

MA: I'm on a river and it's going nowhere. See what I did with the ribbon?

WC: Uh-huh. 

MA: That makes a statement about race relations in America. So see, you can abstract in the name itself. Or, you can do something like this and you can name it, it's obvious. When I worked on the musicians pieces--

(MA coughs) 

--I knew that music, especially Jazz and Blues, went across racial lines. And so what it did was it suggested that at least in these areas, we don't have a problem. I mean I get as much credit as they should get. But, musicians always welcome musicians regardless of what color they are. When I think about musicians like Jerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and others, when they get together and play which _____ (?) Miles Davis, they don't look at no color. These are 44:00people who play as well as. And so you've got it going and nobody really pays that much attention to it unless you're doing-- and so, that's one of the things I liked about Jazz-- there's always been room on the stage for you. 

Music says something to me and that's one of the reasons I like to paint Jazz musicians. That picture of the bass player, for instance, it's just a great bass player, you know-- you can feel him. And that's kind of the way I feel about that. Music-- Jazz, to make a statement about race relations in America. 

WC: What was your take on the role of arts and culture in the black freedom 45:00struggle? What role did you see it play?

MA: I thought it played a significant role because it gave intellectuals a platform to write. It gave artists a platform to do art. It gave musicians a platform to play. 

(MA coughs) --and during the civil rights movement, one of those things became our way of stating our purpose on how we wanted America to look and to be. So, it played a significant role, a very significant role.  Have you ever heard Louis Armstrong sing "What a Wonderful Day?"

WC: Uh-huh. 

MA: That song almost brings me to tears because what it suggests is how things could be and it was written while he was still down in New Orleans, my neck of the woods. There are songs all through the movement that became significant much like painting became significant. One of the great shocks ____ Angela Davis was the woman who did that-- I've got one of her pieces-- I knew her. 

(MC coughs) 

--and I've got one of her pieces that she did. But, sometimes, something will come out of it, no matter the movement and become the icon of what the movement 47:00was all about. Am I making sense?

WC: Oh, yeah.

MA: Ok. And so, art (coughs) --there are certain artists who were able to depict it and give it feelings just like it was and I didn't want to compete with them, those artists are much better than I would ever be-- they'd been doing it for years. Some of the old African American artists, Jacob Lawrence (?) and others. And then (coughs)-- making the statement of race long before it was in vogue. And, their statements are still quite powerful. So, sometimes when I feel a 48:00little beside myself, I get in that book (laughs) and see what people brought to the table and how it changed America. I must say I was surprised to find me in that book. 

WC: Which one?

MA: The Kentucky Encyclopedia of African American--

WC: Oh yeah, that just recently came out. 

MA: Yeah. (Coughs) 

WC: Uh--

MA: I didn't know ___ (?) Nobody's interviewed before, It's cool.

(WC laughs) How did you see your work and the work of your friends in the Louisville Art Workshop and so forth, how did you see your work interacting with the larger national black arts movement? 

MA: You know, (laughs) I'll tell you the way I feel. We didn't have too much time to study what everybody else was doing because there wasn't much publicized about what people were doing in New York or Washington or Detroit. If you lived in those areas, you had access to it. We knew that Sam Gilliam was on the upcoming, was going to be a major, major artist-- we knew it then. We knew that Bob Thompson would become an icon because he was a mess (?). He was here with us and died at 26 or 27. We knew those things and we can see it but I mean there 50:00wasn't much we could do about it on a national level. You tend to react to what's close to home. We didn't know when Bob, when Sam was having his show in Washington. Local papers, I can assure you, didn't publish it. And so, we had no way to know. And poor Sam was too busy trying to get his show up-- he wouldn't have time to tell us (coughs) and if he did, we were not in a position to have the money to buy a quick ticket and run up and stay in a hotel and go see it and then come back.  So, you did the best you could. 

WC: Uh-huh.

MA: When you went to town, instead of going to see a show, you called Sam. And I have his phone number-- say, "What's going on babe, go on down, and you get the cab and go on down to the studio"-- and there it is (laughs). And, that's the 51:00way you would do it. Kenneth Young, (?) another friend of mine and a colleague of Sam, had a wonderful studio and when I'd go to Washington-- sometimes the Courier would send me because of Connect _____(?) is based in the Washington area. I'd have some time and I would call him and  would say, "Come on by. Let me meet you at such and such a place and we'll have some drinks" and then we'll walk over back to his house where he lived and put his studio and I'd see some of the things he was working on. But that's how you do it, by no means formal-- no more formal than Picasso and his crewman, Toulouse-Lautrec and his crewman. It was never that much of a formal arrangement. If you happened to be 52:00frequenting the bar where I got my booze from, then you were good friends, that's just the way it is. Nobody pays that much attention to locking in friendships that much. You knew each other. You also recognized that you've got to do your thing and I've got to do my thing. And, but it was all right, it was all in good fun, and you pushed each other because all of us wanted to be on the cover of Art in America. But, it was cool. If you think about it, I don't think it would change anything because you kept the competition going between artists-- one wanting to be better than the other. They would always say. And I don't know whether it was back in the days of Picasso and Rodet (?) and those 53:00folks, they always wanted to be better-- so it was no different (coughs).

The only difference was that we had limited spaces that we could show. And, we had a zillion black churches, but nobody could afford to pay. The places we wanted to show were places where people could afford to buy the paintings much the same way they bought the white paintings which would allow us to get more supplies, more paints, more opportunities to show. And, you know, it balanced out. But when you think about it, one successful artist had to scrape and live as best they could with the skills they've got. They all-- and I think a part of 54:00it-- we all were dirt poor. (Laughs). You just tried to do the best you can with what you've got. Sometimes, when I didn't have enough paint, I mixed it with sand. 

(WC laughs)

MA: You see what I'm saying? 

WC: Yeah. Did you all see your art as an opportunity to advance African Americans?

MA: Oh, definitely. You see, the world as we saw it-- the segregated world, always put an emphasis on what we can't do or be. And so, we felt strongly. It was not only our right, but it was our duty to show what we could be and do. You 55:00(laughs) --how our-- you could see this side and the other but if I showed you a painting, you can't say I didn't do it. 

And-- I'm trying to think-- Angelou, Maya Angelou. There's this wonderful poem she does "And Still I Rise," and it suggests everything that the system has done to keep you down "And still I rise." If you ever get a chance to see a copy of it, it tells that story (coughs) that in spite of all the difficulties, the good stuff comes to the top. That's basically what we had to do.  I learned a long 56:00time ago, and I learned it again when I asked Nelson Mandela, who I think is a hero: I said, "Weren't you angry that these people kept you in prison for twenty six years?" He said, "Merv, anger takes time. I don't have time for anger. I am trying to build a new nation where everybody in South Africa can be a part of it." Made damn good sense to me: "Don't have time to be angry, it takes too much energy." 

When I came back from meeting Mandela, I wrote a story about our meeting and I 57:00used that to end the story. It was appropriate and it really was. But I also met that little lady up there and her name is Nadine Gardner (?). Nadine is from South Africa-- she's from a Jewish family that fought for the rights of depressed people. But she's also a Nobel Prize winner in literature. She still lives --oh, well, she doesn't now, she died last year. We were very good friends, I called her my good luck charm because I hate to fly. But every time she and I flew together, we were both doing work for the United Nations. Every 58:00time we got on a plane to fly together, she'd sit with me and I called her my good luck charm because she talked so much I didn't have time to get scared. 

(WC laughs)

MA: But she was fascinating and the more you talked about her, you talked with her, the more you said, you had more things in common than you didn't. She was Jewish in South Africa and I was African American in the United States-- a lot of commonalities there, you know. I became very close to her. We would go on trips because she and I were both advisors to the UNDP which is the United Nations Development Program. And we'd make these trips together. We must've made about four trips to Africa together. And I would sit with her because she would 59:00talk me to death. But she was special. You just never know where you're going to find these people. 

I can't say ____ (?) how many people I interact with or people that look like me. That's impossible. Not if you catch ahead of them because if you don't you're missing something. You're missing the other points of view that help you develop a point of view that is heavy and well thought out. So, I need to hear all sides and when you do, then you can reach your own conclusion. 

WC: Exactly. 

MA: What else can I tell you?

WC: Did you see in Louisville a strong sense of cultural advancement in the black community while you all--

MA: Sure, sure. We had artists we knew about-- that whole group of artists, you know. 

WC: Uh-huh. 

MA: We knew other people. We had musicians we knew about. We had (coughs) places we went to entertain ourselves. _______ (?) we would take a friend with us and they would get a chance to see this whole thing, going to one of my favorite place called the Top Hat which was a legendary place on old Walnut street, was something to behold because every black in town-- it was one of the places where you could take your wife and nobody bothered you. One of the places that had singers like Diana Washington and the major people singing. One of the places 61:00where you could sit at a table with your friends and nobody bothered you. You felt safe inside and outside and that was cool (laughs). 

WC: Yeah. You kind of touched on this earlier, but as a whole, what themes did your art tend to portray-- the stuff that you all were really putting out?

MA: As many artists as there are, as many themes as there are. Sam Gilliam did abstract. 

WC: Uh-huh. 

MA: Bob Douglas did representative. 

WC: Did they tend to be racially motivated? Were they related to oppression?

MA: We didn't paint oppressions, we painted pictures of our fathers with children sitting on their laps. We painted pictures of our families. It wasn't 62:00just pictures of the brother being hung by a tree. We painted pictures of where we excelled. We painted pictures of how well we had done in spite of a community that didn't accept us and you couldn't take away from that. Look at Jacob Lawrence (?) who is one of my favorites, and his pictures depict climbing Jacob's ladder, going to the top. If pictures depict exactly what I'm talking about-- whether they were abstract or realistic or somewhere in between. Even the names suggested that we always had on our mind success. We wanted things to be perfect, we wanted to be better than anybody else.  Why do you think we have 63:00so many basketball players that are great basketball players? They practice more. 

(WC laughs)

MA: You'll find them in Shawnee Park and Chicksaw (?) Park right now. That's what happened to artists, they practiced more. The ones that made it were the ones that practiced more. See what I'm saying?

WC: So not only were you all painting to show what you could do but even the themes of your paintings were directed at this being able to excel where people didn't think you could? 1:03:38 

MA: Not only that, being able to excel because we felt we could. It wasn't just for people, sometimes we just did it for ourselves. And, that was cool too. And when we would get together, oh boy. I was looking at some pictures just the 64:00other day of one of the art workshop shows and we were all down in Fred's basement and were looking at the pictures that were going to be in the show and it was really cool. And so, it became a world within a world, but isn't that how everything is?

(WC laughs)

MA: And we did this and in the process, we got married, we had children, we got jobs-- because nobody was making a living just painting. And we were able to go to church and make sure our kids were in the right school and we did all of that plus. And that says something about determination, that says something about wanting to make a change. 

WC: Did you see what you all were doing really influencing or affecting any 65:00younger generations?

MA: Sure. As a matter of fact, we taught --at the art workshop, we opened it up to the community. So we had youngsters that would come and we would teach them art. 

WC: Awesome. I think I read it in --Bob Douglas gave me a little short history kind of thing that he wrote-- 

MA: Yeah.

WC: Did you all --I think that he said something along the lines that you also spent a lot of time discussing things and not-- you didn't just meet to show your work but you--

MA: Oh no, we didn't, look (coughs). Go back, there had to be writers across the world, get together to discuss writing. And we got together and discussed 66:00writing and art just like everybody else. We wanted to be intellectuals too. We wanted to be able to hold a good conversation about what we thought was important. And so, we did. I mean, we would sit down in Fred's living room, Bob's basement, or my living room and talk until 2:00/3:00 in the morning about what was important to us in the area of art. And, it would be really cool (laughs). I mean, I'd go to bed feeling really good because we had a chance to discuss it. If you don't do art and you don't do writing, you can't discuss it-- you don't have any examples but somebody else's. This put you in a situation 67:00where you had to put up or shut up. And there were a lot of folks who just came and sat around and listened. But it was interesting. 

WC: I know you were involved in the civil rights movement pretty substantially both personally and professionally-- did you see your involvement in that informing your art?

MA: Uh-huh. It's a part of me. 

WC: Uh-huh.

MA: But none of the folks you talked about participated in that. 

WC: Yeah. 

MA: I was the only one that got arrested. I was the one on Fourth street that they put in a paddy wagon. As a matter of fact, if you look in my book, you'll see a picture of me getting put in the paddy wagon. 

WC: I think I've seen that one. (Laughs)

(MA coughs) I tell you, some buddies ______ (?). If as many people as said they were there were there, we'd have no room to walk on the sidewalks. In actuality, there were 10/15 solid folks that we could depend on that would be out there marching with us. And those were the folks that got arrested time and time again. And these were the folks that Mrs. Vicks who owned Vick's clothing store and Z Carts (?)-- who owned a truck (?) store down in the West End-- these were the folks who would come and get us out. And a few doctors, a few black doctors, like Dr Rab (?) and what have you-- these were the folks who would come to get us out. We didn't say "Don't let Mr Z Cart (?) pay my fine and get me out" 69:00because my wife or my mother or my sister or brother were scared to death that somebody would hurt us while we were in there. And sometimes they did try. Sometimes, when you would get arrested, not only here but I'm talking about in Mississippi and Alabama where I did some more marching. And they would arrest you-- they would go through every black room they could to scare you to death. Sometimes you said, "I am not ever going to get through the jail, because they're going to string me up before I get there." That is not a good feeling. And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. But on the other hand, it gave you another story to tell, you see. And now you say, "Well how in the hell did he do that?" We did that because we knew we had to make some sacrifices and for 70:00every black that was hung by vigilantes, there were five that were hung and nobody found them. And it got scary out there. I remember coming back --you remember the march on Montgomery that (coughs) King led?

WC: Uh-huh 

MA: I remember coming back from that march-- thousands of people that showed up that marched across the bridge-- if you saw Selma, you saw it. I've got a great picture, I'll show you before you leave, of me in that march, crossing that bridge and going into Montgomery. There were oodles of people there. But on my way back --and we were all going back to  ____(?) --and I looked up the back of a car, (?) my friend ___ (?) who thank goodness was driving, and Frank and I had 71:00rented a car rather than take our own. And there were these guys waving their pistols at us as they followed us. And for about ten minutes which felt like ten hours, I told my friend, "___ (?) put the petal to the metal." (Coughs). And, he did and boy we were hitting them curbs. It wasn't until we saw the Tennessee state signs that says "Welcome to Tennessee" that we felt relief and they stopped and didn't go across that (coughs). You know what that feels like?

WC: No.

(MA laughs) And you live to talk about it. 

WC: Uh-huh. 

MA: All we wanted to do was pull into the first drive in we saw and stop and catch our breath and have a cup of coffee because while all this was going on, my job was to do an inventory to see what we had to protect ourselves. Well hell, we had one empty coke bottle. I think about that all the time, I was losing my mind. But again, it's a story I can tell my grandchildren and they can tell their grandchildren. 

So, as I get older, I don't worry much about what's coming. Because I did the best I could with what I had and it was art. I did the best I could and these 73:00kinds of chances I had. Oil paints, watercolors, paintbrushes. I still got vases back in my studio, vase _____ (?) that big, you know-- got it all and yesterday I was working on a painting and I'm going to work on a painting tonight. I'm still doing my thing and that's fine. Art to me is a relaxer. It's like having an aspirin when you have a headache. It's my wings-- nobody's going to spank me on the hands if they don't like the stroke I made. And, since there's nobody in that room, I have a little sign that says "private." Even my wife doesn't go in there much. But art has meant an awful lot because it's a form of self expression. If I was a musician, it would be, "How many songs did you compose? 74:00Did you always play someone else's?" But as an artist it's-- "Did you do some pictures to reflect how you felt about the world you live in?" "Yeah." And I met other people who told them what they were doing and they were all different and so you hear that but both the stories-- I know I've just talked you to death this morning.

WC: Oh, I enjoy it, believe me. Just one final kind of all-encompassing question: How --especially in the '60s-- how important was culture to the black community and did some people kind of tend to put more emphasis on the African culture or the culture of the African American?

MA: Both. I think it was important as whites put on the culture they got from European countries that came to the shores of this country too. And so, we weren't the only ones doing this is what I'm saying. The Italians came and they brought with them their food and culture and dress and what have you. So, it was important but we, the African Americans, have always wanted to be a part of rather than apart from. 

WC: Uh-huh. And we've always figured that to be a part of, you have to accept me and the gifts I bring. So, that's how to truly be a part of America, if you're 76:00able to accept me as a person and the gifts I bring because it may be I cook the best barbecue in town-- that's a gift. I may not. But it may well be that I got this other gift, I make the best bird houses in town. You're not going to know unless you open up and accept me as a package. And I think that's what makes America what it is. That more often than not, these days, we accept the whole package. And sometimes, after we open the big boxes, we open the little box after that, and we found the biggest surprise in there--a key to finding more boxes. You see, you've got to be an optimist in order to live a productive life. 77:00You can't always be complaining-- I know people who don't know how to do anything else but complain and sometimes I tell my wife, you're like that. But, you've got to be able to put it in context. You've got to look at the good with the bad. And sometimes, I hate coffee without sugar. But once I put two spoons of sugar in it, I'm fine. And that's how life is-- you may hate the situation, but you've got the sugar pot. Now, get involved and put two spoons of sugar and then it's something both of you can enjoy. You see where I'm coming at?

WC: Of course. 

MA: And, that's why I enjoy having young people come over just to sit around and talk. I sit out there on my swing and young folks will come by-- I'm talking about folks your age-- will come by and sit on that swing and talk about 78:00anything and everything. That's cool because I need to know what they're thinking about and they need to know what I've thought about. That's fun. 

(Laughter)

MA: Well, what can I tell you?

WC: That about covers it. I think that's about it. 

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