On Being Black and An Artist in Chicago
by Lowell Thompson
“Momma, don’t let your babies grow up to be artists,” somebody once wrote. And – what? – it was “Cowboys”? ”Don’t let your babies grow up to be COWBOYS”? Are you sure? I would have sworn it was artists. It’s a lot tougher being an artist – in Chicago at least – than being a cowboy. And if you think it’s tough being an artist, try being a Black one.
In 1992, I wrote an article about race in the advertising agency business. It was called, “The Invisible Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” and it ran in Print Magazine, an international design publication based in New York. My research became the basis of an article in Advertising Age (the leading publication of marketing and advertising) entitled, “Dirty Little Secret.” The bottom line of both pieces was that Black creative professionals composed only about 1% of the creative staffs of the top 25 U.S. advertising agencies.
For a few years afterward, I tried to work with the industry and companies to improve those numbers. But after a while it became pretty obvious they weren’t really interested. “Besides…,” they’d either say or imply, “aren’t there enough Black-owned advertising agencies nowadays to employ your people?”
Fast forward 10 years. Now, too old, too tired and too disgusted to continue to fight the good fight in the business I’d spent all my adult life in, I was, as they say, looking at my options. An old high school buddy and his wife – who’d bought a few paintings I’d done for ads I’d designed for clients with budgets too low to hire a real artist/illustrator – started urging me to paint more.
Well, that was in 2000. Since then, I’ve participated in a few exhibitions, painted scores of paintings, and – to my surprise – sold most of them. But more importantly, I’ve found a strong and growing group of collectors who appreciate and buy art by African-American artists.
This is a far cry from when I was growing up on Chicago’s Southside. When I was a kid in the ‘50s, I don’t remember hearing of any African-American artists, let alone collectors. Even though I later found out about Archibald Motley, Charles White and a few others, they didn’t exist in my mind when I really needed them – when a kid needs role models. White kids could be budding Picassos, Rembrandts, Rockwells, or Da Vincis.Avant-garde White kids could aspire to become Pollocks, DeKoonings, Motherwells or Rothkos. I know some of you may be thinking why couldn’t Rembrandt and Rothko be a little Black kids role models too? But I don’t have the time or energy right now to go there. Let’s just say that by 2000, 35 years after the height of the Civil Rights Movement, things had improved significantly for Black artists.
But not as much as I’d like.
I found that the fine art community in Chicago seems to be at least as unequal and segregated as the commercial art world I wrote about in ‘92.
I’m hoping Chicago Artists Resource helps, but I believe that without a special effort to include non-White artists – who have always been blatantly excluded from the already elitist art world – the site will become just another enclave for the already disproportionately privileged White art community.
I know the folks who worked hard to put up CAR don’t want to hear it. But, being a child of the sixties, I just have to say it. I don’t know what the particulars of politics and funding are, but I believe there should be more non-White involvement in designing and managing this site if it’s to be of real value to artists who have always been treated as second class citizens.
There should be a special and ongoing effort to promote the site to non-White artists. And there should also be some strategy to help artists without the technical knowledge or access to the technology to get both. Shouldn’t fine art be the one area of human endeavor where technology and money don’t pre-determine participation and success? Isn’t that one of the things that make drawing, painting and sculpting so unique – that you don’t have to be well-financed or well-born to do it… and do it well?
There is an unspoken sense of separate-but-equal segregation that pervades the art world as much as it ever did in the ad world. Even if separate-but-equal was true and achievable, which it isn’t, it would be sad. This is the new millennium folks. DuSable Museum, Little Black Pearl, The Southside Community Art Center, The South Shore Cultural Center and all the new Black-owned galleries in Bronzeville together don’t make up for the virtual absence of Black artists downtown, in the major art districts and major commercial galleries.
The Art Institute had an exhibit a few years ago that proudly touted its 300 piece collection of African American art out of the approximately 25,000 works it has on display. Ironically, that percentage is not much different than the 1% I figured in my Print Magazine piece.
Of course, there’s always the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. It may not seem broke to most White artists, administrators, collectors and funding institutions. But for non-White artists in Chicago, it’s always been broke. The only question is, who’s going to help fix it? When?
Lowell Thompson is an artist/writer who began to paint seriously in 2000, after over 30 years creating ads and commercial communications for some of America’s leading advertising agencies and companies. He won numerous awards and honors, including the Clio, the “Oscar” of advertising for his art direction and co-production of the “Da Bulls” campaign for the Chicago Bulls. His most recent writing has been published in the Chicago Reader and Chicago Life (a supplement to the Sunday New York Times). His art is represented in a growing number of private collections. He is also represented in Daniel T. Parker’s book, “African Art: The Diaspora and Beyond.” See more of Thompson’s work here: http://www.saatchiart.com/LowellThompson
