Ishmael Adams
Professor Doris Cacoilo
Activist, Interlop & Pranksters Fall 2025
10/1/2025
This Is What I Know About Art
"For so many young people of color, we feel like we don’t have the luxury of exploring the liberal arts—society tells us that we have to take coursework to become high earners to make valuable contributions to the world." (pg.14)
I've had fairly positive and supportive friends and family in regards to my hope in succeeding in the art and creative world, of which I am blessed and grateful for. I've also had a fair number of detractors as well who don't value art as much as my family do. Though I admit it's a hard place to gain footing in, there are a number of people who regard me pursuing any art or creative medium as a waste of time or not financial smart because of how unstable the art world is in finding work. The assumption that you need to be a financial agent or a banker or a lawyer to be successful and give up on your dreams for financial gain even for what seems or is planned to be a small time is still the ever present myth in American culture, specifically when it comes to people of color was we are usually thrown to the latter rungs of society and have to pull ourselves back up.
"As time went on, I also realized that I didn’t get many opportunities to learn about the artists and movements that got me interested in art in the first place. There have been Black people since the beginning of time, but I was not seeing any of their art in any of my classes. How would I find more artists like Basquiat, Hancock, Simpson, or Ligon?" (pg.20)
Since I was a child I've done art and as I've grown older and gotten to opportunities to learn more about other artists of history or even artists in general most of them have boiled down to either contemporary artists like Andy Warhol or historical artists like Paul Rubens. All of whom I've learn of outside of my own personal research have been old white guys. I would image since we go to an art school their would be more variety in the artists and the type of artists we're taught of to expand our knowledge and better expand our art. Find more abstract artists, more street artists, more comic and manga artists, we can even be taught about book cover artists. There's valuable art to learn from aside from the classics and more people that come from different backgrounds to learn from.
"Later that year, Americans witnessed the murder of John Crawford III at a Walmart, Akai Gurley in New York City’s Pink Houses, Laquan McDonald, and twelve-year-old Tamir Rice, killed right before his sister’s eyes. Every opportunity to heal the wound was met with extreme violence and disappointment." (pg.50)
America as a system and even the American public has a problem making the killing of innocent people of color a sad, but ultimately inconvenient non issue. Look at the amount of names on the quote above my comments, that shouldn't be acceptable in anyway and yet for centuries black people have been murdered left, right and center to the point we have to tell 5 and 6 year olds to be careful around police. Though I'm sure the news of this is nothing new to most people, and that's the most worrying part, as a lot of people seem apathic or accepting that this is the way it is since it's been that way for years. Even with all the progress made in recent years, it's a snails pace compared to all the police brutality, harassments and killing. After someone of color is murdered, and it always takes someone being murdered in a brutal fashion for people to start noticing, then after a few weeks to a few months people forget again and the cycle continues.
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| Carolyn Mims Lawrence Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free, 1972 |
A Tumblr post I would create and focus on are steps to be able to successfully navigate the art world. Over the course of the history of art there is a large proportion of artists that struggle with monetizing their work for financial gain leaving the artist to not have sufficient or stable income from their work. Even relatively famous artists and creatives in general wind up dying penniless for their extraordinary work because they either didn't know how to get more work or their work got bought out by corporations who use their work without giving back royalties.
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