AROUND THE CORNER
The African American Master Artists’ in Residence Program, in Transition.
ISSUE 1: THE UN/MAKING ISSUE
Across two of the building’s four floors are the studios, each a veritable reserve of work from some of Boston’s most lauded artists, including James Reed (initially a co-director of the group), John Wilson, Theresa India Young, Allan Rohan Crite, Barbara Ward Armstrong, Arnold Hurley, Milton Derr, and Stanley Pinkney. Recently, AAMARP has come into conflict with Northeastern University, which owns the building and has not met expectations as a landlord. This made it difficult for new artists to join the residency. In response, AAMARP is adapting: opening itself up to the community once again after Covid-19 with events and programs, while adjusting the collective’s leadership structure and re-dedicating its strategies for stewarding its legacy into the next half century.
Editor Alula Hunsen spoke with Reginald L. Jackson, the current director of the collective, speaks about the organization’s recent transition towards a different leadership model, and about how AAMARP hopes to carry itself into the next 50 years.
As Black and Brown artists, we have been so marginalized that any little thing can get under our fingernails. We don't want to be fighting internally because it gets in the way of maintaining and developing an organization, fast!
Reginald Jackson: Consensus-building is a model that works: it’s more community-oriented. And, as a collective of artists and creative folk who operate mostly outside the box, we really need to be able to hear everyone’s voice. It’s a model that I had heard about and to some extent participated in via the community organizations I've been involved in. I was president of the United Neighbors of Lower Roxbury for maybe 10 years or so, and consensus-building was a style that we used there. People need to feel like they have some ability to participate directly in making decisions.
As a director at AAMARP, people will often ask me, “Well, what did you decide?” I usually reply, “I didn't decide anything!” We have an Executive Committee and several other committees, and I’ll ask them how they feel; I usually vet things with them to find a solution, then I can say, “Okay, this is what the Executive Committee thinks or this is the recommendation from this or that committee. Now, what do you all think?” If we follow this process, then nobody comes back later on and says, “Well, hey, why are we doing this or that? I think we should be doing ‘XYZ’!” If you come to meetings, if you read and approve the minutes, and vote, then you know what’s going on and can be an integral part of the decision making process.
It sounds like transparency and a collectivization of responsibility have strengthened the governance of this space.
Yes, I think so. It's really important. You know, as Black and Brown artists, we have been so marginalized that any little thing can get under our fingernails. We don't want to be fighting internally because it gets in the way of maintaining and developing an organization, fast!
In the next iteration of AAMARP, I think there needs to be a little more interdependence and accountability to each other.
Basically, after 20-plus years of hosting AAMARP at our current location, Northeastern decided that they wanted their 2 floors back. They came to our location in 2018 to do a walkthrough and said that they discovered things they weren't happy about; they alleged that the building was not safe. So they decided that they would work on evicting us. They then changed the lock on the front door, so we had no access to our work and to the building.
We invited the Director of the Inspectional Services Department in Boston to come with his team and inspect the building. They reported no safety issues. We ended up down at City Hall with then-Mayor Marty Walsh and Chuck Turner, who convinced Northeastern they should not put our artists out on the street. Northeastern replied by essentially saying, “let's see if we can convince you to leave by giving you some money to find another building,” sweetening the deal. The artists agreed that we'd stay until a better or comparable situation was found with adequate space, sustainability, storage and status; if not, we were not going to go anywhere. We brought in a realtor and searched the immediate area for several months, to no avail. The Executive Committee met regularly with Northeastern’s legal counsel, community liaison, faculty, and staff, for well over a year, to begin to fashion a solution that would work for everyone involved—but we still have not gotten to that place yet. So that's where we've been and where we are currently.
This has been going on for so long that we realized, in this struggle, we needed to be able to better communicate with folks on campus, and with our communities and our elected officials, to help them understand what is going on. We were able to get the late Chuck Turner and Mel King, in addition to a few more government and community folk, involved to help us. We also realized we needed to stay responsive to community needs, so we put together a Community Advisory Board of respected community leaders so that we could get the oversight we needed to foster solid support.
Most folks feel that it is important for Northeastern University to continue its support after all these years, for the university to stay committed to AAMARP’s artists; and so that younger artists can look forward to the university continuing to be responsive to the needs of the community well into the future. While it'd be great to say, “Well, we're becoming more independent and we will eventually have this covered,” in this real estate market in Boston, it is highly unlikely we will find anything in the way of space, access, and sustainability in the Black community comparable to what we have experienced all these years. We are steadfastly working to develop an arrangement that will be flexible enough to manage changes as they come down the road for, say, the next 20 years.
We're dealing with storage, we're dealing with space, we're dealing with sustainability, we're dealing with status. Whatever we do, those four issues need to be properly addressed. I don't know exactly what that model will be—whether it's moving towards housing, or whether it's developing a system that gives the artists a chance to support the program through a sustainable model, or even continued talks with Northeastern to refashion a respectful, reciprocal relationship.
Also, we need to bring in a new cohort of young artists. Most of us as Master Artists have been able to establish ourselves over decades, having worked regionally, nationally and internationally; it’s time to bring in young people who have heart, who understand the mission, who know who they are, and who have spent time with us so that they understand the struggle.
To live and work in Boston is not within the grasp of most artists of color in this city, let alone getting access to a studio space here. So, in the next iteration of AAMARP, I think there needs to be a little more interdependence and accountability to each other.
We need to be a little more compulsory with our group dynamic, as opposed to the “I” dynamic.
Well, us collectively bringing in resources on an annual basis. We’d also like to build a mentorship program where current members at AAMARP could bring on mentees who could become a part of our family of AAMARP artists.
Getting young artists and community here in the building is a priority. When I think about these two floors of studios and galleries, and the art that's in this building that people don't know about or have much access to… it’s a shame. There are many decades of sweat and toil here. We’ve got to do a lot better at engaging with outside communities to get this work seen. Our upcoming exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Mayor’s Gallery at City Hall, and Milton Academy move us closer to our goal.
We need to find the means to concentrate a little more on publicizing our work, and on our commitment to our neighbors around us; we also need to be a little more compulsory with our group dynamic, as opposed to the “I” dynamic. Being an artist is usually a solo activity so with us, you know, the first thing is “I.” Getting artists in a collective to shift from “I” to “us” in their approach to singular opportunities is hard; especially for artists who systematically have not been given their due. But by the grace of God we wouldn't still be in this building today if we amazing artists hadn’t all worked together and didn't continue to stick together to make a cohesive whole.