(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - My process of creating works like this.

I have an experience and that experience takes me through all my other experiences I've had and I find these connecting points.

Once I do that, I kind of think about how does that connect me to people?

As an artist, I work a lot and it's not just physical work, it's a lot of mental work that goes into the pieces and it's like I'm on this emotional archeological dig a lot of the time from searching for how can I say what I feel and that's hard to do to translate it.

(upbeat music) So this piece right here, "Keys to Success," its typewriter is a typewriter that my grandmother had forever.

You have to do the work to write your own story and the typewriter represents that for me and you can see the action happening.

I like those hammer keys.

You can just see them going.

There's a certain amount of strength you have to have to get it done and when you do make a mistake, you have to actively correct it.

There's not a backspace.

There are no little blue lines beneath it to let me know I made a mistake.

I have to have the conscious act of I made a mistake and being able to recognize that represents what we have to do in our lives 'cause, otherwise ,people write our stories for us.

And right here in this little tiny lettering right above the ribbon, it reads "in the beginning."

I love that.

It's the story, it's that one that you choose to write.

My grandmother's a big influence on me.

In my life, we went to her house every single day and so she was on the civic league and sometimes they would have little pre-meetings at her house so I understood the power of social activism and the responsibility of civic activism, right?

When it's time to vote, you go vote.

You have to literally jump into your civic life.

You have to jump into citizenship and it's like double Dutch.

It's like you have to catch it and then when you do, you jump in and sometimes you get hit by that rope.

Citizens are actually participating in painting a mural and murals are things we see in our community, so metaphorically, whatever you wanna see in your community, you have to have a direct hand in making it happen.

You can't hope somebody else is gonna do it this way.

You have to be a part of the group to help make those decisions.

Did a piece called "Far from Mana."

In interviews with people as to what it's like living in a food desert, what things happen, what things don't happen, what promises are made that don't get kept, what agencies help you, which do not, which people are there for you, what are your greatest needs, what are your greatest fears?

So I did things like I caught the bus because they told me about the Number Four bus would take them to the Food Lion.

I saw the bus go by.

I was like blow it.

You know my first world spoiled yourself, I was slammed, about to call an Uber.

I had pulled up the app.

I was like, oh, somebody's seven minutes away and then I was like, they won't call an Uber.

They have to wait for that next bus.

So I stood out there with my few bags waiting for the bus.

Imagine if I had for real amounts of groceries, how would I do this?

What if I had small kids with me?

How would I do this on a daily or weekly or monthly basis and all of those things resulted in the painting that was like 54 by 84 inches 'cause it needed to be large.

This is for each artist and person whose mission is exposing personal community and global issues, working toward the progression of humanity.

This is for each of you who's ever thought or dreamed of making a mark from Earth, letting the world know you danced on this Earth, even if only for a short while.

This is for us.

Too often, we treat our history as rubble, something to forget, something to erase, something of which to be ashamed, but your history's your cornerstone.

It's your birthright of existence and you have to build on that.

My job is to tell the story while I'm here.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)