(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - I'm a public artist based in Richmond, Virginia and a public artist is someone who creates experiences in the built environment that often kind of like tell the temperature or a story of a community.

(bright upbeat music) Being a public artist, you often have to paint in not ideal weather conditions.

Ideal time is the summer, which is usually bakin' hot.

I've had to paint on a rooftop when it was 100 degrees.

So you soak a towel with cold water, and you put on your head and you gotta stay really hydrated.

Two weeks ago I was painting in 30 degree weather.

This summer I did a piece here in Downtown Richmond which was 60 feet up in the air.

It was this little rickety boom lift which it's always swayin' back and forth.

(gentle music) So this particular piece is a piece called "Finding Tomorrow".

It's a piece that was done for the Mending Walls project.

I created the Mending Walls project in 2020 as a reaction to the murder of George Floyd.

The Mending Walls project is about putting together artists from different backgrounds to have conversations around social and racial justice.

And so this particular piece was done by myself and Eli McMullen, and it depicts Lorna Pinckney who was a bridge connector here in Richmond.

She passed in 2017, but she started Tuesdays Verses here and fostering a lot of other creative projects here in Richmond.

Art has always been my passion.

Actually, the reason I started with architecture is because I fell for that stereotype of being a starving artist.

So I wanted to do something creative that I could get paid for but when I lost my position as an architect the thing that I did was I started creating art and I started showing it everywhere.

(pensive music) I actually have done many pieces of public art with a organization by the name of Girls for a Change.

The one I believe that started it all was a piece in Downtown Richmond on 1st and Broad Street.

And this particular piece happened because I had heard one of their girl action teams speaking to a group of people downtown and talking about seeing themselves represented in a different light.

That piece was great because one, it was the first mural here in Richmond that portrayed a black woman but also getting to see the joy in their faces and to be able to put out something that truly represented them in the city that everyone could see and carry the message of Girls for a Change, which is kind of a life changing experience for me also.

(upbeat percussive music) "Struggles in the Ruffles" was a piece that caused a little bit of controversy.

Of course, with African American, Black people we have trauma with the American flag.

So I depicted two Black women in the ruffles of the American flag and dropping it in a black area.

I knew that it was gonna cause some questions and some conversation.

Egglestons and the Stallings have left kind of a rich legacy here in Jackson Ward.

And so using their likeness to highlight Jackson Ward and all the stuff that they've done here was kind of showing the history here in Jackson Ward cuz Jackson Ward is changing so much now just because of the times and people building and things like that.

So I wanted to be able to put the history on the wall.

(gentle music) There are people who ask me to do commissions on things where I'm like, oh, the brick is so beautiful.

I don't wanna paint on this.

And the other way around where I see things that could just be perfect, that could speak to a community or an area and will really get a message across.

Location is always super important, and I usually try to work that into my work.

I love this responsibility and semi power that I have in being able to control a narrative through my work.

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