[soft inspirational music] - To be an artist, you have to show your vulnerability and that's the scariest thing to do.

And I think that was part of me sort of hiding my past.

It was a very small group of people that knew what that life was.

The kind of drama that's not wrapped up at the end.

I grew up in Manhattan at a very fancy building called River House, 435 East 52nd Street.

And I was there because my parents were the domestics for a very wealthy Greek family.

We lived in the servants quarters.

I didn't have any toys, but in those rooms, we would make up stories.

And I remember playing with pencils.

And pencils became dolls.

When I was growing up, I really didn't think of myself as separate.

I knew there were little differences, but they did not seem so vast.

The daughters, they named me and they taught me how to walk.

The only time I felt different was, one time I had to leave New York and we had to live in South Carolina with my grandma because she was ill and my mother was taking care of her.

And I went to an all Black school.

And that was the first time I'd ever been in a school where all of the students were Black.

And that was the most time I felt different because they kept saying I was different, that I spoke funny.

After high school, I really didn't talk about it because I became aware of what the early years of my life were like.

What do I think?

I think that's much better.

No idea what that is, but it's better.

The two figures on the right are sort of challenging each other in terms of what their identity is going to be.

Are they girls playing as boys?

Are they boys playing as girls?

- [Interviewer] Why do you like ambiguity?

- Because life is like that.

[gentle inspirational music] I think every Black experience is very particular to that person.

I don't think there's one way of being Black.

I can be with these Greek white girls and I can also be with my relatives in the deep south on a farm.

I can be with my friends who lives across the street from Riverhouse.

And I can be with my cousins who lived in Harlem.

Bennington College, 1969.

Color field painting was king.

But I was drawn to figurative painting because I wanted to tell stories.

So I was on the outside of the castle, way down the stream on the other side of town.

Bennington reflected what the larger art world was looking at.

Since I didn't expect to have any place anyway, it sort of freed me to sort of do whatever I wanted to do.

There were a lot of other venues that were happening in the city at that time.

There were shows in clubs and disco.

Very odd, very alternative spaces.

I decided, you know what?

"If I am gonna devote my life to it, why don't I tell stories about my life, things that I really feel are important and I wanna get out?"

[birds chirping] I think that the environment is totally different from when I finished art school.

The Black students at the time, we formed a little union because it was the most Black students that Bennington had ever had.

I think there were 12 of us.

There's much more recognition.

People are looking at work by Black artists.

We're in more museums.

[camera clicking] There's a big awakening.

I talk about my childhood now very freely.

That happened.

Now it's just part of my history.

I enjoyed that time in my life and I like to recreate it and sort of change it around.

Not illustrate it, but talk about it again.

See what happens if I bring it into my life now.

It gives the figures a history.

[bright music] [bright music continues] [bright music continues] Painting is not dead!

Painting lives!

I like sort of thinking about it because in a way, I'm reliving all of that youthfulness and energy and hopefulness every day that I come into the studio.

In my work, that's what I do.

I don't see the boundaries of race, class, gender as boundaries.

I see them as malleable and things don't always go together.

But that is just my life.

This is the only place where I am in complete control.

This is the one place where I come first.

I made my figures right up front because you can't ignore me, because I'm right there staring at you, almost jumping out at you.

Someone asked me, "Well, are they ever gonna grow up?"

And my answer to that would be, "Why would they grow up?"

People love to talk about the whole Peter Pan thing.

Well maybe I'm thinking of that.

There isn't an upside to growing up.

They become wiser, but they will always have the exuberance of youth and the hopefulness of youth and the curiosity that youth brings.

And hopefully I will also have that.

And that's what keeps me painting.

That's what keeps me painting.

[bright music continues] [bright music continues]