By VCUarts staff
VPM News Focal Point recently aired an episode featuring several VCUarts alumni and graduating seniors to discuss the evolving professional landscape for emerging and established artists in Virginia. The segment highlights VCUarts alumni Scott DuBar and Assil Diab, who offer advice and share their experiences as professional artists. In addition, VPM speaks with three graduating VCUarts students to hear their thoughts as they prepare to enter into the professional art world.
VPM is a weekly half-hour show, hosted by award-winning journalist Angie Miles, that features in-depth reporting on statewide news concerning culture, politics, business, health, the environment, race, science and the arts.
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VPM News Focal Point, 4/21 Episode Transcript
26:47
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
artists, art, people, virginia, gospel music, vcu, graduating, work, world, giovanni, freelance, hear, professional, god, love, black, life, protests, painting, cadence
00:00
The tassels are about to turn for another class of college graduates. What kind of work will they find? And what does the changing professional landscape hold for those who aspire to be working artists? More than 40 years after graduating from Virginia State University, the Reverend Cora Harvey Armstrong is a working artist who is a global gospel tour de force. We’ll hear lively piano, thundering vocals and personal reflections from the King and Queen County native, and learn about a special space for people of color who are also people of creativity. You’re watching VPM News Focal Point.
00:36
Production funding for VPM News Focal Point is provided by: Dominion Energy, dedicated to reliably delivering clean and renewable energy throughout Virginia…Dominion Energy actions speak louder; the estate of Mrs. Ann Lee Saunders Brown and by viewers like you…thank you.
01:33
Welcome to VPM News Focal Point. I’m Angie Miles. In this program we’ll explore what it means to be a working artist in today’s professional climate. But first, a look at news from around Virginia. In Blacksburg, Virginia Tech has honored the memory of 32 people killed in a mass shooting on the University’s campus 15 years ago. At the time it was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Statewide, Virginia State Police have kicked off Operation Safe Passage, a Human Trafficking Prevention Initiative in conjunction with the Virginia Trucking Association and other groups. There were more than 100 known incidents of human trafficking in Virginia in 2020. In the Tidewater region, Hampton University has announced its incoming president, retired three-star general Darryl Williams is a graduate of Hampton, one of the nation’s oldest historically black universities. Find more local and national stories at vpm.org/focal Point. Virginia is home to one of the country’s top ranked public art schools, Virginia Commonwealth University. This spring’s graduating class joining the ranks of two and a half million professional artists in America. These painters, illustrators, musicians, writers, and designers earn their living with a creative work of their hands and hearts. Our Samantha Wills spoke with two VCUarts graduates and with two legendary artists already at work in the Commonwealth.
03:00
So we know that the world is important.
03:04
Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned writer and longtime English professor at Virginia Tech. In the 1960s. Giovanni’s writing reflected a nation splintered by racism and poverty. Today her poetry still addresses social problems and encourages political empowerment
03:17
Now wrote a poem called vote. I talked about it like it’s very important, it’s important to vote, even if you don’t like any of the people write your grandmother’s name and don’t let them silence you. That’s what’s that’s what’s important. “Summer. Not a bit of breeze…”
03:37
Giovanni’s latest project is with celebrated tenor saxophonist and educator Javon Jackson. The album of spirituals, black sacred music, evoke the pain that enslaved people experienced, and the powerful messages infused in their music.
03:51
If you can imagine your child being snatched from you and sold, and you still found a way to sing.
03:58
Because the poem on Wade in the Water, the last phrases, I’ve got a mind to build a new world want to play. We’re still today saying let’s build a new world. So each one of us has our own calling. To try to make a new world.
04:19
Giovanni’s career represents an uncommon degree of professional success and cultural significance. Whether or not newer artists reach that same level, career consultant Yvonne Thayer says there’s a good chance they can make a living and make art.
04:31
Now the arts I think, have the opportunity to see an explosion of opportunities for them across all kinds of jobs sectors as the technology allows that
04:42
About 16% of Americans have done gig work, like delivering groceries via an online platform, driving for Uber or freelance content creation. aspiring artists might do this kind of gig work while building their careers. Thayer says graphic designers and illustrators, for instance, might pick up freelance content creation gigs on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Illustrator Scott DuBar’s, a Charlottesville based VCU arts grad and freelance contributor to magazines, children’s books and more. The secret to making it as a professional artist, Dubar says, is a little luck and a lot of perseverance.
05:15
It’s a bit of both, you know, I mean, you kind of make your own luck in a way like you put in the effort and you have a real interest a sustained interest and you can because having a career in art means getting rejected a lot.
05:30
A career in art also means finding balance between commission work and personal passion projects, street artists and graphic designer, Assil Diab, who works under the pseudonym Sudalove.
05:41
The challenge is when when do you know when to be a fully professional artists and when do you want to do some community work and how do you make the shift in between both because something has to give
05:55
Diab’s art raises awareness about global issues and has often put her life in danger during Sudan’s deadly political protests.
06:03
It was so easy for them to just know shoot you while you’re painting. And that’s that’s for participating in the protests.
06:12
The VCUarts grad says beyond pursuing professional success, the role of working artists should be to create, inspire and provoke
06:21
Everybody can do some sort of art right? Everybody can. Art is art and everybody has something to be creative at. But not everybody can can use that as a responsibility to spread awareness on what’s going on in the world right now.
06:45
Reporting for VPM news Focal Point, I’m Samantha Willis.
06:51
Next month, Diab returns to her alma mater to create a mural on VCUarts’ Teresa Pollock building in Richmond. She will be the first Black woman artists to do so. VCUarts expects to graduate more than 500 students this spring. And in the interest of full disclosure, I have an occasional working relationship apart from VPM with one of the artists who appeared in the story, that relationship has no bearing on his inclusion in our report. We spoke with several graduating VCU art students to hear their thoughts as they embark on the world of work. Here is our In Focus segment.
07:32
My name is Winston and my area of study is Communication Arts with a concentration in visual effects.
07:39
Shane Herrera, my area studies painting and printmaking
07:41
Noren Gelberg-Hagmaier, and my area of study is kinetic imaging, and I have a minor in sculpture.
07:48
What do you see as the prospects for making money as an artist moving forward,
07:54
I’m going into a more studio based working environment where I would like sign a contract, like a working contract and hopefully get health insurance. But yeah, so I see my money, being steady in that way working in the studio. But I also still want to do freelance work, and have fun with that.
08:17
I don’t necessarily make a lot of physical art that can be sold. So I’m not looking to like exhibit and sell. But I guess a lot of it would come from like maybe doing some freelance work or grants and like applying to be like artists and residency and some of those have like stipends. So yeah, I feel like maybe making money as an artist is a little bit more complicated for me, but like working other jobs on the side is something that supports my artistic practice.
08:44
So for me, I have a lot of other just like, I don’t wanna say hobbies, but other interests of mine, like photography, and then, of course, like my painting and fine art,
08:56
But you don’t have concerns about making money?
08:59
Oh, I did freshman year. And I think it hindered a lot of my work because I only really started making work that I felt would sell. And so I lost like a good like two years of me like really using my own voice in my own work. And so, I found that again, like Junior junior year and senior years, so it’s been really good.
09:21
When you hear the term starving artists, which you’ve probably heard a lot. What do you think? (Winston) I used to be bullied by some family members growing up, they would point to homeless people on the street and be like, that’s you when you grow up. And, you know, that’s rude. Like, you don’t know what a homeless person is going through. You’re closer to being homeless than being a billionaire. So and, and I think the term starving artist is lazy.
09:51
Is there a connection between the current emotional and mental state of the world and what art might be able to do to help solve some of the problems that people aren’t solving very easily on their own?
10:04
I’ll be like talking to someone and like, I can’t even draw a stick figure and I’m like, Okay, well, but I’m sure there’s something creative that you want to do to your express yourself or like, just take like paint and like just, you know, and like, I think that is so soothing. And like also then not putting that pressure on yourself for it to be something marketable. Like it doesn’t art doesn’t have to be something that sells it can just be something that’s enriching to you.
10:30
You can find more of our interview with these young artists on our website vpm.org/focal point.
10:37
This week in our People of Virginia segment, we asked Virginians a few questions. Does art have power? What impact does it have on our lives? Is Art a luxury or a necessity? Here are some of their responses.
10:51
I think no matter how an artist expresses themselves, you know, their message behind it is always something with intention. And I think that’s very powerful.
11:00
You don’t get that type of emotion without power behind the type of art that you’re trying to do. So I absolutely do believe that there’s, there’s art. I mean, there’s power within that.
11:09
It’s a luxury because a lot of the supplies are not easily accessible by people that don’t have a lot of income. But it’s also a necessity for creative people, such as myself that feel the need to make things,
11:26
watch more responses about art and view the work of Virginia affiliated professional artists on our website at vpm.org/focal Point.
11:43
Virginia Union University recently announced a new center directed by Hezekiah Walker, a Grammy winning choirmaster. He’s teaching about gospel music, an art form rooted in southern Black church culture. Reverend Cora Harvey Armstrong is a Virginia Union alumna and noted Gospel Artist whose career spans 50 years and three continents. Editorial producer Samantha Willis shares her story now, in part three of our series on Black churches.
12:14
You all ready? You all ready? (Armstrong) Traditional gospel to me is music that really speaks of him.
12:46
Gospel music is history. It’s a life. It’s an expression. It’s a culture.
12:52
It helps me get through life. And I just love to listen to gospel music, just lift my spirits and my soul and that makes me feel good.
13:05
Gospel music means to me an opportunity to change lives and opportunity to impact lives and opportunity to let God know that He could trust me with the ministry that He has birthed within me because it is a responsibility. You just can’t sing and you just can’t talk it, you have to live it.
13:21
It’s one thing about music, and especially gospel music. If you’re looking for something if you’re going through a struggle, I believe there’s a song that’s in gospel music that can take you through the process of coming out whatever that struggle is.
13:36
Learning how to love the Lord and getting somewhere requires going through some stuff. So traditional music, gospel music will help you get through some stuff.
14:04
If I don’t have anything to do in the course of a day I get up, I come out here early in the morning, I bring my Bible, my books, my water cup, anything that I need that I might need in the course of the day. … Yeah, you know how it is you read the Scripture and then the Lord starts talking to you. And then I bring my personal journal, and I write and so you know, songs come out of it. Sometimes He’s just telling me stuff for me. We’re in Newtown. Newtown is where we are at the uppermost part of the King and Queen County. My dad’s grandfather was a slave here. And when he was set free, he built the old house right back in the grove trees right back here. And so it’s 14 acres. And Momma and Daddy, you know, just left it to us. You want to sit on the swing? (Clara Jackson) Oh yeah, can. (Armstrong) We’ve got my Sister Clara who is next to me, I’m the oldest. Clara Jackson is my middle sister, my youngest sister, that’s BB. Her baby girl is Ruthie. And this is Clarissa, that is my niece, Chris is the one that tells me when I’m in the wrong key.
15:28
Everything is centered around family, church, God, you know. You had to go to church, it was no saying, I don’t feel like it today, or nothing like that, you know, you getting up and you’re going out. Daddy was not the most musical he could sing. But momma actually could play. And then of course, as we got older, we start singing in church choir too. Virginia State was the first time that I had been away from home in Newtown. And so my very first two semesters at Virginia State, I was the best student ever, until I heard the sound of rehearsal of the Gospel Choir one night, and I fell in love with that choir, and I fell in love with Larry Bland. And the following semester, I joined that choir, I just started hanging out with the choir and traveling and having the best time of my life. And when he decided that it was time to go, of course, they let me direct the choir. And I stayed at state for almost eight years. When you’re able to sing and play and all of this, you get a following of people who like to hear you sing and play. So you get this little bit of notoriety, you know. Well, in high school, I didn’t have that because I was always the biggest girl in the class, all the way through high school. And lots of kids, you know, you know how kids can be abusive. But when you’re, singing and playing, people started treating me a little bit better because they said, Who is she? She can do that! So you know, fellas kind of pay you a little bit more attention. And so when I started getting a little bit more attention, my focus on the Lord was like…
17:23
Choices that I made, and people that I married may not have always been good choices. But God can take what seems like a bad thing, and work it for your good. (Music) “Troubled thoughts, soul unrested…” People think that I am this wealthy gospel singer that travels the world. And yes, I am grateful for every place. I’ve been to Japan twice. I’ve been to Italy, maybe about 10 times. I’m just enjoying the gifts that God has given me but doing it sometimes without a dime in my pocket, and not embarrassed by the fact that I don’t have a dime in my pocket. Because every time the need came for something He always provided for me. Every single time He has provided for me. (Music) “And He says, I am here for you.” Tom with at Swift Creek Mill Playhouse auditioned me for a role in a play called Mahalia. The Mahalia Jackson story.
18:44
I got the part. God blessed me, every show. That started the ball rolling and God opening doors for me in ways that I never expected. And then Tom wrote a play about my life called Living in the Light. (From play) “I know now that the Lord is my shepherd, but I didn’t know it.” Where my story about failed marriages, abortions, things that had I had lived through in my own life, every bad relationship, every black eye, every nasty word said, everything that I had to go through, God was right with me. And even though I wasn’t necessarily paying Him attention, He never took his hands off me. Because He knew He knew that He had more for me to do.
19:51
You know at home, I’m getting filled. I’m getting ready. I’m getting, you know, what it is I need. Out in a place like this. You’re getting ready to give it to somebody else.
20:03
Well y’all have met one of the greatest of them all, the one, the only, Cora Harvey Armstrong. She’s not just a singer, she’s a mentor, many a sister to many, a mother to many, even in gospel music. A lot of us look up to her and she don’t even know it.
20:22
I go through this because God says that I gotta tell these people these three messages. I gotta tell them these messages
20:40
A preacher told me one time, “when I sit, and I hear you, I’m seeing, I’m watching you singing I’m hearing you sing,” he says, “it’s just like, you’re just letting us in on you worshiping God.”
20:52
You are the church that some people will only see, believing in 2021, some people have never stepped inside of a church. So we have to lead by example. We have to be the voice of God, being that church, being that representation of what God is.
21:20
We have a call on our lives and we believe in the ministry that has been placed in us. When we minister to his people, it ministers to us.
21:34
Whatever I have to go through and live through, and to witness to people about, if it helps somebody to make a better decision toward God and about themselves, I think that it’s worth me being transparent. You know, it’s worth people knowing my business. You know, and I don’t mind that because it helps somebody.
22:11
Come on, one more time for Sis. Cora Harvey Armstrong and the family.
22:19
Registration remains open for Virginia Union’s new gospel music curriculum, including classes on songwriting, publishing, and licensing. Prospective students and artists can visit the school’s website for details. Cadence Theatre in Richmond launched POC, which stands for people of creativity. POC merges art and activism while inspiring youth to speak out. Next, you’ll meet the teenager behind this creative outlet.
22:54
POC, it stands for people of creativity. We’re dedicated to giving artists of color a platform to talk about their works, and any of the social issues that are most important to them. We really want to help promote artists and their works get to know more about their journey to hopefully inspire younger artists of color to do the same. Representation is very important to us. We feel as though if people see people who look like them, doing the things that they’re interested in, it’ll motivate them to want to do the same and not feel like hopeless. It was back in 2020. Miss Anna had reached out to me she’s the artistic director of Cadence Theatre, but Miss Anna had reached out to me after seeing what I had did for Power N Blaso, when our Juneteenth event. I was very, very upset about the incident that happened with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and I was just in my bedroom sulking the whole entire time. I remember venting to a lot of my Black friends. And we were just very hurt by the circumstances. And we felt like we couldn’t do a lot because of our age. Our parents were very strict. They weren’t letting us go out to protest, especially in the middle of a pandemic. So that got me thinking of how I could merge the arts with activism, KDents TV, it’s like a play on words, because it’s with Cadence Theatre, but basically, it’s a whole bunch of teenagers, we come together, we had a few interviews about the importance of representation in media. That was like one of our biggest themes. And that was a lot of fun, because we were talking about like, all of the negative stigmas that TV kind of portrayed on people of color, especially Black people, and how it kind of like, is harmful in general, because people ended up believing that that’s fact. I love standing for underrepresented people. I love fighting for the underdog. And I feel like right now, US minorities, that’s where we’re at right now. I like comforting people. So I think that it makes sense that I’m doing what I’m doing right now because I’m merging my love for people. I’m merging my love for the arts and bringing it together. Even like the smallest things like just contacting artists in your community and just having a conversation with them and posting on YouTube, that’s a way to get your voice out there. That’s the way to fight for what you believe in. Activism isn’t just you protesting in the street, there’s various different forms, and you can do it. And whatever format makes you more passionate. And for me, that’s art. For most of my friends, that’s art.
25:21
We’ve reached the end of today’s show. Thank you for staying with us. We hope you’ve gained a fresh perspective on the impact of arts and the role of artists in Virginia. We welcome your feedback and story ideas at vpm.org/focal Point. We’ll see you next time.
25:35
Production funding for VPM News Focal Point is provided by: Dominion Energy, dedicated to reliably delivering clean and renewable energy throughout Virginia…Dominion Energy actions speak louder; the estate of Mrs. Ann Lee Saunders Brown and by viewers like you…thank you.
VCUarts graduating seniors (from left to right: Noren Gelber-Hagmeir, Shayne Herrera and Winston) speaking to Angie Miles for VPM News Focal Point.
Illustrator and VCUarts alum Scott DuBar speaking with VPM. Photo by VPM News Focal Point.
Muralist and VCUarts alum Assil Diab. Photo by VPM News Focal Point.
Illustrator and VCUarts alum Scott DuBar. Photo by VPM.