0.17 Harvey johnson, b. 1947  (Page 3/4)

“something happened to me…“

When John came back from Africa, the University of Texas Press published in ’62 the Ananse book.

I went back to my dorm and I produced three pictures. I’ll never forget them because he framed them and put them in the hallway foyer of the art center. That’s when I started understanding life in terms of circles and understanding ourselves in terms of a circle. And that’s how my expression developed from John’s Ananse. The web of life.

John was not selfish. John was a giver. And he loved his students and the giving to us. He wanted us to find ourselves and express our culture, not to diminish the importance of others’ culture, but to find ourselves, you know? So he gave as much as he could that way. This is how he taught us. How he taught us skills—but it was his being a man that gave, at least me, the most in regard of fulfilling myself as a poet. Yeah, John was an incredible man.

Women in my work

Women are so important. They serve as a guiding light for me because men are so selfish in regard to women, and their power has gotten them into trouble. In a spiritual there’s a six-pointed star and that star has to do with a woman and her responsibility for everything that exists that has proof. For me my mother was so important in that regard. I would say you know, respect women. I don’t think they get enough respect in society today. And I think they have the key not just to creation, but to love. They are the key to the continuity. We are their resurrection, and they teach us about not being selfish, and stability of family and community. That’s why I create women a lot in my work. I don’t be dissing men. I mean, I don’t mean to diminish the importance of men at all, but women are not put on a pedestal in this country, you know?

All god’s chillun got wings

My mural in Clinton Park Community Center, All God’s Chillun Got Wings, truly exemplifies my belief about the spirituality of the African family in America. That’s what it’s really about. So in the mural I start off talking about the Bible. “In the beginning is the Word, and the Word was with God….” This is the first of a triple middle passage that the mural embraces. That first middle passage is about the womb, the mother’s womb, and the birth of the child. So I use the African drum to speak of the word as the child comes out of the womb. The second middle passage in the mural has to do with the passage of the African through the transatlantic slave trade. The third middle passage has to do with the transformation of our children coming out of the fires of life and using their crowns as keys to the infinite possibilities of us as spiritual beings and defining us therefore as human beings. And of course the children in the mural—and it’s about the children—are the resurrection of ourselves. The elderly you see serve as a restoration of balance to life, and that’s why the young and the old have this bond, this commonality. That’s why they understand each other.