"Culture is an indespensible weapon in the freedom struggle.
We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past."
- Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)
As far back as i can remember, i've always had an interest in drawing pictures. i have liked drawing since childhood. i wanted to be a cartoonist; then i aspired to be an architect. i studied drafting in junior high school in 1967 and in high school in 1972.
i work in all mediums of arts and crafts. My specialty is oil painting. Brother William "Rooster" Turner taught me how to paint while We were serving time in prison in 1975. i also took a formal art course while in prison and received a certificate for over a thousand hours of training in theory and practice.
Art is an integral part of human culture. i am trying to communicate a sense of self-determination through my art. People can create their own way of life like an artist can create a painting on canvas. i am trying to communicate to the poor and oppressed a vision of hope and a solution as to what must be done to change our environment. There is another way of thinking independent of the enemy (oppressor) ideology; and i try hard to communicate this message through my art.
Ernie Barnes, Rooster, and the millions of Afrikan and indigenous Indians are my favorite artists. Most are unknown and unrecognized for their great and magnificent contributions to an advanced civilization in harmony with nature prior to European, and in some instances, Arab conquest. Art is a standard by which civilizations are measured.
Art is an integral part of culture, and culture is a complete way of life. The living and dead speaks through their art which indicates many things, including the growth and development of that society. For example, the only bona fide records that prove the existence of many tribes or nations of antiquity-that they did in fact once live-is revealed by the unearthing of remnants of their artifacts
Contemporary artists who are also comrades here at Indiana State Prison who i would like for others to know about are brothers Kondo Nassor, Cazrlos Vaden and Lumumba. They are productive New Afrikans.
Black folks need to have national consciousness here in amerikka as a sense of their worth and identity. A nationally conscious people are in constant movement toward building and constructing their society, providing for their basic material and spiritual needs. And in the case of being destroyed or conquered, a nationally conscious people are in the process of organizing a movement to rebuild what was destroyed.
i attempt via my art to cultivate this national or social consciousness by giving Black folks in particular a clear vision of an objective goal in relation to the past. i try to make people think in terms of revolutionary change and to fight for that change on every level of society. My art is New Afrikan revolutionary art.
All artists are imitators of life and what We think death is. In my estimation, contemporary 'Black' art as a whole is a diverse subculture rising. It's a fusion of cultures. The commercialization of contemporary 'Black' art is counter-productive because it imitates what is pleasing to the enemy (our conquerors the colonialists). Money becomes the motivating factor as opposed to organization and movement independent of the enemy. Revolutionary change takes place in the mind first. when the enemy controls Our art (culture), they also control Our thinking. They dictate what We are to think and do that is acceptable to them.
The Black contemporary artist must produce art that inspires or motivates the poor and oppressed to be free and independent in every respect. People who fight for their freedom and take it are dignified and highly admired.
As-Salaam Alaikum
Rebuild to Win!
(copyright 2000 by Zolo Agona Azania)