mcfarland welcome to conversation with al mcfarlane and you know it's all about the neighborhood this is a conversation about how we build our community our neighborhood my house family my family we're focusing on business creation welcome to conversations with mcfarlane i think about art all the time i think about the creative spirit i think about genius of our community and i enjoy every time i have the opportunity to spend some time with artists creators people that live eat sleep breed making art so i'm pleased to have a program today with three of such in this community my friend  and i've gone back maybe forty fifty years almost in minneapolis talking about art having a conversation we started that we have not finished it probably will never finish my friend charles caldwell owns the caldwell gallery in north minneapolis huge and super muralist and great painter and my friend nick homage who is a music producer he owns titan records so today's conversation is about art and for me art is about beauty virtuosity and i want to engage you brothers on the question of what virtual city what beauty means to you how the idea of  always shared not mine mine mine but ours you know confused when we were somewhere in chicago and it's all these people all kinds of people my mother said is your relatives so you know they're watching you so you need to watch them  so they lived in a cabin in south carolina and they would get from the person's house the magazines and the magazines have pictures of as with flowers and stuff like you know take those and plug up the holes in the capital and i realize i do  everybody has a value and has a skill so my whole thing is to try to bring that out evoke it lets them discover each other and discover me all at the same time i'm no big deal by myself but i'm a grain of clint one of the greatest artists in the world who happens to be african american and the stories he told were clearly african american base who happens to tell about what everybody goes through within that group that is so personal life was the first collaborative mural that he had ever done with such a large group of people and when he saw it he said oh yes you know because we took emerging artists we took we had everybody everybody was just buying into this thing it was on a li and it celebrated and when they tore that down they thought that just a small group of black people would be upset and all of minnesota all the world and a lot of them came got down on my case i'm like you know i'm only one people we're only a group of people they don't realize how many people paid attention to them so john biggers was a person that says when you do something for a community you engage the community but once you get done you take your hands off you go yeah you know  five or six when you did the painting he's been growing looking for the fulfillment of the prophecy that the preacher represents so your pictures your paintings your drawings are so rich and so real and the personal for a body that they touch mcfarland welcome back to conversations with l mcfarlane a delightful conversation with friends of mine who are creators who are artist and i'm maternal to brother charles called williams a studio in north minneapolis and is the proud proprietor and creator of a huge neural that invites people to our community in north minneapolis on west broadway charles welcome thank you so let me say that you've creative creativity to the community what is driving you if somebody had to describe charles call will what would you say speaking about yourself well that's a  represents so it's kind of a truth to be told so i take on the responsibility of making sure that the story is told correctly through the imagery that i create i try to capture the positive absence of our community the positive things we hear so much about the negative things that come out of the black community and so i'm not inspired by any of those things so the things that i create are positive things that's uplifting and once one looks at one of my paintings paintings i want to know walk away with a feeling that makes them think about themselves and the role that they play and making sure that they're part of that uplifting on the corner of broadway and fourth street just ninety four and broadway it's thirty five by a sixty foot miral hand painted one brush stroke at a time and it's done with  latex paint and i just it was a very great opportunity for me to be called upon to to take on that project its biggest piece that i've ever done and the thing about being an artist most of the paintings that i've done in private you know artists myself work a lot in the am when everybody is sleeping minister quiet time to just completely open up and just receive that spiritual guidance that guides me through my creative process and so that pride when i when i get the yes the ok that i was going to be selected to do that piece would walk up to that location and look at that wall and wonder how i was going to be able to complete that project knowing that i was going to be completely open to the public to watch every step of the way of doing that so i did a lot of praying and a lot of understanding that the artists that i had became become was going to be expressed on that big wall and big challenge the scene as a ban billy inspired by billie holiday the late billie holiday and she's in a vocal position so you can tell that there's music vocals coming out of her mouth the piano players just the hands in the piano keys  you could see a few of the keys compressed there's a bass player on there there's drummer drum set there and so the piece called came you hear me now so when you look at that piece and you think about the title of it it gives you a moment to stop and reflect in just listen and hear start to hear the sound of that piece because you know that just vocals coming out of that mouth and you know what that sounds like you hear the piano keys you know what that sound like so it gives your eyes an opportunity there to guide your ears to it listening sound that's there painted on a mirror that's a great thing about our it's a visual statement when they say a picture is worth a thousand words you can choose words and so when you're standing before a great work of art you can choose your own interpretation of the name you can choose words and things that you're familiar with to make you familiar with that sound so i chose that subject matter because music is universal so when you are doing public art it needs to be president and expressed in a way that the whole community in the hope that enjoys it can have some protests a patient in it and have it mean something to them in some kind of way and so when i was painting that people i would be up on the scaffold and i mean i would be anywhere from two hours to ten twelve hours a day on and then thousands of cars coming by people blowing their h just such a warm and welcoming and inviting peace and the subject matter was welcoming and inviting it's got some clouds and it's like a looks like a nice summer day and of course been in minnesota i was excited about how that piece was going to look and make people feel that it went time well i tell you this any time you see it you feel like you are being invited to north minneapolis what i love most about it is that these are black artist african american the can you hear me now is making a statement of ownership of north minneapolis to our community i get a feeling like this is a signal to signpost us is this was a house i'm walking into so you've created the signpost in the description and the definition of our neighborhood so we can say this is ours and the ours is ours but everybody else but we you know are the source of the center and the north and i would do a lot of creative things throughout the summers throughout the years i went to the minneapolis tech to institute for commercial arts and that year after i graduated from high school i would walk the streets to the bus  with my portfolio and i did that all summer long and people would see my peers would see me and i go man what are you going to tap big bag what do you do and what are you up to and i was just inspiring and encouraging every day that i got up in the mornings and took that walk about six blocks to the city bus stop and take the bus downtown and come back in the afternoon and that continues constant consistency that people were saying is on a daily basis so it was like watching me grow and watch me development so the same community that watched me grow as a kid watched me paint that mirror and so there was an awesome connection between  of people feel like that's belongs to them and as an artist when i create a piece usually when i create a small painting on a smaller scale i can when i'm done i can stand on the side of an edge and enjoy it as you do and so that miracle on broadway and ninety four when i drive for a drive in that direction you're a joy right i totally enjoy it and i mean i enjoy it to the point where it's not i'm not i don't embrace myself as being the person that created it but i braced myself as the person that something so great came through and it means so much to me and so many other people and some has a part  me and so when do you recognize that you have a gift to describe your your artistry your your talent i called it a gift to do you call it a gift i definitely call it again how did you know it how did you come to realize that and basically through the minneapolis public school system teachers recognized it as an add an early age and i realized that it was something special because i would always be given the opportunity to work in a space in the room of my own when i walked into a classroom the art teachers that knew i was coming to their class i always say hi charles you can work over there we'll teach a class over here because they acknowledge the fact that i had some special talents going to services it was nurtured and encouraged at an early age had a great relationships with all of my art teachers males females of different diversity's artists just such a universal thing that  just totally acceptable accepted in a broader scale of people and community and high school i had to our teachers one's name was sure all creasy actually t chrissy sandy wife and i had a social studies teacher named mr luis haps and i was the guy as most artists are doing a lot of duelling and in the classroom so i was a senior at this time and this happened kept me after report that you're going to have to have turned in to get your final grade and i don't think you're going to get it done so what i'm going to do is give you the opportunity to create a work of art because i see that that's what you love then you're not go be a social studies teacher when you leave high school acted see their art is going to be about your career your destination and so they give you the opportunity to create this work of art and efforts and that i can appreciate i'm going to make sure that that's going to get you passing grade and h p you move on to in the direction that you're going to go in and that was something that was so profound profound and powerful for me because i was getting ready to graduate from high school really didn't know what i was going to do and this teacher told me that this will get you what you need to get in what i have to list and so i was doing that time and i was the year that roots came out with alex haley and chose the subject her classroom and she said wow he's totally impressed and glad that i was able to see you for who you are and that right just kind of taught me that i was on my way and left there and i had two stops to make when i finished high school i was going to go to the art school downtown minneapolis community college for the military so i made those two steps i started to military office first on lake st they told me i needed to bring my social security card ahead and i won i did you need to id us so i said man i'm not coming back here i had two steps to make and this was my first start and so i got up i left i had a  by ten portfolio with me with some art images and i stopped at a community college downtown matusow sure counsellors there pulled out my portfolio and they said wow you're going to be starting school tomorrow i said tomorrow yeah i was an expectation that to happen so fast but the opportunity was there for me because there was no other student that didn't show up for that last spot guy was coming from ohio and they were so excited i said well ok i'll start tomorrow it was awesome and feel good for me to have someone tell me what direction i was needed to go and it was just encouraging that next step from miss louise hobson so how much how much does the spirit affect what you do both your life and what you see and what you present in ard beer it affects it totally controls everything that i think in do when it comes to art because i know what i when i create a work of art it's going to be what it's a blueprint and when i put my name on it it says that this blueprint was created by charles card well and so when someone looks at that piece and they say well who is this charles and what is this person about so every piece of work that i create is a reflection of who i am and what i'm about and a statement that i want to make to anybody that's looking at it so i try to make sure that it's positive make sure that it's honest make sure that it's meaningful it's true and it's encouraging to someone else that's looking at it you can say things to people with a picture that you can say with words your characters to me we're talking of trying to remember some things of many of the items of yours that i've looked at and the impressions they've made on me what's coming to my mind right now is images of of people and children that are full not skinny people but healthy people robust people and there's both a sense of brilliance the positive positivity so again when i say you know what you just described in what you see in my work is the description that i try to convey and because i want people to i want you to feel good about it i mean if you can have the roughest day toughest time and walk and see one of my paintings and get something that's going to give you some strength lift you lift your head up or put a thought in your mind i did a piece sisters i was out at the riverview supper club to display my work there and this lady came out and she looked at that painting it's a picture of two little girls sitting in a chair one's about five and the other one's about seven and their embrace the big sister's house in the little sister and you can just see the love depicts in that piece and this lady looked at that piece for a while she stood around for a while while i talked to other visitors and she and i looked at her as we got a moment to get a little closer and she was crying and i said wow and she said i bet you just think i'm just a crazy lady over here crying over this painting i said right here just brings back the love that we left behind to get us to where we are disconnected now and i want she was bought two of those paintings because she said this one is for me and i want to give one to my sister i seen her many years later and she just said charles she said you remember me and i said yeah and she said you know i still have my painting and my sister still has a painting and we have had a beautiful relationship since we had feel connected with this painting and so those experiences i love exhibit and love being in contact face to face with the public i love explaining my work i love hearing the explanations that people that are viewing my work just another great experience with my work at the same area at the review sort of club was a summer festival this little boy and his father was have a painting called inspiration it's got a  male figure flex and you know get the muscles up and there's a little kid stand in front of the bigger guy with the same poles and this gentleman came up and he was looking at the painting in the boy came up and he said wow look at me dad look at that nick mohamad young in age but i think he matches all of us in both experience and wisdom certainly in intensity and certainly in integrity nick you've been a force i call you a representative and an icon for the hip hop generation i think you embody the most positive aspects of the core reality of the sense of self reliance the sense of we have the right and responsibility and the capacity the capability of doing for ourselves and i think you in body and your music embodies in your generation embody a belief that the world we want is the world that we can make and it won't be there until we decide to make it nobody's going to give it to us and if they did we wouldn't take it because we trust ourselves and in our in ourselves we trust and because i'm saying that that's the same as saying in god we trust because we're seeing the gods in ourselves and your music says that i think you're our success that you are going to talk to folks every day about how one of the things that we need to do is figure out how to be conscious in conscientious in recognizing and addressing the nature of god and each of our selves right and and if i expect you that i'm doing ok wow that's that's a heavy question and statement very profound brother appreciate it i'm good you know for you know beat boxing and then you have the knowledge of the entire coach for me like when as i'm sitting here with two big giants of the visual arts and i listen to how they describe the inspiration for the work in the connections that they tap into it is amazing that they don't see themselves as the origin of it but more the vessel that it comes to throw into me that's like the you make the connection of you know god within oneself and being god me and tapping into that divinity in expression and through the art in allowing it to come through you i think that's to me what attracts a lot of people to making a career of the arts because really you're you're also a fan of humanity on some level and the arts gives you in a way to connect with humanity and to interpret you know what's going on how you feel about it and what your perspective is you share that and to me that's what would hip hop or music does for me on a very you know intimate level when i first heard and slick rick oddly enough what struck me was their interpretation of young black life at the time and the perspectives that they put on the table than the subject matters that they put on the table i was in a household unfortunately that was you know split you know i was born in mississippi so as a young man hearing other black men in for me those were the first examples of strength  know having your own and being a man and the messages i heard resonated with me on such a deep level i would literally sit up make sure i had headphones because she did not want to hear everything coming out of it did it awaken something to me like you made me feel you know ballot like i had you know i could stand up a little straighter when i walked to school there was a whole group of people that share that same experience on the way that in the arts portion i found more equity in justice and fairness in true like acceptance of all cultures inside of those spaces outside as a whole different story but in those spaces became you know familiar with different people from different walks of life they were all there in the name of this particular form and so for me that godly connection there was a  all resonated a certain vibration and this was the rule to be entire universe and i was like oh music is vibrations so if art is the vision of god then music is the ago and that's the way i took it like it's its power and it was one thing that i didn't have to negotiate with there was clear rules in the realm of music in particular but for me it was hip hop and you couldn't protect in the culture back when i was coming up and that really put thought in effort into being the original and having some something authentic to say and before the commodification of the art form by corporations there was such an organic feeling in like texture to it you just can't duplicate for me the reason i'm so passionate about it is like there's people all over the world that we're not even told about that follow the culture that black people set out in this country not just the youth i mean black culture period i almost cried when i seen there's a film that nice put out where you went into five different countries there were all practicing aspects of hip hop and for them they followed our every word every word and we don't know it and we don't know that's a problem right and it was like wow there's kids literally break dancing in the mountains for for peace for so what if they tell their stories to the music they grab the mike and they they stand up extra tall this is how they pass their legacy on and i'm like wow we created that we are a part of that right and that's why my bias about how it's used in promoted in this country is unapologetically fiery if you're to me commodifying in a way that's about profit for people who don't care about the culture because now that we know that this audience is there right  more upset at the fact that there are more entrepreneurs pursuing an independent paradigm to tell our own story as you know to borrow from kenya earlier in pioneer that is supported right in that to me is what the beauty of this this culture in our capacity to put it out there can do really literally connects people all around the world so so all of us at this table are business people who are all businessmen right and so  what i hear you talking about is the need for us to step up and to figure out how we can retain ownership of our genius of our output of our creativity and that and also how we can profit from  we can share and benefit from benefit can be called profit with income and how we can use our creativity thoughts our minds our ideas to feed our families in our neighborhoods in our communities and  and sort of see the collective grow the collective of african people in a community or on the planet and so hip hop i think says that and addresses that that's versus people who come at it because it's a vehicle to make money there's this difference between you so here's my question should you be coming out to make money or do you mean somebody else coming into your culture to make money for them and no wouldn't you say i say the practitioner should be making the wants to make money one thing that artists are notoriously horrible at usually is commodifying their their talent for their benefit because there's that human element and you feel like it's long as businessmen and businesswomen and monetize our genius in ways that are consistent with our values consistent with decency and humanity that we say represent know and learn from your elders and learn from different people you know how they've planted before there was the supermarket you know there was a farmer's market or there was take the wagon on the world that everybody went through and you stop there and then you've got people new to come there at that time have relied on other people's markets we've relied on markets that they waste you know there was a garbage man he was infuriated when kellogg's decided that they wanted to get another product out so they took the grocery stores if you get rid of what you have picked them up and took all the people that need a serial you know he was saying that doesn't make any sense so a lot of times even with my thing i knew i couldn't sell twenty five dollar painting to somebody that you know you said twenty five dollars to pay for part of their record something but maybe i could do something or find some way to do something that would represent them make them feel better or they knew it was safe to come to this neighborhood and then later on a developer and i help them develop a community they might be able to buy something i still wasn't really into trying to make money from my work then i realized it was a thing called miral and i could do one painting and several million people would see it for free one person pay for it find a person i could afford it could be a store owner could be a preacher could be a doctor they would pay for it and then everybody else we get to see it and we make the neighborhood and the community feel he made me do a show in the basement for three days two hours a day and my mother had her suggesting that and then he invited all these people neighbors everything people had never seen people different languages in three  that stuff in the thirty's with people i didn't know so my respect for community was strong so in doing this thing we have to decide what the product is we have to we have to be a spin doctors we can't just say we just put o my art is pro black you know father and son mother and son grandmothers and so i think that we as a community have to start to support the creative people and the people that create product and our community and make it important and significant to us i find myself stuck and creating product when i think about the monetary need that i have to continue to be able to create you know  creative people creative time takes a lot of time and so it's volunteer work until you can get paid for it and i think that we need to encourage people to see the value of it not you know it's like i don't brag that i'm a great artist receive that from the community and so that right there i think needs to translate into the community understand that unless we support this great artists this great musician or this great plan or whatever the product is we will lose you know that's the thing about we create and we need to get those marketing talents to help and collaborate to create together great artist a great contributor to our community and to our families thank you also very much thank you join us next time for conversations with all macfarlane thanks