EP. 10 Pt.2 Derrick Beasley - Wetland Education Through Art

Using art to draw the connection between  nature and art.

Transcript

Wading Deep Podcast

Derrick Basley

Community Visual Artist

SPEAKERS: 2

Speaker 1–Reverend Jemonde Taylor, Rector – St. Ambrose Episcopal Church

Speaker 2–Derrick Beasley, Community Visual Artist

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Speaker 1

0:07

This is wading deep, a podcast that explores the connection between environmental justice and race.

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Speaker 1

0:21

I'm your host Reverend Jemonde Taylor Rector at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church Raleigh, North Carolina, a congregation with a long history of challenging environmental racism. I am honored to welcome for a second time this is our second segment. Our guest Derrick Beasley multidisciplinary artists cultural organizer, cultural organizer, public servant. Welcome back, Derrick. Hey, thanks for having me back. Hey, always, always good. It's just been so long. One of the things we left off or finished with the first segment you were talking about your artwork and Walnut Creek and just want to invite you to share more about your art at Walnut Creek, and then we could maybe talk about some artists who've impacted you, you know, had an imprint print on you as an artist.

1:41

Yeah, yeah. Well, we started want to talk about the Walnut Creek a little bit first. Yeah, let's do that.

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Speaker 2

1:50

Okay, sure. Yeah, um, okay. Yeah. So, you know, I saw I saw an RFP, a little ways back from the Walnut Creek wetland center, saying that they had a GSI project, which is a Green Stormwater Infrastructure. And essentially, they built this, this human made wetland, so to speak, where this gravel wetland is, what it's called, where essentially they planted and all these native species. And they got these different layers of soil and gravel to catch stormwater, and then feed it back into the Walnut Creek wetland, which I think is is really an example of how the work that we can use technology to we can use technology to try to heal some of the damage that we've done to our natural our wetlands, particularly in this neighborhood where the pollution of this Walnut Creek has disproportionately impacted black folks, rural folks, even if you think about the history of the city of Raleigh, dumping this water into the Walnut Creek, you know, this this wastewater. And so now, you know, going back to the process of healing this, this creek, cleaning this creek and this GSI project was a part of that. And so the RFP was to create a, what they're calling an educational display. Telling the story of what this GSI project like telling the technical story what this GSI project does, which my sculpture will do, as well as tell a little bit of the human story of what of what has been done in this neighborhood in regards to the to the Walnut Creek wetland, and particularly highlighting black folks in our in their relationship to the wetland and highlighting what it means to be healing to use restoration of this wetland as a healing process for community. So like I said before, I'm building a monolith, which I'm using as a stand in for this almost otherworldly change a change agent, change catalyst in the wetland. That will also be something that evolves time something that weathers and and will continue to look more and more like this artifact almost almost as if another entity put it there. But the reality is that, you know, we built all of this. And we have, we can build so much when we're in relationship with nature, you know, so much as possible. So that's, I think the underlying message of not even underlined that is the message of this sculpture that I'm endeavoring to build this fall in southeast Raleigh.

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Speaker 1

4:58

That's powerful. This partnership with nature and humanity, particularly black people, when you talked about importance of possibility in your artwork. I know, we think about wetlands, it's often overlooked look, sometimes we will call it a swamp. And really the wetland is the kidney system for the Neuse River Basin. And if the Walnut Creek wetland is devastated, which it has been in the past, and basically going through kidney failure, that does not bode well for the rest of the basin, which flows all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean, you know, hundreds of miles. And so you know, how we treat the wetland impacts not only the local community, but in communities downstream. And you talked about also this this healing component. And one of the things we're doing with the healing pod is it's an enactment of a vision that I had when I came to St. Ambrose almost 10 years ago, gentleman named Dr. Norman camp. Now his name is on the Walnut Creek wetland educational center, his name and his wife's name, walked me around St. Ambrose. And we did the Greenway and went up to the Education Center, he told me about the history of sewage being dumped for 80 years and trash being dumped in in the area being zoned for black people. And through that conversation, I had this vision of basically being four stages, there was a stage when there was pristine environment, this before European engagement, then you have the European engagement component, which is the devastation of the wetlands, the dumping of sewers, the dumping of trash, then a third phase is this area being zoned for black people to live and in black people really restoring the wetland by partnering with government and other nonprofits. And then the fourth stage, which we're now entering, is the wetland and nature being used for the emotional and mental healing of the black community. And so your artwork, or as you describe your work about this partnership, this good relationship between humanity and nature, reminded me of the healing pot, which is what we're talking about now. I'm curious to hear, who are the artists who influenced you?

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Speaker 2

7:30

There are so many. As we've been talking, I've just kind of wrote tried to write down a few of the folks. But there's really so many. I'd love to talk about local folks first, folks in my area rather than not necessarily local artists, but they are folks that live in my locale Monet Marshall a great friend of mine Marcella Camara. Another friend of mine, Steven Hayes, someone known since middle school and really I usually credit for getting me into creating sculpture is another sculpture artists that I look up to, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs is an author and writer. And who lives in the area as well. But then there's other photographers that are really love Jamel Shabazz,  Gordon Parks course. And then sculpturally in other mediums, I love Theaster Gates and Rashid Johnson, Wangechi Mutu and Robin Kimmerer is another author that really shifted my ideas around being in a relationship with the environment. Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor. And let's see, let me look over at my bookshelf and see what else I got over here. There's so many folks but those those are folks that stand out that really impacted my creative practice and continue to impact my creative practice and thinking about possibilities and and you know, what that looks like to express those possibilities, artistically.

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Speaker 1

9:17

Now, that's powerful. One of the things that this conversation is helping me realize when think about black artists who impact me, particularly painters and sculptures, it's this intersection with the environment which prior to this conversation, I don't think I had that much awareness. So think about Romare Bearden, great cubist who was baptized in the black Episcopal Church in Charlotte, St. Michael and All Angels. One of the tragedies of that church is that where the Carolina Panthers stadium now sits the Bank of America Stadium is the 50 yard lines where the Church used to sit and where Romare Bearden was baptized. And the little quote unquote consolation prize is that they named the small small park near Bank of America Stadium, the Romare Bearden Park. But I think about his use of nature. I think of that. And I know that that's incredible. Fascinating. It is incredible. It is absolutely incredible. Unbelievable. I think about Jacob Lawrence, and his use of particularly blues, I think about Jonathan green, you know, one of my favorites, you know, down in South Carolina, and his use of nature. And you know, I think about, you know, Kara Walker, when I was in New York, Kara had this fantastic sculpture, the sugar baby, and I think it stood some 50 or 60 feet tall, carved or sculpted out of sugar. And then she was using nature, obviously, the sugar from the sugar cane, but bringing awareness to know the history of sugar slavery, that connection to New York, New York processing sugar, taking the cane from Cuba, and the southern part of United States. And then that was what was used to tea. So even New York's would would slavery was illegal, and you know, 1860, but using the drive it and so that type of awareness of this intersection between nature and the artist is so important, at least in the black art and artists that I just mentioned. And who are you know, some of my favorite black artists?

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Speaker 2

11:33

Yeah. And by no means is listed, I gave you exhausted. Yeah, I realize I don't even think about musical artists. Right? You hear me? Yeah. musical artists, John Coltrane, Christian Scott. This, honestly, I won't even I'll just stop there. Because there's so many that, that Pharaoh Sanders so many. Also, it for my sense of like, possibilities through art transformative capacity of darkness even or perceived, you know, dark things. And yeah,

12:13

yeah, we mentioned it.

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Speaker 2

12:16

I was gonna say, even as we're listing all of these people, it's, it's interesting, how I wanted to grow up and not realize that, you know, this is part of our, our tradition as black folks, right? Like, it's not, you know, we've we've been meditating on these ideas, but we just don't learn about it. And so it's been really a privilege to be able to be in community with folks and be in conversation with folks like you who you know, where we can dialogue about these folks. And then also try to make space for for young people to get the similar exposure to be able to know, know, this rich tradition that we've been a part of working through art to talk about possibilities and but then particularly possibility to talk to the environment. So it's been a beautiful journey to learn just how rich another tradition is within our community.

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Speaker 1

13:13

Yeah, as you were talking about music, which you right, we hadn't touched on. You mentioned those two great North Carolinian John Coltrane, I think about another great North Carolinian Thelonious Monk. As an aside, I had the privilege of knowing the Thelonious Monk’s niece, who was a member of Saint Ambrose, Ms. Almetta Monk Revis. She passed away some years ago. But you think about someone like John Coltrane really pushed the limits of possibility pushed the limits of reed and saxophone growing up in a religious community where he was trying to mimic with the saxophone, the black preaching tradition of his grandfather. And so that that that high pitch squeal when he's really getting into that, you think about A Love Supreme, getting to the end of that. I mean, he's he's taking a saxophone pushing it to the limit. Pass what people say is possible to mimic, you know, the black preaching tradition. And you look at someone like the Thelonious Monk, great pianist himself, pushing the limits of the keyboard, so much so open up people's minds about new possibilities of what sounds like a mistake, when he's playing keys is actually purposeful, to open up melodies and to push these 88 keys, I mean, for monk, he needed probably like, you know, 200 keys to do what he really wanted to do, but he was he only had 88. So he would make these quote unquote, mistakes as a way of opening up these new possibilities. So, you know, I definitely think you're on to something talk about possibilities. What would you say, is either the most challenging environmental justice issue or maybe where you sit, you think there are a few challenging environmental justice issues?

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Speaker 2

15:08

Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot. There's a lot, and I've recently been immersed in a lot of books, podcasts you know, I’ve been kind of maybe even over consuming resources and media around this. But I think the biggest challenge for me is our level of consumption. I think a lot of it comes down to that. In our culture of consumption, and an obsession with stuff. And I say that, not in a self righteous sense, I say that as somebody who's battling with that myself, because I'm in this culture, you know, even down to like having these books, I'm like, I know, I could just get it on audio, but I like the book. And it's like, but if they print the book, they gotta kill it, you know. So, you know, we're, I'm not absolving myself at all. But, you know, I think we have all of this stuff, and it does, and we're, and it takes, we're destroying our environment to create this stuff. To create experiences for ourselves, and to try to find and meant literally manufacture happiness. When the reality of like you said, in the previous segment, like, we can get all of these, we can get all of the dopamine and beta may work on the with the different ways you said, but we can get all of the chemical manifestations that happiness just by being, you know, in nature and when I find myself with greater species, when I'm able to actually tap into that, not when I'm in the house, but all my stuff is when I'm on the other side of this window, you know, I'm walking through the yard, and I'm planting. And I'm finding ways that, you know, even in my own little yard, that my yard is telling me like, hey, like, maybe if you do this, you know, you'll help me, mend this, this part of myself, or when I'm in the back, you know, back away back to my yard, the previous owner, previous previous owner does a lot of dumping to happen. And so when I'm, and when I'm getting that trash up, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, it's like, it's when I'm nurturing that relationship, is when I find the most joy, personally or growing things. I've got a co owner operator of a CSA called Tallgrass, blue box, and we source products from black farmers around the state. And that process has been a revelation as well. In connection with these farmers who have been generationally in relationship with the earth and growing food to feed our communities. And so it's like, Man, this, this is where the joy is, and the love the action, of love, you know, and, and growing and tending and feeding and healing, you know, being in a relationship with the natural world. And somehow we've we've not somehow we've explicitly been sold the idea and marketed the idea that we need more stuff to be well, or to be happy. And we can just download this app, if we could just, you know, buy this thing. If so, and I'm a victim and I do Instagram, they know me so well, they like look, bro, don't you like the shoes? And I'm, like those shoes. How do you know they're like, because we've studied your internet activity. And so, you know, it's so you know, I'm working through it as well. But I'm trying to wean myself off stuff. Also know, it's not an individual thing. It's a collective. It's a collective and cultural shift. That needs to happen. I think that that would get us halfway there. We just stopped consuming as much. Because that consumption is destroying because we started, you know, yeah. So I, if I were to say one thing, I will say it's our cultural and habits around consumption. But you know, but to that point, and, you know, I want to state this problem without thinking about the possibility I think when we when I learned about all of these artists that we just went through, and when I think about when I learned about the history of black, you know, black folks and indigenous communities and in relationships that we've had, with the environment, I'm reminded of, you know, what's possible, so it's not like,

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Speaker 2

19:46

or even thinking about certain practices, you know, and I'm in my home or my grandma's home. And, you know, I don't maybe I don't have to buy all this Glassware. I can just use what I got. I just use the glass from the when the saucer container, you know, you know it works the same effect, it's more durable. And so those those decisions that we make based off a perceived need to have a new thing versus using what we have and repurposing things. And you know, some of that stuff is a part of our culture already, we just got it, we just haven't connected the tendril. We haven't connected that to the, to the idea of it being environmentalism, but it is a way of being and that's something that I found myself and my friend Monet, and CO collect my collaborator and comrade and commandant Monet Marshall, we talked about that often. How do we not just learn about like contemporary environmental issues and environmental injustice? But also how do we reconnect with the things that we already do that are already a part of our culture? They are environmentalism. So no,

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Speaker 1

21:00

I appreciate that response that, you know, an important environmental justice issue is consumer it as consumption, which made me think about consumerism, and capitalism, how we been conditioned to consume, consume, consume, and by and large that is contrary to the black, at least American experience? Because we've always pushed through the possibilities. And one of the questions they ask is recycling, and they look at recycling, customs and black communities. And by and large, according to the data are the scientists that black people don't recycle. But they're asking the questions wrong is like when they ask black people about do they enjoy being in nature, and they measure it by the number of trips you take to Yosemite? Well, everybody can't go to Yosemite, but people like sitting on their front porch, or tending to their flowers. And that's, that means they like nature, too. But from his recycling standpoint, you know, if your grandmother was like my grandmother, you walked into her kitchen, she had a little porcelain container to the side of the stove, that she stored her baking grease. And so she cooked some bacon and put that grease in there. And then that bacon would be used to season cabbage and other things recycling mindset, you would take the the Mason or the the Ball jar that used for canning in the wintertime and you put some water and ice in there and put that in the refrigerator. And that would be be your cup this ideas you said, reusing repurposing mindset, which is already a part of the black experience, perhaps not called recycling, but just call being innovative. Or one might say call just being black. What gives you hope?

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Speaker 2

23:04

You know, I think a lot of things give me hope, or think whenever I'm feeling hopeless, you know, digging into some of the names of the work of some of the folks who I mentioned earlier, gives me hope, I think, even you know, being invited to this podcast to just talk about these topics gives me hope that, you know, there's folks interested in listening, even if it's just you and me, but I'm sure your audience is much greater than you know, I think that that gives me hope. I think the more any community with folks and realize that, you know, we can that these conversations are possible. Like, that gives me hope. And then even down to my own individual experience when I you know, when I first kind of started like gardening and growing things, and I've kind of shifted from growing food to really growing like, like planting grasses, that's been my thing this year. But, you know, it requires a different mode of being it requires a certain patience that requires accepting loss. It requires but then there's also things that happened that you didn't expect, you know, there's possibilities and growing things and so that, you know, really being with that process gives me hope it just reminds me that you know, even when it looks like something that's dead I was talking to a friend of mine about we were talking about these palm plants and how they're hard to maintain. You know, but there's one that I had that it's got some deadly it was it was kind of on the way work felt like was on the way out and then you know, but with some patience and some tendering and some, some lending. Yeah. So, some pruning and then some do additional care and some light and some selective darkness that was able to it's come back. And it's starting to grow and have new life. And so I think, you know, really trying to be in tune with those processes and those realities those fractal experiences, right? That those, those things give me hope

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Speaker 1

25:29

we live in hope. Derrick, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us. It's been a rich and eye opening conversation.

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Speaker 2

25:41

I appreciate the invitation. Thanks for having me. I look forward to connecting again. So I think I'll probably see this maybe but tomorrow evening at this at the wetland Center as a community meeting up so hopefully I'll see you I saw you on the email. Hopefully I'll see you there. Look forward to connecting so

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Speaker 1

26:00

absolutely. We welcome Derrick Beasley multidisciplinary artists cultural organizer and public servant the waiting deep podcast comes to you from a place we affectionately call the Brose Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church Raleigh, North Carolina. Follow us on Facebook, YouTube, the Brose NC on Twitter and The Brose 1868 on Instagram. I am your host, the Reverend Jemonde Taylor. God's are going to trouble the water of environmental racism resurrecting a river of life clear as crystal. Shalom. Salaam peace