On not breathing: Andrea Douglas

Arranged in a circle, artists occasionally peered out from behind easels, abandoning their frenetic drawing to observe a seated model and assess the progress of their neighbors. Their gaze was concentrated on one older black man, the model, who warmly accepted the the room’s attention. Some sketched his crossed arms and confident smile, while others ambitiously attempted to capture his figure in its entirety.

A short woman wearing a long structural sweater, which demanded attention, broke the concentration with the announcement that the allotted 30 minutes with this model were up. She ushered in the next model and then withdrew to the corner, resuming her position as quiet observer of the unfolding draw-a-thon.  This is the second draw-a-thon that Andrea Douglas has overseen as director of Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which opened under her leadership in 2013. “Thirty minutes is long enough for a considered gaze but not long enough for a complete drawing. You don’t get to finish in some ways. It’s a decision-making process. What are the marks you’re going to make? That’s what’s interesting to me.”

Credit: The Daily Progress

When the Charlottesville City School Board handed over the since abandoned Jefferson School to the city, a task force recommended that it be a mixed-use building including an exhibition space. Andrea is in the process of building that exhibition space into something much more dynamic. Recognized on the National Register of Historic Places, Jefferson was founded as a school for African Americans in 1867. In the late 1920s Jefferson High School was built and soon after accredited as one of the few southern high schools for African Americans that were offering a classical education at a time when most were trade schools. According to Andrea this accreditation meant “standardization and the democratization of education. We’re in a space quite different from most of the south.”

In planning the draw-a-thon Andrea and her staff considered how they could offer a critical lens on the killing of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. “We ended up with this notion of profiling and the idea that black men are considered to be threatening.” For 10 consecutive hours last Saturday 20 African American men posed for 30 minutes each for any interested artists. The result was an inquiry on the condition of black men in America through the exercise of drawing. “That’s how we create the critical lens, not because we want to solve the condition of black men in America. We can’t but we can comment on it.” Andrea is motivated by art as the critical lens of our society.

Andrea draws this distinction between the objective of social justice and that of social commentary when she talks about her vision for Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC). “I’m not trying to solve bullying. I’m not trying to solve teen pregnancy. I’m not trying to create a space that solves homelessness or mental illness. Those are not any of my issues. I am not personally interested in using the arts and culture to do anything of those things. “ In this way she sets JSAAHC apart from the tradition of institutions using art as a means to an end, whether that be social justice or otherwise. In our country where the inherent value of cultural patrimony is not ingrained, art has to be commodified.

The reduction of art to an instrument is pervasive. Less than a mile from JSAAHC development plans threaten to displace a largely African American neighborhood in a manner reminiscent of the Vinegar Hill demolition in the 1960s. Two local arts organizations (the Bridge Progressive Arts Center and Piedmont Council for the Arts) won a National Endowment for the Arts grant grounded in the, "power of the arts as a vehicle for outreach and empowerment in underserved communities.” These two organizations were able to convince the NEA, the largest single funder of the arts in the country, that art can be the antidote to the destruction this development may bring.

This is the very argument that Andrea is unwilling to make with JSAAHC programs. The premise of so many cultural organizations is that, “the arts serve a social process, which I hate. I don’t believe in it. I believe that it is the selling of the soul. It should not be sold to commerce. It should not be the conduit through which people get from point a to point b but that’s what America does…I’m kind of a purist in that sense.” In spite of the fact that this impinges on her ability to get public funding she’s not interested in making JSAAHC a place of service. It’s experiences she’s after.

One experience is an affirmation of individuality in contrast to social service programs that she sees as geared toward the production of individuals who conform to society. “Trying to teach people to not beat up on each other tells people that they are not completely who they are. It says that there is something wrong with you. Over here we’re not interested in knowing what’s wrong with you, we’re interested in knowing about what you produce that says who you are.” You could argue that in her deliberate rejection of programs intended to produce social change, JSAAHC is indirectly catalyzing the processes for such change.

In practical terms this means the draw-a-thon was largely unmediated in order to allow the purity of cultural practice to flourish. The day began with little explanation. There was no facilitated conversation or organized discussion. Once she had orchestrated the circumstances of “causing people to look at black people,” Andrea put her trust in the artistic process to carry this project to fruition. The models were not told how to pose. There will be no exhibit of the drawings. While Andrea and her staff are talking to the models about being looked at and filming those conversations, that again is about recording the intellectual process rather than measuring the outcomes of the event. She is planning to project the film across the façade of the Jefferson School on April 9, the 150^th anniversary of the end of the Civil War.

Beyond offering a place to experience art that comments on and challenges the condition of African Americans in Charlottesville, she is adamant that production be the heart of JSAAHC activities. Her desire to focus on production sets her apart from museums that rest on the greatness of their collections uninterested in being part of the world they inhabit.

She’s not directing that demonstration towards a solely black audience “I would argue that our successes should be defined by how many people who didn’t know anything about black culture now know something. And in Charlottesville that’s a whole lot of white people.”

As such a young institution that is still establishing itself and planting its roots how does it document and demonstrate cultural practice? Her aim is that JSAAHC be a space that is “creating contemporary life” and thoroughly engaged with the world around it.  Next month Andrea is holding an artists’ summit asking “brown and black artists” for collaboration ideas. “We’re not going to sit around and talk about the problems of our makers. We’re going to sit around and say what’s your idea?” She is not professing to speak for the black community but rather actively working to establish a symbiotic relationship where representation is dynamic and ever-evolving.

This all serves to highlight the historical and contemporary contributions of African Americans in Charlottesville. One figure of interest to Andrea is Isabella Gibbons, the founder of Jefferson School.

Although Andrea says she stopped painting because she could never arrive at what she wanted, she’s on her way to seeing JSAAHC express something that she herself could not.