Creative conversation:
an oral interview w/ Monewade
Born in St.Thomas and raised by a Caribbean family in Boston, Latisha Wade's (she/they) art practice centers
familial, celestial and ancestral relations close and far. Since childhood she continues to navigate the role of
witness, most often using paint, poetry, and film as forms of documentation. At heart, Wade is a multimedia
archivist, collecting and creating fossils to maintain our shared memory. Spending the past three years training
as a farmer informs Latisha's understanding that we are of the earth and must return to it as an indigenous
practice.
In general, though, I think I know that art is valuable because like I said, there will come a time where the lives that we live now, the specificity of it will feel so foreign to the people who come after us, to the people who weren't able to live in the time frame that we're living in. So I'm really into archiving, I'm really into archives. I understand myself as an archivist, as someone who is collecting fossils for the people who will come after us. So all of the art that we make is valuable because we're all adding to the collective memory. So reminder that we're not alone, that there are people who've experienced the exact same things that we've experienced, and it's a way for us to stay connected and to have the faith and the trust and the support to move forward.
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How do conceptualize the value of your art? (0:16)
Naturally I think I understand the value of my art because I know how much it does for me in my day to day. I'm really grateful for the conversations I've had with friends and family around me. Through those conversations I've come to the realization that my work and the prices that I set for my work are not necessarily about the end product. I really value the process and I'm learning to communicate to people who are interested in my, in my artwork, that by supporting me financially and supporting me in other ways that they can support me. It isn't necessarily money for a painting, it's money in order for me to continue in the lifestyle that was able to produce that painting. You know, I think that's something that I'm actively working towards understanding and trusting is that yo I'm valuable period, and my art is valuable. I think that that's something that has been really hard for me to learn, especially living in a capitalist society where value is often attributed to money. So, it's like having to think about my art in terms of like how much it should be sold for, and that doesn't really resonate with me because I don't know, I don't think art necessarily has intrinsic monetary value. At one point while I feel like I was trying to convince myself and other people that no my art is worth this amount of money, or yes, my art is worth this amount of money. Um, and I don't know that I actually believe that or understand that as true.
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How has art helped you explore your identity? (2:48)
I think making art and keeping all of the art that I make, whether be all the things that I've written or all the videos that I've made, or all the paintings and drawings and sketches that I've made. I think it's really taught me that my identity is everything and nothing at all, because I have drawings from when I was like five and, you know, projects that I did in school since I was younger and up till now, I think I have this understanding that I'm always changing and I will continue to change. And I think creating art and having reminders of who I have been and what I have been interested in allows me to be present in every moment. When I look at my archives at the things that I've collected over the years, I'm able to see that the only constant thing is change. Because I accept that I'm always changing, I don't feel confined or in boxes or certain understandings or things that I've said in the past. I understand that my commitment, my real identity is to wholeness and to divinity into alignment. And so whatever it takes for me to continue on the path of those things, that's who I am which allows me to be malleable, which allows me to, like I said, trust my intuition, trust what I want to do. And I don't always know why, but as long as I'm listening to the self, every moment, that's what matters to me. It matters that I'm always moving from truth.
Why is it important for Black femmes to create? (4:24)
Naturally I think Black people inhabit the role of creator and creatives. I think it's just a part of who we are and a part of how we navigate the world, especially as marginalized people. I spoke about earlier, I'm coming into a creative practice that really honors my intuition and how I understand my own intuition is understanding that I'm pulling from and being guided by something larger than myself. You know, something really divine.
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I hope black femmes can identify all the ways that they already practice creativity um, because we’re already in the practice, we’re already creators, we’re already all artists um, and I think once that we're able to identify that and all the way that we practice creativity, whether it be here or our style, or just how we move about in the world. I think accepting the innate ways that we are creative will allow us to have confidence in our ability to create a world that we want to live in, in a world that we deserve to live in.
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My imagination is...(5:26)
My imagination is growing. I think right now I'm at a place where I'm on learning the limits that I learned in childhood about what's possible and what's not possible. And I think I'm coming into a time where I'm allowing my imagination to expand as far as it wants to expand, where I'm giving myself the opportunity to see and to imagine, and to inspire to greater, into more. And the more that I'm able to expand my own imagination, the more I'm able to ask that of the earth and the people around me and the whole world. Um, so yeah, I think it goes beyond just the art that I create. I think it also affects my future that I imagine, you know, like, as I'm thinking about housing, I don't have to just think about living in, you know, renting or buying a house. You know, I can really imagine greater for myself. I can imagine the perfect most suitable house for myself. And I can imagine a future where I have the resources and the stability and the space, the land to create that for myself. So right now I'm at a place where my imagination is growing, where I'm giving myself the permission to see beyond the limits that have been put on all of us and to create new, to imagine newness, and yeah.
How has creating allowed
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When do you feel most inspired? (7:57)
I think I feel the most inspired when I think about how temporary my time is here now in this body. Um, I used to feel very, very, very, very, very afraid of death. Um, but I think the more that I've gotten into my spiritual practice, the clearer I've been able to see how infinite we all really are. Um, and because of that, I'm also able to see more clearly that the specificity of now is important and it's sacred. And it's very valuable. So along with being a painter and a writer, I also think of myself as a steward of the land. And so through… through training, as a farmer, I've been able to see that infinite express through nature. And I think nature is a very great example of what it means to be effortlessly in this cycle of infinity. Um, so specifically I'm very inspired by nature and I think also I'm inspired by the mothers who have come before me. Um, so my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother and all the lineages that have come before me. In general, I think I'm inspired by remembering, um, yeah, I'm grateful to all the techs and artists and media and just all the things that spark memory within us. And so, because I'm inspired by that um I think I also feel a call to make work that ignites that memory and the people who will come after me too.
What is the biggest realization you've come to about yourself as a creative? (9:42)
I think one of the biggest realizations I've come to myself, um, about being a creative is that yo I can trust myself. You know, I think when I make YouTube videos, when I paint, I think sometimes I have this expectation that I should know exactly what I want to paint, I should know exactly the video that I want to make, I should know exactly the poetry that I want to make and then I should be able to just like follow through and figure it out. Um, but I think I'm coming into the understanding that process is really important for my art making, you know, and part of that process is trust. I don't think I'm an artist who, like I said, who, who can think of that, an idea, and just like, and then just express it. I think I'm an artist who moves from intuition and I'm learning that I can trust my intuition. Um, so what that looks like while painting is like, sometimes I'll put down a mark and I don't like it, but when I'm, or I'll paint a whole painting and I don't like it. Um, and then in my process, I've learned that like, by painting over by trusting myself, by trusting my ability to actualize the things that I imagined, um, I ended up being able to create what I imagined. Um, and sometimes it can be misleading because I think that if I can't do it on the first try, then I won't be able to do it at all. Um, but what I'm coming to learn is that often the first try is necessary and needed. The first, the second, the third and the fifth try are all necessary to my process.
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And I'm learning that I can trust my intuition, that I can, you know, use the different parts of each process of each, um…..try and that at the end, it'll all come together to form thing that I was actually trying to express. You know, sometimes we don't know what we actually want to express, and the first idea is the thing, it's the gateway that'll get us to what we're really trying to say. So, yeah, I think I'm learning that y'all can trust my intuition, you know, and often I don't know why I'm making certain choices creatively. Um, and…..but I I'm learning that even though I don't know, I still have to trust, I still have to listen to the voices that, that speak to me. And every time that I've done that, you know, once I get to the end of my process, um, I'm so grateful that I was able to listen to myself because yo our bodies know exactly what we want to do, and sometimes our mind can get in the way. I had a teacher in college who said, “you can't think yourself into a good painting”, and that has really stuck with me because I think the more that I create, the more that I understand that creation expression, it's a verb. It's not something you can think it's the only thing you can do is, is be it. Um, so yeah, I'm learning how to be. I'm learning how to trust my being.
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