WENDELL: "Artworks" is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund, The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts, The E. T. and Robert B. Rocklin Fund, The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.

♪ ♪ WENDELL: Hi, I'm your host, Wendell Patrick.

Welcome to a new episode of "Artworks" on Maryland Public Television.

In this episode, we explore the art of art with multidisciplinary artist, Joyce J. Scott.

Scott's stunning beadwork, intricate sculptures, and powerful storytelling tackle themes of history, identity, and social justice.

Join me for a riveting conversation with Scott, where we delve into her creative process and the cultural influences shaping her art.

We'll also hear from curators of Scott's Baltimore Museum of Art Exhibition, "Walk a Mile in My Dreams," who offer insights into Scott's impact on the contemporary art world, and how her pieces continue to spark dialogue and reflection.

So, settle in as we explore the life and legacy of Joyce Scott in this episode of "Artworks", "The Art of Joyce Scott."

CECILIA: All of this work is flowing from her, and categories really will not define sort of standard categories that you've heard before.

She works through, across, and against.

CATHARINA: She uses beauty, beads, light, um, glamor in a way combined with humor to bring us close, to bring us really intimately close to some of the most difficult topics that we have to deal with.

CECILIA: The ultimate multi-hyphenate.

She is a genre-defying artist, and this is her 50-year career retrospective, understanding that Joyce Scott is somebody beloved in her hometown in Baltimore, and she has traveled the world and continually brought back what she has learned and what she has made.

Connecting Baltimore to the world and back again.

CATHARINA: Anything from racism, sexism, any number of issues, dealing with class, with the environment, you name it, all the isms we have to deal with, um, that people inflict upon each other in order to gain perhaps power, status, influence and so forth.

She wants us to come close, take it in, reflect on it in order to evolve, in order for perhaps all of us to become better human beings.

And if you look closely at her work, all of it, whether it's her performances, whether it's her astounding facility with beadwork, um, she has just such, um, uh, an exquisite skill.

She's one of a kind.

She's absolutely tremendous.

SCOTT: When we're talking about in inspiration, we're talking about someone who was born in 1948, right after the Second World War.

Lots of people were moving to the next step post-war.

Uh, Black servicemen were coming back, attempting to have a better life for them and their families.

My parents were sharecroppers.

My dad picked tobacco and my mother picked cotton.

And back then, before they took the, the trek up, up south, it was, you had to make a way where there was no way, and it was always something out of nothing.

So I learned about multiple disciplines because that's how we lived.

You know, you'd always have a can of this and some fresh that.

And the collard greens out on the back porch next to the door.

And my mother would make a feast because she understood about spices and cutting and this and that.

They took care of me in a way that made up for the dreams that they could not manifest or make come to fruition.

So I have the ability to do all of these things because I didn't hear no very much.

I was born in the sweet spot, I think in many ways, because by the time that I had some, some ability to move around, it was the sixties and the seventies, and that was hippie time.

It was also, uh, the time of civil rights and the reckoning that was happening in our society.

As I kept going to residency, after residency, going to school, seeing, doing, I realized that all of those things left some kind of fingerprint on me.

And I took my passport that was given to me by my mother, her ability to sow needle and thread.

People, sow everywhere.

So that was my entree into conversations and workshops and making and doing with people.

All of those things helped to develop in me a desire to have a voice.

And my best voice is as a visual and performing artist.

That's my soapbox, the multiplicity of my approach to artwork.

Well, it's very simple.

I'm human.

So I'd like to know, which makes me wanna get up and walk around every day.

The idea that I could dream, want something came hand in hand with the knowledge that I could actually actually have it.

I am confounded by the way we are still playing with evolution.

How we're being really hardheaded about things that we know are not true.

We know racism isn't true.

We just know it isn't true.

And we are not 12th-century human beings.

So people hadn't traveled that much.

They never saw an African, so they didn't know what that all of, none of that's true.

We're now global individuals, but we steadfastly hold on to ism's and to bad behavior, and I'm confounded by that and I wanna know why!

Scholars who have been my friends forever believe in the truth in what we do and believe that it is our important stance to be able to show to people and demand that we are equal and we deserve and should get and will have equality.

So I say that to you when I was first starting, and you would, if you got a catalog as an African Americanist or an African American woman, and because of materials and media that I use, meet people would maybe only want to me to be somebody who was handcrafting and they'd always wanna talk about my artwork.

They'd probably be a Negro spiritual in there somewhere.

And I sing Negro spiritual.

They might talk about my comedy.

You know, it's always something that, and I'll say relegate because of the systems they were using to, to write, not, I, I'm a proud craftswoman.

I'm a proud trickster and trash-talker.

But when it's used to marginalize you and separate you and not talk about the fact that I have a master's degree, the fact that I've traveled the world, those things, then it is of utmost importance to change that as a system.

CECILIA: Okay.

I'm Cecilia Wichmann, I'm the associate curator of contemporary art at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

I am the co-curator of Joyce J. Scott "Walk a Mile in My Dreams."

I worked very closely with the artist and with the curatorial team to organize the largest gathering of her works to date.

We really think that this show is gonna be a revelation to people who not only are encountering Joy Scott's work for the very first time, but those who know and love her work and have known her well for many, many years because we're bringing together nearly 140 artworks that she's made, that span, sculpture, jewelry, sculptures that you can wear, garments performance, and putting them all together into a wholistic story of her life.

CATHARINA: One of the things is you never know how a legacy is gonna play out.

We know it's gonna be big.

We, we know it's gonna be very significant.

And, um, I find that her work speaks so much to our moment right now at a time when people are often quite, uh, divided in their opinion.

She's somebody who wants us to come together and think about things with nuance.

CECILIA: So what we wanted to do is bring together work that shows her thinking about an idea or a question over time.

She might cycle back to that idea and make work, um, in many different media, many different ways.

Turning this idea over again and again.

CATHARINA: It doesn't matter who you are, she wants to meet you where you're at.

It doesn't matter what the color of your skin is.

She's talking to everyone because the questions, the challenges she is concerned with are human challenges.

And, um, for all of those reasons, not to mention her superlative use, uh, of the materials, you know, learning the peyote stitch and what that enabled her to do, building three-dimensional sculptures out of beadwork that is, that was not done before.

That is, in a way, her invention.

Um, so no matter how you look at it, you, you can learn from her, um, on multiple, multiple levels.

And I'm excited to see, you know, what future scholarship, um, will come from everything she's done.

We're also hoping that this retrospective with, you know, 140 artworks will, um, make people realize, you know, how significant her contribution has been overall and really over a long, um, uh, arc of her career.

Because as Cecilia mentioned earlier, we have artworks here on loan from all over the country.

And so oftentimes people, you know, in certain communities, you know, will have seen a single work by her or maybe two.

Well over here, you suddenly have everything gathered in one place.

And when I say every, everything, I have to pedal back because I'm sure there are many other, um, very important works that, um, we, we might learn about now, especially, um, as people are spreading the word and people realize, um, that they might have a very important work by Joy Scott in their midst.

SCOTT: I said not long ago, and it was really an important thing for me.

I don't want to leave this life as the person who I was when I entered.

I was a fabulous baby.

I had jokes.

I know it, you know...

But I wanna have left something here and I want to evolve as someone who's beyond this kind of basic self.

And we're living in a time when that can actually happen.

And I, I don't necessarily mean that I'll have, you know, AI happening.

My knees are bad, and I'll have new knees, but they can talk to me and tell me where to go.

You know, I can do some hip-hop.

No, I, that's not what I'm saying.

You don't believe I could do?

Wait, I'm gonna breakdance right now.

Anyway, that's not what I mean.

I mean that I want to be that person who can possibly understand some of the big questions in life and live differently.

Wouldn't that be amazing to walk the walk when you talk the talk?

WENDELL: And now join me for an engaging and humorous conversation with the incomparable artist Joyce J. Scott.

Hello, I'm Wendell Patrick.

I'm here at the Baltimore Museum of Art today with the legendary Joyce J. Scott.

SCOTT: Hi, big wind.

WENDELL: Hello.

It's so good to see you.

SCOTT: Very good to see you.

I haven't seen you since we've done music together as it were.

WENDELL: Yes and that was, uh, a few years ago now.

SCOTT: Yes.

WENDELL: Uh, but you and your presence are everywhere.

SCOTT: You mean sort of like, I'm running from the police or something?

What do you mean, Wendell?

WENDELL: Uh, something, yes.

A little bit.

SCOTT: Yeah.

A little bit of that too, yeah.

WENDELL: Um, but, uh, you know, here at the BMA, um, I actually heard about this exhibition from George Ciscle.

SCOTT: Yes.

WENDELL: Um, I ran into him here at, uh, the exhibition.

He was curating with your mother's incredible art, and he was so excited when he first told me about, uh, your upcoming exhibition.

And this is truly incredible.

140 pieces.

SCOTT: Yes.

WENDELL: 50 years.

SCOTT: Yes.

I know.

I only look like I'm 37, but I packed a lot into my life.

WENDELL: Yeah.

Clearly it's, it is, it is truly awe inspiring and you are really a legendary artist and a, and a huge inspiration to so many and very much an inspiration to me.

So it's... SCOTT: Thank you.

WENDELL: An honor and a pleasure to be able to see you again and to have a, a, a discussion with you.

SCOTT: Well, Thank you.

I would hold off on the honor, 'cause you know, I'm gonna mess with you the whole thing.

WENDELL: Of course.

SCOTT: And you might get upset about that.

WENDELL: Of course.

Yeah.

SCOTT: So what do you like about this show, Big Wind?

WENDELL: Well, one of the things that, that struck me was, um, you know, as a, as an artist myself, you know, you go through life, you know, for me, like, I find myself obviously focusing on something very specific that I'm working on.

And then, you know, you sort of do that over and over and over for a period of years, and then something happens and you look back and maybe five years have passed, and you see where you are in relation to where you were five years... SCOTT: Mm-Hmm.

WENDELL: ...Prior.

And so to just think of, of 50 years and then to be able to walk through an exhibition like this that has beautifully laid out and beautifully curated, and to just sort of see, just get a little glimpse into your mind.

SCOTT: My mental illness is what you're trying to say.

You know, one of the other things is that I don't actually usually work with such a formula.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: I usually do a variety of things.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Something will pique my interest and then I'll be over to another medium or another material.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: So working dry and wet and, uh, with fabric or maybe it, it's all just like a really nourishing meal.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: And you got your potatoes, and then you have to have dessert, and you have a good martini.

It's a whole thing.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: And that's what makes me really be, um, interested in consistently working too, because there's just so much to choose from.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Visual work and then performance too.

And, you know, the visual work when I'm making it, and then we exhibit it, then I, I leave it to you to figure out what it's about.

But when you are performing, when we're doing music or, or performance work that we've written, then we're in your face telling you exactly what we're thinking about.

And, uh, the viewing audience has a different experience, I believe, because of that.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

Well, so with, with all of the things that are in here, you know, 140 pieces, it's clear that a tremendous amount of focus when into making everything.

I, I guess just sort of walk me through maybe as, as, as much as you can, um, what it feels like to, to concentrate on, on an individual piece, but to do that simultaneously across so many different mediums with multiple pieces.

What, how does that feel to you?

SCOTT: I can tell you, making artwork for me is like being at a party or a community in something.

You, I don't usually only commit to one person or to one conversation, or to one movie, you know, or to one meal.

It really is taking what is tastiest at the time, and that usually incites something else on another piece.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: I don't draw.

I'm very improvisational with what I do.

I only draw, I have those kind of directions if I have assistants or collaborators working with me.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Like in blowing glass, part of it is you have to draw if you're not gonna blow glass or yell at them or something.

Or if I'm having people do beadwork with me and we're assembling, I have to be with them and tell them and sometimes draw things.

But for me, the experience is so wondrous and alchemical because I'm just there doing it.

Now that's a culmination of 75 years.

I'm three-quarters of a same track.

WENDELL: Phenomenal.

SCOTT: A very good-looking face.

I know.

WENDELL: Yes.

SCOTT: 75 years.

Now, that's a real culmination of things.

And you know, I, I tell people I was an artist in utero because my mother's side of the family is generation, after generation of people who used hands, they were makers and creative.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: So, I, I really have a desire to be as involved in it.

And, and I'm fearless about art.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm-Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: I don't fear jumping in the, in the fray, you know, falling into a hole, crawling out.

It's an opportunity not a mistake.

I'm not that way about other parts of my life.

WENDELL: Hmm.

SCOTT: But about artwork, I'm fearless.

So it, it's not a problem or dissuading for me to devise something that I've never done before or that has an enormous possibility of going up in flames.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Why not?

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: Yeah.

WENDELL: Amazing.

When you work, do you, do you typically work calmly, methodically, slowly?

Um, does the way that you work or the speed at which you work depend on the project or how inspired you are?

Do deadlines ever play a role in sort of the way that you work?

SCOTT: Um, well this, this exhibit had a deadline, you know, and it's, of course, beadwork is very slow.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Uh, I'm a fast beater, but it still can be very slow.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: I usually work all the time.

And if I'm on a really large piece like the yurt or the larger wall, wall hangings, and I might have assistance.

If not, I'm just there working.

I approach it as a, a real, uh, deep, deep part of my everyday life.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: So it's something that I try to do every day if my hands and my stamina will me.

And it is something that I get great joy from.

You know, you are a creative, you're a creative person, you're a maker, so you understand what it means to have this ability to have something flow from you and it is worthwhile.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: See that's the other part.

It's also shareable.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: We're both performers.

So the idea that you have something that your voice is, uh, melodious enough to listen to, uh, that you can connect with people, visual and performing art, is that connection too?

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Is that link that allows people to, uh, touch each other in ways that they wouldn't 'cause most, you know, I am making artwork, and most people will be looking at it like that.

They won't be touching me 'cause they're going to jail.

But if there's, they're, they're getting a glimpse of something that I think is important through my artwork.

And then they go home and forget it.

Or, or take a piece of it and think about the importance of it to them.

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: It's my bully pulpit.

I'm not a, a politician or a preacher, you know, this is the way that I can discuss things of great import to me, 'cause I believe better out than in.

That's a big deal.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

So there's so much here, but right in front of you, in front of us, there's this beautiful piece, um, that you were showing, uh, earlier and you were, you were talking about how the light... SCOTT: Yeah.

This, this room is a room where people can get a better understanding about beads.

About holding them, about how they're strung.

There's a book that I, I wrote in here years ago.

There's a poster, there's the pages from the actual book.

And one of the things we thought we might do is take a piece of beadwork and have it so people could hold it up to the light.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: And, and see how translucent it was.

It's an ancient, ancient form doing beadwork, stringing beads.

I mean, when, uh, King Tut had a whole bunch of 'em around his neck, whenever you go into ancient sites, that's what you find.

That's, you find beads that were jewelry or sacred, connected to sacred pieces.

So I'm working with an ancient technique and I'm very, very honored to be able to be, do it and, and do it well.

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: Not just being a, you know, halfway bead... WENDELL: Right.

SCOTT: I'm the one.

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: Part of what I learned from my, my mom and my dad and, and, um, my relatives, and that is that if I'm here as a human.

Not a snake or a butterfly, and I've been called those things, then what is my actual position as a human being?

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Is it just to be happy and get fat and eat...

Shut up, Wendell.

...Or is it to have something that I can share, give, donate to this humanity to help make it better for others?

And that of course, is for us, ethically a thing that happened.

I mean, people would build a church right after slavery and put a school in it.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: You know?

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Folks who dress certain ways because they came, they made something out of nothing.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: All of the, those things inform me about having a rich, satisfying, real, and important life.

And when I say important, I don't mean necessarily being the richest or the smartest, although I would like to be the richest person in the world, but how, how about living a life where when I see myself, I'm just thinking, wow, I'm carrying with me so many dreams manifest that they couldn't have.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: And if I put my size, I'm not gonna tell you my shoe size 'cause I'm embarrassed.

It's really a nine and a half in a door.

Can I maybe keep it open enough so someone else can come because that's what they did for me.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: I know how corny and, and sixties and hippie that is, but it is absolutely true.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: You know, I don't wanna wash the glass ceiling.

I wish to break through it.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Or at least open the window and walk in.

And I wish that for others.

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: So, I mean, why else are we here?

WENDELL: Right.

So where, where do you see, uh, yourself in the next 50 years and your art?

SCOTT: Well, the next 50 years, probably dead.

It's 100 years old, but my mother lived to be 95.

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: You know, I just don't wanna stop.

I tell people when, when you're at my funeral, I'll sit up in the coffin and say, four more hours, just gimme four more hours.

I believe that I, I'm nowhere close to what I could create.

I'm nowhere close to what I could be.

You know, and I believe I'm supposed to run it.

WENDELL: Yeah.

SCOTT: And only I believe I can stop myself because I, I have the skills to create what I need to create.

I just have to believe in myself to do it.

And to consistently summons the courage I need to do it day after day, one piece at a time, 100 pieces at a time.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: I'm very blessed with my, myself as an artist, with my, my ancestors and my love and joy for life.

So I'm just gonna live it.

WENDELL: Yeah.

Well, thank you so much.

It's, it's been an absolute pleasure.

SCOTT: Thank you.

Right back at you.

I wish to make music with you soon.

WENDELL: I would love that.

SCOTT: Talking about actual music folks, that wasn't flirting.

WENDELL: I would love that.

"Artworks" is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund, The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts, The E. T. and Robert B. Rocklin Fund, The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.