Art, Crossing Cultures #252

Aimée Bessire:

Clay to be with girls who are really struggling to be in school and get an education and to do a project with them which was so much fun. It was really, I think when she's talked about it, hearing her talk about it, I think it was a really meaningful time for her and so nice to have that time with her there.

Daniel Minter:

So ideas of oneself and realities of oneself meet. When you meet people who are different from you and you learn how to talk about those things, you learn how to communicate your ideas about other people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 252, Art Crossing Cultures, airing for the first time on Sunday, July 17, 2016. Art reflects the culture from which it is created. This is especially important when a culture is irreparably changed by the forced movement through situations such as slavery and war of its people. Today we discuss this with African art and culture scholar Aime Bessir and with internationally acclaimed children's book illustration illustrator Daniel Minter. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's always a lot of fun for me to have people in the studio with me that I've known I wanted to have on the radio for years. I think that this next individual, Aime Bessier, is someone I really have been talking in my own mind about having for five years. So thank you for coming in today.

Aimée Bessire:

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Aimee received her PhD and MA in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University and has an MA in Ancient, Near Eastern and 20th Century Art from NYU's Institute of Fine Arts she teaches courses on African art and culture, the African Diaspora, American culture, cultural and critical theory, gender studies, popular culture, and the history of photography. She founded the nonprofit Africa Schoolhouse, which is dedicated to building sustainable communities in rural Africa for children without educational opportunities. And I've just cut out a whole bunch of other really interesting things that you have done that we're definitely going to talk about. But I really appreciate your coming in today.

Aimée Bessire:

It's so nice to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you just got back from Africa. I really want to hear about this Africa schoolhouse that you've done.

Aimée Bessire:

So it started in 2006 when I was on a research trip in the village of Entulia and working with a village of Sukuma healers who I have known and my husband and I have known since the mid-90s when we lived in Tanzania. And they, on the very last night of my research trip, they said, we need your help. Our kids don't have a school and we need a modern medical clinic. So it's really interesting too for me, having known them for so long, to also hear that this group of healers also wanted not only a school for their children, but also a clinic. So I came home to really excited to help in some way. And at that point we thought it was going to be a school for maybe 100 kids from the village. And when I went back to do more research to find out what did this school need to be, what did we need to do? It turns out to be a school for 600 children and also the clinic. So we, my husband and I, were at an annual dinner with friends and I know you've heard part of the story, we were talking about the project with friends and everyone at this annual dinner in 2006 said, let's do it. Let's form a non profit and let's build a school and a clinic. And within a year and a half of that particular party where everyone said, let's do it, we broke ground and we started building the school and the school was completed. It took two years to build the school. There's 14 classrooms and 10 teacher houses. And as soon as the school was opened, we broke ground pretty much the next day and built the clinic. And the clinic was built within a year. So those were the first, those were the two big, big projects. And the clinic was opened in the school opened in 2010 and the clinic in 2011.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This last visit, you brought your daughter with you and you've brought her with you in the past, but this time she was 15. And it really meant Something.

Aimée Bessire:

Yeah, it was so. It was so great to be there and we had, we had been as a family to get the project up and running in 2008 when we broke ground for the primary school and the girls had this great opportunity to. At that point we lived in a tent for two and a half months and they were little, they were seven and 10 and they spent a lot of time running around the village playing with kids and just having a blast. And I think there was, they made some bricks. They were participating and helping with the, with the school project too. And we went back again in 2010 so they weren't that much older. It was two years after that. So they were then 8 and 8 and 12 or 9 and 12. And we also, you know, they saw some of the same friends from before but they still were young enough that it was, it was, they weren't. There wasn't a meaningful way to really do volunteer projects. And we did do a project setting up hand wash, hand washing stations and they did art projects with kids then. But this trip, trip was so much fun to go with our younger daughter Clay and she and I did projects with the girls at the girls school that we're now building, we're now working on. We're building a school for at risk girls so that they'll have a safe space to go to school and for Clay to be with girls who are really struggling to be in school and get an education and to do a project with them which was so much fun. It was really, I think when she's talked about it, hearing her talk about it, I think it was a really meaningful time for her and so nice to have that time with her there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know that I have a 15 year old daughter and you and I were talking about this before we came on and I often think about what it means to be a 15 year old girl in other parts of the world that 15 year old girls here and boys are relatively protected. They're still in this kind of childhood cocoon but in other parts of the world. And I'm assuming Africa is no different. 15 is a very, looks very different. What does it look like at the Africa schoolhouse?

Aimée Bessire:

So it's Clay and I did a video project with girls and we worked specifically with 12 girls and spent time with them, really empowering them to tell their story and thinking about what's their interesting story that they want to tell. And the girls each worked on with a partner, they worked with another girl and just practicing working on their stories and thinking about what they wanted to tell about their life story. And these life stories, there was a lot of overlap, a lot of overlap of families privileging their son's education over their daughters. The girls in the family, they all told a very similar story of going home after school. And some of them have two hour walks to get home. So they have to get up very early to get to school. And then by the time they get home, they're. The girls are the ones who go to the well to fetch the water. They bring the water home, they do all of the cooking, they do all of the cleaning up. And they were saying, they were all, they were laughing about it. They were saying, our brothers, they're all playing soccer. And then they get to do their homework early, but we don't get to do our homework until we finish cleaning everything up, doing all the dishes, and then it's really late and we're very tired. So they were telling a very. It's a tough story. Only 1% of girls in Tanzania graduate from secondary school, which is a really sad number.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did your daughter respond to that?

Aimée Bessire:

So it's really eye opening for a 15 year old to hear the story of other girls who are struggling so hard and whose parents can't sometimes pay all of the fees that are needed for school. There's a new president in Tanzania who has made all secondary school free as of January this year, January 2016. Secondary school is free, which is so exciting. And it's now meant there's a lot of overcrowding in secondary schools because kids who had no opportunity before can now go. But you still have to buy a school uniform and you still have to have your school supplies and your books. And sometimes for some families, that's much too much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were referencing my hearing, your husband's version of this story. And that, of course, is because your husband, Mark. Mark Bessear is the head of the Portland Museum of Art. And he was allowed to be. I don't want to say aloud, that's a silly word. But we invited him to be part of Maine Live. So the Maine Live that just happened this past spring is like a TEDx Dirigo. And he was standing up on the stage, really giving the background information. There was something about a friend of yours passing away at a fairly young age that prompted this group that you've described to invest in this African village the way that you have.

Aimée Bessire:

Yeah. And this is our dear friend. Josh Dulinski, who was Mark's best friend, died when we were in our early 20s and left a small amount of money for everybody to continue to get together as we always had on the night before Thanksgiving. And his family lived and still lives on one of the blocks where you can watch the. The Macy's Day Parade balloons blow up. So we always had Chinese food and went to Josh's to watch the balloons. And we kept this up. He left this small amount of money to all of his friends that we could keep getting together. But we have kept getting together for years and years, you know, ever since. It is something that we all make sure to be there for the, what we call the Josh Dinner. And it was at that dinner that everyone decided to do this. And it was really in honor of Josh and this, this long term group friendship that's really held together by this glue of everyone loving Josh, but being so close together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have a strong affinity for Maine and you've chosen very specifically to live in Maine. You've made it possible through doing a variety of jobs, and yet you still have a strong connection to New York. That's where you've got one of your graduate degrees. I know that Mark also has similarly strong connection. Why has Maine become so important to you?

Aimée Bessire:

Oh, you know, when we first moved here and we moved here when Mark got a job as the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. And we moved with. Our first daughter was six months old at the time, and we moved here thinking, oh, maybe this is one step in this career path that we both are entering. And within six months of being here, we realized we never wanted to leave. We just fell in love with this amazing place. And I think we frequently say to each other, we're so lucky that we have been able to live here and raise our kids here. And it's. We still think about how much, how grateful we are to have landed in this incredible place that has amazing people, fantastic culture, beautiful outdoor life. It is very special.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I find it interesting that your focus has been on African art and culture, the African diaspora, and that you have this strong relationship with Tanzania. Where did that come from for you?

Aimée Bessire:

You know, it's a question that I have been asked so many times, like, why Africa? And it's very hard to explain why. We're drawn to certain things. And from the time that I was very young, I think, and I grew up outside of Chicago and remember going to the Field Museum as a kid and just falling in love with Africa at that museum. And I just went back and visited this year and sort of felt that resonant connection that I felt as a As a kid, but it was always there. And even though I didn't study that in college and when I first went to graduate school, I wasn't focusing on Africa, I knew that it was something that I wanted to do. So I switched tracks in graduate school and began to focus strictly on Africa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's an interesting thing to hear you say. I don't really know why this happened, but I know that it existed. And then I went back to this and really believing that there was a reason for this resonance, because I think so many of us feel drawn to something, and because we can't logically explain it, maybe we discount it more than we should. So how is it that you somehow managed to stay with that strong connection?

Aimée Bessire:

In some ways, it was almost like a yearning, which may sound a little bit strange. I loved what I studied when I first went to graduate school, But I was. When I was focusing on 20th century art, I was most interested in the artists, modernist artists, who were connected to and influenced by African art. So that was still, like, I was still holding that there. And I knew when I finished that part of graduate school that I did not want to continue in those fields. I absolutely wanted to move on and study Africa. And it was like a yearning. And in some ways, I think that it was also a yearning. And I had never visited Africa, any African country, but it was a yearning to actually be there and to study what was there. And when I first went on a dissertation, sort of looking for my dissertation topic research trip, I, as soon as I landed in Tanzania and got off the plane and smelled the smell, I was like, okay, this is it. There was something that just felt really right about being there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you first came to Maine. I'm not sure what the timing was exactly, but I think it was probably a significantly whiter state. It's not a particularly non white state now, but we have really been blessed by people from Somalia, people from other parts of Africa who have come to Maine. And I wonder how that feels for you to show up and have it be pretty Caucasian to now finally having some people that I don't know bear some resemblance to something that you feel attached to it.

Aimée Bessire:

To see the way that the state has diversified has been so exciting and has also been one of those parts of Maine that we love and has kept us here. When we moved, we were concerned that we were moving to. And I think by the last census, we moved here in 1998, and by that last census, it had been declared as the least diverse state in the country. And we had concerns about that. And it was exciting to see the influx of people coming from Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, parts of the Congo. And I was just telling a friend in Tanzania, they were asking me if I get to use my Swahili often in Maine. And I said, actually, I do. And I have boldly entered conversations. I think most recently it was at the post office. At the Forest Avenue post office. I overheard two men speaking Swahili. And I went up and I said, I'm so sorry. I don't want to be rude. But I started speaking with them, and they were so welcoming and kind and so happy to hear someone speaking Swahili. Of course, I completely embarrassed my kids. But it's very. It's not uncommon that I have people around town who I can speak Swahili with, which is really. It's exciting for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how do you think that having people from Somalia, Rwanda, Bundy, how do you think that that is influencing Maine now, influencing Portland, Lewiston, and even other parts of Maine?

Aimée Bessire:

Wow, that is a good and interesting question. Something. I think that it's. All of the communities are adding so much to our state, and we're a state that's had a long history of people, of immigrants coming in, of Franco Americans coming in. And now we have an influx of many people coming from different African countries. And I think it just adds to this great texture of our state.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have this interesting connection with the African diaspora. Talk to me a little bit about that, because we've specifically talked about Africa, but obviously people from Africa are now all over the world and sometimes were forcibly removed from that country and taken to other parts of the world. How has that impacted you?

Aimée Bessire:

I think I see that really thriving African diaspora here in Maine. And it has not been a large part of my research, but another part of my research has focused on a Tanzanian and specifically Sukuma culture, diaspora in Denmark. And I see similarities between that diaspora and the diaspora coming here, too. So it's been very interesting to sort of to see the diaspora here in Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I think about people who are several generations removed from Africa, their families were part of the slave culture in the southern part of the United States, I wonder what they have kept with them. I wonder what they have kept with them from Africa, the culture, just the emotional connection. Do you have any sense of that?

Aimée Bessire:

I think there's always that deep emotional connection. And I think even whether we're recognizing that or not, memories of places that we've come from are there. And even for that next generation, they might be there to some level. I know that there's also ways that kids who are growing up here may want to take another path that's less traditional than that of their parents and that sometimes can create conflict in families. But there's very strong heritage that comes with people and also those very difficult memories.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I remember when we interviewed Peter Behrens, who is a local author, and he wrote about Ireland, and he wrote about starvation. And my family, part of it came from Ireland. And it has always fascinated me, the possibility of that imprinting that maybe I don't specifically remember starvation. But what is it in my genetics or what is it in my upbringing that carries sort of shadows from that past and from that leaving of that country? So I wonder if that's even a possibility for people who are several generations removed from. From Africa.

Aimée Bessire:

I think absolutely, absolutely. And it's. Many of the people who are here have experienced very traumatic lives before coming, and in some way their kids or maybe their kids kids. It's hard to say what is actually held emotionally, but it's still there. Still can be there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We ask people who come in what their favorite places in Maine are. Their favorite place in Maine is. But you had a hard time narrowing it down. You actually said Long Pond in Acadia, Old Port any time of day, Scarborough beach, winter walks, Kezor Lake, Five Islands on a hot summer night, Mount Katahdin, Lisbon street in Lewiston, the whole state, you've just.

Aimée Bessire:

You like. You like it all.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But these are all very different. And some of them are fairly specific times of year. Are these related to memories? These related to. Is it the sense of place itself? Tell me about that.

Aimée Bessire:

So it was. I loved seeing the question. And as I was looking at it, I thought, oh, wait, I can't pick just one. So I just took a deep breath and went very stream of consciousness. I've had so many beautiful dog walks out at Scarborough beach when it's completely empty this past winter. And that was just magical to stand there and just take deep breaths in that cold air. And there's so many places in the state, I couldn't pick just one. And then I was thinking about just walking. We live in the West End in Portland, and just walking downtown, Walking to the Old Port any time of year, any time of day feels so special to me. It really was hard to narrow it down. I have so many. And I think we as a family have so many happy memories of different parts of the state. And there are some parts of the state that we realize we haven't explored enough with our kids. So we've talked about even just taking other trips around the state because there's still so much more left to explore. And I know those would make my list of favorites, too. It's just too hard to pick a favorite.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I feel the same way. I don't know that somebody could ask me, you know, what's your favorite part of Maine? Because I'd say, well, what time of year or what exactly are you looking for? I think that's one of the things that I really love about Maine, is that there's such a diversity of experience that's possible.

Aimée Bessire:

We're very lucky.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We absolutely are. Do you. And this is, I guess, a completely random question, but do you see any connection between the visual arts that arise out of Africa and the visual arts that have arisen out of this state? Is there any kind of relevance of one to the other?

Aimée Bessire:

That is such an interesting question. I don't. I don't feel any real connections between the two visually. Aesthetically, I don't feel connections, but I think there are definitely connections that could be made of people painting or photographing or working on things that inspire them. So I see artists in Tanzania or East Africa working on creative. Creative issues that inspire them the same way that artists here are doing that. I think that's the one connection I could make. But visually, not a lot of resonance.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it does seem as though where you've described all of these places that you feel very connected to in the state. And I know many people have the same response that there is some, I don't know, some passion, some sensual connection. And then I wonder if that. The same is true in Africa and Tanzania, for example. I wonder if there is something big and bubbly that kind of causes people to really be willing to jump in and explore things that are more artistic.

Aimée Bessire:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I know it's a random question. Sometimes I like to ask the random questions to see where they go. These last few years, I know you've been very busy with your teaching and with the Africa schoolhouse, and you have children who are 15 and 17, 18 and 18. And I know that many of us, as our kids, kind of hit that final stretch. It causes us to return back to things that maybe we always wanted to explore. It strengthens things that were important to us. What does that look like for you?

Aimée Bessire:

That is also a really good question. I think that it's been. One of the things that feels really exciting is that it's been really wonderful to work on Africa Schoolhouse and work on the projects, building this girls school and also being able to involve our kids in that too and to have them connect and you know, they're helping brainstorm how we're using social media. We were teaching the girls at the girls school how to use Instagram so that they could be Instagramming photos and we could actually be sharing them, you know, sharing them also. So doing things like that is really exciting in terms of like what that looks like in that sort of that phase as kids are in. And you put it really nicely, kids are in that phase where they're their last few years at home before college, I think even, or maybe this is just at this point in my life part. I'm not sure if this is the question you were asking, but it's meant also more grounding, more being at home to just enjoy time with them, taking time to do small trips as a family and really enjoying every moment. Our daughter is headed to college in the fall and every moment feels very precious right now. Really, really special.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I feel exactly the same way. I have children who are 22 and 20 and 15 and so I've, I think when the first one was getting ready to graduate, I started to actually, it was probably two years before he graduated. I started to feel acutely like that my relationship was going to change with him. And it's really interesting, it's really interesting that we grow with these other human beings in our lives and that they never stop being our children. But the way that they are our children and the way that we are their parents is very significantly different. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation and I think it's been worth the five years we've waited to get you on the show if the time must have been right. We've been speaking with Aimee Bessiere who is a teacher and co founder of the Africa Schoolhouse and so many other things. I really appreciate your coming in and having a conversation with me today.

Aimée Bessire:

Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

to speak with Daniel Minter, who, along with his wife, Marcia, was featured in the Art of Style in the April issue of Old Port magazine. Born in Elleville, a small rural community in southern Georgia, Daniel Minter has illustrated nine children's books, including Ellen's Broom, written by Kelly Starling Lyons, Seven Spools of A Kwanzaa Story by Angela Shelf Medeiros, and the Riches of Osceola McCarty by Evelyn Coleman. Minter's paintings and sculptures have been exhibited internationally at galleries and museums, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, Bates College, Hammons House Museum, and the Meridian International Center. Thanks so much for coming in today, Daniel.

Daniel Minter:

You're welcome. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested in the work that you do because is. It's something that we don't have as much of here in Maine. We have a lot of focus on Maine centered themes. But your, your books are so beautiful in a very different way and they talk a lot more about, I don't know, an aspect of life that maybe we don't get to look into that much.

Daniel Minter:

Well, if you, if you notice, a lot of my books are about place, you know, and even though they may not be directly about Maine, they are about, they're about communities of people, you know, groups of people and people creating culture, you know, and usually it's in a. Most of my books deal with African American themes, though not all because that's, I guess that's my, that's where I'm from, you know, and that is the language that I use to tell my story. But I'm also telling the story of smaller main communities. Within that, within those stories,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested in how, as an artist, you decided what your story was. What was it that you wanted to focus on and why was community important to you?

Daniel Minter:

I guess it's because I was. Well, where I grew up, there were no artists there. It did, you know, you could not work as an artist. It didn't exist. You could be a sign painter, you could be a carpenter, you could fix things, you could do things, build things with your hands. You could make sculptures and, you know, and things and Put in your. Put in your backyard and fill your yard with all these things and stuff. But you were not an artist. You know, you weren't called an artist. You were some. You, you, you just. You did those things, and people expected you to do those things and recognize you for those things, but they did not necessarily call you an. An artist so much, and you didn't make a living from it and that. And I always wanted to make a living from my artwork. When I learned that that was a possibility. And so I, you know, I did graphic arts and illustration, and that seemed to take me away from the thing. From that community. It took me away from thinking about the community and the people who I grew up with and who influenced me so much. And so I began to think more. I want to integrate more of that into my actual illustration work. So I began to do the children's book work. I also began to do more fine art painting and those kinds of. And more expressive work on my own. But really, it was trying to get back to that from the, you know, from the purely, you know, graphic arts.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And about where in your kind of life timeline did that happen?

Daniel Minter:

That happened well after. I mean, I worked for a corporation, you know, doing, you know, lots of types of books, magazines, promotional material, slide presentations, annual reports, those kinds of things. And I did that right after. I started doing that very early on and did it for maybe about seven or eight years. So I guess it must have been about 25, 26 when I started to really want to have something, something of myself within my work. My. My work. Work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As you were working and making money from your art through working with this corporation, did you start. I mean, I guess I'm interested in the process because many people talk about being artists, but can't still have to have a day job. They still have to do the things that puts the, you know, the food on the table. So were you able to simultaneously start doing the types of things that showed more of your own self and also continue to work with this corporation?

Daniel Minter:

Yes, I was, but it was. I would mostly just. I would show my artwork in galleries. That's what I would. I was mostly doing. Then I would get. I began showing my artwork, but I didn't feel like it was the same. I could. I didn't feel like I could merge the two. I still don't feel like I can really, really merge. Merge the works. Just like the artwork that I do in the children's books is different from the artwork that I do for the galleries, But I feel like There's a closer. Similar. There's a similarity. Now I think that I'm beginning to make more of a connection between those types of works.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how did that happen? How did that evolution occur?

Daniel Minter:

Slowly, very slowly. It's the kind of thing that all artists struggle with. And it's just part of. It's just part of. Part of being an artist in this society.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Going back to describing where you were raised and the fact that you could be a sign painter, you could be a maker of things, but you weren't described as an artist and you couldn't necessarily make a living. Tell me how it is that there was some way that you felt supported enough that you could actually go to art school, you could actually pursue this dream? Because sometimes when you're in a community where everybody has a certain role, you, you know, growing up, you feel as if you need to take on one of those roles rather than find one for yourself.

Daniel Minter:

That was. That was not difficult at all. It was. I mean, it was a really a natural. A natural thing for me to do because it was really important, that education was always really important. And education in whatever endeavors you choose was seen as a very positive thing. So it would not even occur to anyone to. To discourage you from pursuing education in an area that interested you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you just. Once you decided that art was where you wanted to go, people just said, go for it.

Daniel Minter:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you find that that's true in the students that you are instructing at the Maine College of art?

Daniel Minter:

I feel like that it's a lot different now because when I went to school, there was not this huge, huge, huge family commitment to get that student into and through school. I feel like I did it, a lot of it, on my own. It was the. There was. There was pressure to pay for it, but that pressure was, you know, on me, and it was. And I did not see it as overwhelming. The commitment that you put into paying for school is the biggest thing about school now. And I think that that burden limits the students creativity a lot and freedom and sense that they are on a journey. You know, it's almost like they are not free to fly yet because they still have this great weight that they know is going to crash down on them as soon as they get out of school. And. I find that a lot of students have a really hard time looking at the world today and seeing how am I going to fit into.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Must be for you, a funny place to be because you're also the father of a student who's finishing his first year of College and is an art student.

Daniel Minter:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you are both. You've sort of been this person yourself. You are teaching these people yourself. And now you have a child who is experiencing this. So what. What types of conversations do you have with your son about this?

Daniel Minter:

Well, the types of things that I feel like are valuable in being an artist is the flexibility and the ability to. Create yourself. Create what it is that you. That you are. And so you can't limit yourself to, I'm going to be just this. And when you, you know, when you are an artist, you begin to realize that you cannot be just this a lot of times. So you may have. You can be a very technical type person, you can be a very ephemeral type person that pulls things together, but those things are valuable in a lot of different situations. And if you are an artist, you can find where your value is in those situations. And if other people are smart, they will realize that value that you bring to these areas.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The reason that I keep talking about this is because it's something that I think that we all are trying. We all deal with as creative beings. I mean, most humans have some spark of creativity. I would say all humans have a spark of creativity in them, whether they self identify as artists or not. But there's, you know, it's almost a different mindset that's required in some ways to say, work for a corporation and do that sort of creativity versus the type of creativity that one would need to purely paint or, you know, create something from nothing.

Daniel Minter:

Well, you don't have to be creative to be an artist, because. Not today. Because you can imitate and be a successful artist if that's what you want to do. I mean, you can. And you don't have to be an artist to be creative. There's what you have to be creative. You have to be able to take situations from one area and apply them to another area and then apply that to another area and still understand the functionality of that thing. That's creativity. And you can do that in a lot of different areas. So a lot of times you think that artists are creative. A lot of times artists are not creative. You know, and people, A lot of times people think that if you are not an artist, you are not creative. That's not true. You know, it's dealing with things that are different and applying those things. That's creativity.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That makes sense the way that you're describing it and thinking about the work that you have done. Because not only do you create artwork that is really all around the country, Places like Seattle and Bates College. But you also, you do these beautiful illustrations. So you're working with authors to put a visual, I don't know, to co create, I guess, a book with visual and words. And you've also done, I think you've created two stamps. That's a very utilitarian.

Daniel Minter:

And also I enjoyed the utilitarian function of that. I enjoy doing utilitarian type work. I mean, it's. There is a. There's a place for that. And I enjoy doing things for other people. You know, I enjoy clarifying an idea that another person has and then bringing imagery to that and releasing ownership. You know, it's like it's not mine, it's yours. You know, I did, you know, I did this for you. I get satisfaction from that, that part of it. But. And there's, and like, I think there is a place to that. That is the service part of being an artist, I think. And I think every artist should be able to do that for another person. That's. To me, that's our function. You know, in a way, it's. We interpret the world for other people a lot of times. So we should. If you want to call yourself an artist, you should be able to function as an artist for other people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have a strong inclination towards the understanding of memory and the ways in which memory is embedded into our past, present and future. Is this part of that interpretive aspect that you're talking about?

Daniel Minter:

In a way, the memory is the biggest part of our world. Okay, that's the biggest. It's what we live with the longest, you know, it's what's with us most time. And it's also the most, the most fluid, you know, it's not all. Just because we remember something doesn't mean that it happened, you know, or it happened the way it changes or whatever. But it's. But your memories have been with you as long as you've been alive. Whereas each day is a brief thing, it's flowing right into memory. And we have only a concept of the future. So things that we want to express, ideas and things, has to come from our memory. And you have to farm your memory. You have to actively put things into your memory. So that means you have to actively observe, observe the world around you. Things. And then you go back to your memory and see how these things actually work. So memory is. Is very important to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though it's also important in a larger sense. So there's the personal memory, but then there's also sort of more of a collective memory that you're interested in. I know that the books that I have Ellen's Broom, I have the riches of Osceola McCarty and seven spools of thread, and there's a lot of. There's a lot of memory in here. There's a lot of memory of culture and of self and of place and of community that's.

Daniel Minter:

Well, when I grew up, those types of books didn't really exist. And so the memory of these types of stories were. Lot of them were oral. It was. You know, the stories were. Were told and not necessarily written. Written in books. And they were. So. So I feel like there's a. An urgency in making them. In making them into books, getting, you know, getting them down and also taking those memories before they. Before they turn into something else, you know, before they are no longer accessible.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been a board member with the Underground Railroad here in Maine, and you've had an interest in African American culture. And this is something that I think we don't know as much about. We're increasingly, I believe, more aware of this very rich culture and how it has been interwoven with the history of our state. But it's not as evident as some of the other things that we're aware of in our history. So tell me what that's what that's been like for you.

Daniel Minter:

Well, that's. That's been one of the things that. That helped me to. Help me to, I guess, find a. Find a place here in. In. In Portland, in that just being able to see that these places existed, that there's been a community here of color for a long time, Since it became a state on its own, and finding that there was. It was not widely known and that people were actually curious. So in finding a way to share that with people and while discovering it for myself, that. I feel like that tied me. Helped tie me to the community.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Were you surprised by what you found?

Daniel Minter:

Surprised?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Surprised to know that there was so much that was in existence?

Daniel Minter:

No, I wasn't surprised. I mean, just because it's. It's our African American history, or the African American aspect of American history has. Has been understated. It's been ignored for, you know, for a long time. It's. Because it's complicated. It complicates a lot of the ideas of this country. And so rather than explain those complicated ideas, it's usually left out. So I wasn't surprised. No,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I agree with you that it's complicated. And I think that even people who would like to have a conversation about it. There's. There's almost a reticence because there's an uncertainty as to which direction we can actually go into comfortably. And. And I don't think. I think there are a lot of people who really would like to explore it more, but don't really know how.

Daniel Minter:

Right. Because there's. They haven't been given the language and the. The language to talk about it openly, and they haven't trained themselves to talk about it openly because they haven't had to. You may think you feel one way about people or whatever, but if you are not encountering that person each day or not or on a regular basis, you know, you have no way of knowing how you feel you know, or how you actually respond to this person. So ideas of oneself and realities of oneself meet when you meet people who are different from you, and you learn how to talk about those things. You learn how to communicate your ideas about other people and yourself and exchange ideas with other people and yourself and find where the. Where the truth actually is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your willingness to come in and to talk about your art and to talk about some of these bigger ideas. It's interesting for me as I'm looking at the books that you've helped illustrate and having seen some of the work online that you. You've done, it's. It's quite varied.

Aimée Bessire:

You.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I mean, there are some underlying themes and techniques, but you. You seem like there's a. There's an expansiveness to the way that you approach your art that it doesn't. You don't have to have a single focus or a single way of doing it.

Daniel Minter:

Well, I guess I'm initially. I am a painter. I like painting. I love painting, love drawing, that sort of thing. I also like carving, working with wood and other materials. The printmaking allows me to do both of those. It allows me to carve and it allows me to paint. So that's one of the reasons why I enjoy that. Though I'm not a printer maker, I always say I'm not a printmaker, though. You know, it turns out all of the children's books that I do end up being, you know, the print, the relief print, but it's really the. To me, they're carvings, you know, and that was one of the. One of the things that I grew up doing. We carved. We did a lot of carving, relief type carving. You know, it was not. Not necessarily a. I guess more of a kind of a folk art kind of way of doing. Doing this. But I don't see the art, being an artist as being about the, the stuff you use. You know, it's the stuff you use is, is not as important as what you do with it. So sometimes I paint, sometimes I make things, sometimes I, I carve, sometimes I use the computer. And I also, I mean I also do design, I'll design things for people sometimes. So it is varied, is very, I don't do a single, I can't say I do a single type of thing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Danielle, how can people find out about the work that you do?

Daniel Minter:

You know, really the way I like for people to find out about the work that I do through talking to me, that's really my preferred way. But I'm easy to find online and. It's easy to find the children's books that I do find those. And then the other types of art, the painting and work that I do. You can find that online as well@DanielMentor.net

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure to talk to you today. I've enjoyed our conversation about art in general, but community memory. I encourage people to learn more about Daniel Minter. We've been speaking with Daniel Minter, who is an artist based here in Maine now, but who has been really all over the country and has done many different things and can be found along with his wife Marcia in the April issue of Holtport Magazine. Thanks for coming in today.

Daniel Minter:

You're very welcome.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine Radio show number 252, Art Crossing Cultures. Our guests have included Aimee Bessier and Daniel Minter. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of lovemain Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Art Crossing Culture show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.