SPEAKER_02 1:45

Welcome back to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we had the pleasure of speaking with the talented Dogon Krigger, a multidisciplinary artist based in Columbia, South Carolina, whose journey through journalism and music production led them to collaborate with musicians, creating commissioned digital collages. Dogon's creative influences include mentorship from renowned artists Tom Fillings and Walter Rutledge. Initially working in digital art, Dogon has expanded their artistic practice to include hand cut paper collage, assemblage with printed and cut vinyl on acrylic and metal and immersive installations. As a skilled graphic designer, Dogon praises their experience in commercial print, signage, design, and project management. In 2023, they served as artists in residence at Richland Library in Columbia, South Carolina, where they produced and hosted community-based art program and exhibition, time and time again, Exploring the Antique Blacks, a Root Workers Tarot. That is awesome. My wife loves tarot cards. Oh, really? Yes. So now I found got something good, got something good. Dogon's works have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Tapp's Fine Art Center, the Sumter County Gallery of Art, Columbia Museum of Art, and the Goodall Gallery. Dogon has also designated album artwork or design album artwork for notable artists, including King Brit, Kyle Bent, Hieroglyphic Being, Monty Luke, and Vibes Records. During this episode, we will dive into the creative mind of Dogon Krigger. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Man, I am fantastic. Thank you for that glowing introduction.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

It is much deserved. It is much deserved.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Shout out to Smaya for writing things up.

Longevity And Early Digital Roots

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I and I will say, I will say, and I gotta jump in because we were having a little conversation off camera before we start and began. And obviously, we're gonna always start the episode by asking about yourself, where you're from, influences, etc. Okay. One of the things that I think is different about you in comparison to some of our guests is your longevity. And I I kind of I want to start there with just speaking about your longevity, um, how you have been able to sustain and who are your influences in getting to where you are now.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Okay. So longevity, yeah. I've been um, I want to say the first time I well, I've been making art all my life. Like I was a creative little kid, I did a lot of different things. I was in dance first, um, I was in music, uh, and I always had a sketch pad. Um, my mom always kept art supplies around me. So as long as I can remember, I've always been doing something. Um but I would say that my professional career began in 2008 when a friend of mine um and I we had an idea that we were gonna run an underground music blog um online and build a forum off of that. We were all used to be on, do y'all remember uh hip hop dx? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all we all were on those forums, and um, we were like, we could do this, we could do it differently. And you know, in our mind, I was like, we could do this better. So we ventured out to start our own website, and starting a website, especially like a website blog and a forum in 2008 was incredibly difficult. Yeah, you had to know some things, yeah. You had to know some things, like so um we were like, yeah, we're gonna do it. And then we sat down and we were just like, oh, this is expensive. And we gotta pay somebody to design it. So we had to teach ourselves um on the like pretty much on the spot. So like we were just like, well, we can find the scratch to like buy templates and like buy things to make this look right, or we we just gonna have to roll our sleeves up and do it. And we did that. So my first uh venture into digital art was downloading GIMP, uh, which is a free graphic image processor. Um, and I used that for a little bit and then eventually graduated to Adobe Photoshop CS2. Um and uh yeah, so that's what 2008, 2009. That was my first time doing that. So we started designing this website in the forums. I had friends who, you know, we started out just wanting banners and signatures and stuff like that. Um realized I had a knack for it. And because it was a music forum and um and primarily a hip-hop forum, um, everybody there was rappers, so they wanted album art. So I started doing their album art. And that got me, you know, into music more, um, managing, um, learning how to like executively produce, uh, putting together, helping, helping them put together albums and then helping them put the press out, you know, and actually, you know, put their album into the world. And then that just kind of rolled into, you know, what I do now. Eventually I got tired of only working on commission based. I was like, I got some good ideas that people don't always want to accept, so I'm just making myself. Yeah. So I put my art on canvas for the first time on print and uh showed it and got really good, uh, got a really good reception. And I was like, I can do this, and I did it, and I'm still doing it. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah. Now, when did you hit that point where you were like, hmm, this can pay? I'm an artist, Nick. Yeah, this can pay.

From Album Art To Fine Art

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Um, so because a lot of my work started like commission-based, that was always kind of in the back of my mind because before I started putting the work on, you know, in frames or on canvas or on something to hang up on the wall, it was people just coming to me for album art. So, you know, that was that kind of let me know that I can I can do that. And then also as a graphic designer too, I always had, you know, like clients um, you know, come to me for you know, logos and um promotional design, um, things like that. Business. So that was always kind of part of me. Like, I always knew that like I could I could be profitable if I wanted to be, or I could, you know, create something sustainable if I wanted to. Um but it was probably this the fact that my first time showing art on a wall wasn't even in the city. It was um I it was in uh Philly for the Afro Futurist affair. I was invited to uh to show some art there. So my first time ever showing in a gallery was me driving nine hours to Philly with a with a box full of canvases and putting it up there, and it was received so well. And I think that was that moment where I was just like, I should keep doing this because like you know, the the rush you get from you know showing work um and just people like you know, people loving it. You're sitting right there, and people are giving you your flowers like and talking to you about it. I'd never experienced that before. Wow. Um, and that was just like that's a that's a high that doesn't yeah, don't be it can be replicated. Yeah, so like I'm gonna keep doing that. Let's do this again.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

But it seems too like like you put a lot of yourself into your pieces and and you kind of like I don't know, spiritually delve into these characters that you're exploring.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Um a lot of yeah, a lot of what I do, um, especially early on, like was me kind of documenting and recounting spiritual experiences. Um you know, spiritual, like esoteric knowledge, occult information I was finding. Um I was inspired to to document that in a particular way, um, you know, and just make it visual. So like these are these are things I saw on a mushroom trip, and I want to kind of bring that back and like, you know, put that down, or like, you know, this is a this is a uh heady concept that I've you know, I learned through, you know, through reading, and I want to kind of take that and you know and document that and put that you know, put that in a place. And I was inspired a lot by um alchemical art, you know, um, the way the alchemists would kind of take these lengthy processes um and you know turn them into like visual diagrams to show their whole, you know, their whole process of how they performed a thing. And that's what I started doing um with my work. And one of the like one of these pieces is actually a reflection of that. We probably get back into that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That makes that makes so much sense. Do a great job of it. Do a great job of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Now, did do you have any siblings or yeah? I'm uh I am a younger, a younger sibling. I have an older sister. Um, and uh, yeah, we we get along great. Yeah, we get along. We get along. No, no, we get along great. Um they like we're we're very different. Um, they're an Aquarius, I'm a Leo, we're literally like polar opposites. Um so growing up was a little different, but we've you know, we've uh we've learned each other and like there's a lot of love there now. But um, yeah, growing up being a younger sibling was was fun. I got to just, you know, I kind of learned I learned how to troll being a younger sibling. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So what's the age gap?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Uh three years. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's a three-year age gap. That's a good one. Yeah. I got the I got the master. My first art form was just being annoying. Gosh. Before anything else, I learned how to be annoying very well.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Now, the the inspiration behind you doing art, individuals will always speak about some like experiences from growing up, parents, people in the community. Who or what led you to this?

Spiritual Experiences In Visual Form

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So, like, yeah, it was it was what I said about like just it's my my spiritual experiences, seeing seeing these incredible things and just like wanting to share it with people, but it's like for me to talk about this, I'll be yapping for hours.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Like, that's what that's that's that's what that's that's what want to do. Yeah, yeah. So, so who and the reason why I asked this is I I can point to a particular time in my life when I was exposed to certain spirituality or ideas or or or thoughts or understanding by certain individuals, like whoop, that turned on a light switch. My third eye is beaming right now. Let's go another way. And I know who those people are, uh, and I can name some of them. And I was just wondering if you have any of those folks, you know what, this person put a book in my hand, or they Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So um in the intro, you mentioned two people, um, Tom Feelings and Walter Rutledge. So if you're familiar with Tom Feelings, um, I want to say his magnum opus was the middle passage, and it's this beautiful um book. It's works on, I believe it's just this graphite on paper of depicting um what the middle passage you know looked like from you know references of you know historical text and um you know, like even like writing firsthand accounts and just you know the history of what it was like for um African people to you know travel from uh the West Coast of Africa into the Caribbeans and into uh you know into the Americas. And realizing, and I didn't realize this at the time, but um you know, my mom uh was personal friends with uh his spouse at the time, so we spent a lot of time with them, and I spent a lot of time in his house, in his studio, not realizing that he was what he was doing. Yeah, when I was just legit, you know, I'm like eight years old, I'm in there with him, I'm just like drawing football players, and you know, you know, not really um not understanding, you know, the the gravity of the situation at the time, but I was sitting next to like a true master working on his masterpiece. Um, you know, and uh and yeah, I think that once I when I realized that later, I was just like, oh wow, I was literally like just a not uh necessarily a part of history, but just like adjacent to history, to like, you know, the real like art history, and like didn't even know it. But when that when that realization like kind of dawned on me, I was like, wow, that's a really special thing to have been, you know, to been just a part of or just being to be next to. Um so yeah, um, you know, Tom, he it wasn't it wasn't particularly a formal mentorship in the sense of he was actually teaching me like you know, really fine craft, but he encouraged me and he gave me the space to just create, you know, with him. And I'm always now kind of striving to duplicate that because for what it did for me, like I gotta, I gotta pay that forward, you know, a thousandfold if I can. Um, so you're awesome for that. Yeah, I gotta say that.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

That makes me always makes me feel good when I when I hear creatives say that, as opposed to I'm gonna gatekeep. Oh, gonna keep the knowledge from you. I'm not gonna let you learn it this way. You gotta go through uh uh the what's it the the the journey of the phoenix to get no, it shouldn't be like that for everyone.

Mentors Tom Feelings And Walter Rutledge

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, no, I believe um very much in like just free open access to information and and skills. Um yeah, gatekeeping is I don't I don't care for it. I see why people think it's necessary because I think in some people's minds they think that gatekeeping is um is a matter of helping people be prepared for the journey ahead. Yeah, but at the end of the day, it ends up just like marginalizing um people and the people who get kept at the gates are usually the people who have the least access to resources because otherwise it's the resources that get you through. It's not it's not all it's not always the knowledge, it's not always the skill. It's actually rarely that it's it's really resources. So if you think about the role that gatekeeping um plays in you know perpetuating capitalism, um it's that. So I'm very much staunchly anti that. Yeah. Um, second person, Walter Rutledge. Um, so Walter Rutledge is a multidisciplinary creative. Uh, he was a dancer. That's how I first met him, doing a residency at my school. Um, when I was, you know, elementary school. And um he came, he's teaching us choreography. Um uh somehow like my mom ended up getting involved in what he had going on and um helped him put on a production called Soulful Noel. If you're from Columbia, um back in like the late 90s, it was and it was a Christmas play that was uh done at Township where he kind of took the Christmas story but just like made it very black, um and uh made it really like kind of like artsy and creative. And he used uh he was his residency was using um students from schools as as like the background dancers. So he was teaching choreography, teaching dance, theater, and all that. Um he was also a visual artist, and he's somebody who I spent a lot of time learning from. Um, and he showed me collage for the first time through his paper crafting. Um, I'll tell you this man is like a master, a master dancer, choreographer. He's the Alvin Ailey dancer. Yeah, and yeah, so he was with Alvin Ailey in their prime. Yeah, and he was actually um mentored by one of my idols, Romere Beardon. So if you're familiar with Romere Beardon's work, he's also like one of the quintessential like Afro-surrealist, like collage artists, like of our of our time. And so he was taught by Romer, and then he taught me about collage, and you know, you can see the through lines of in my work, um, because that heavily inspired me. Um, but yeah, yeah, he he played a big role in in my creativity and kind of how I'd show up in the in the world and how I, you know, like seeing him blend and bring together different, like different mediums, like you show me visual art and like seeing his visual art show up in his stage productions and like the choreography and like the ideas that go behind it, it's all and it's all the same thing. It's the creative approach is all the same, it's just the medium changes and you know, like that. But that was another person who had a really big influence on on my work. And he was in Michael Jackson videos, and that's cool. Yeah, come on. He was in thriller, he was in fact thriller, yeah, yeah. So he made a really big impact on me. Shout out to him.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

I like the the the the transference of information and creativity that you're explaining because because I don't think a lot of folks would take dance and understand the influence into visual arts. But it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Could you exp you expound on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Well, yeah, if you if you think about if you think about so if you if you take so you take collage, right? And I use a lot of like human figures in my collage, um, dance is moving, right? Dance is is it's it's a living thing, it move people move around, but essentially, like, is choreography not just like staging composes? Yeah. In time, just like back to back. So it's like you're you're as a choreographer, I think that you're just you're building an art piece that people can look at by arranging individuals in, you know, and you're building shapes with these people. So like that's that's kind of that's kind of the same, the same approach as collage.

SPEAKER_04 19:47

Yeah.

Dance, Music, And Collage As One Language

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Um, but then also like for other mediums, whether it's drawing or with painting, there's also like like the brush is dancing. Like, so you know, an eight count is you know, eight-count of choreography is the same way you're moving, move, you know, moving your brush across your your canvas or moving your pencil across like your paper or whatever. So, you know, like motion and um like like mo making motion apparent is pretty much all I is all that art is, right? Everything is movement, everything is like frequency. Yeah. So like if you think about, you know, you're really just like their their their canvas is the stage, and like the maybe their brush is like the people moving, yeah, you know, or the subjects are the you know, the people moving, and their brush is the choreography that they're giving to them, and they're making images that we're looking at, and it's beautiful, yeah. Yeah, man, so it's all it's all the same. Like all those things connect. And music as well. True. Music as well. Um one of my one of my best friends at the time, we were in our going back to the first story I was telling you about working on the forum and doing album art. One of my best friends then was uh phenomenal MC. And as I was kind of cutting my teeth in you know, digital and visual art, he was learning, uh he was teaching himself how to make beats. So I'm sitting here watching him and Fruity Loops arrange sounds and put out the fruity loops. Shout out to the Fruity Loops. That's gotten Fruity Loops and Photoshop. It's gotten so many people out of the trenches. You know, but um watching, like if you're familiar with the way that um like making a beat works, like you're arranging sounds on a timeline, you know, in layers, applying effects, and you're making this thing. If you were to take what I'm doing in Photoshop and turn it sideways, so instead of me layering, you know, front to back, you're layering linear linearly, it's the same thing. We're taking a sample, chopping it up, applying effects, rearranging it. You know, so I I actually learned early on and watching him does like I could literally take your MP3 and turn it into a JPEG because I can apply a visual representation to every single piece on your, you know, on the timeline of your beat, and then recreate your beat visually. Your brain's different. We did that like for for a while. I still do that sometimes. I'll make a piece where I'm just like decoding like what I'm hearing and turning it into something visual. That boy good, that boy good.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, no wonder it makes sense now, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Wow, a lot of things are being explained to me.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Exactly. And yes, exactly. And it leads right into the next question.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Yeah, I mean so clearly you push boundaries of imagination and creativity. Um what do you what is your process for for finding those boundaries and then pushing past them?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I spent a lot of time staring into space. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. I spent a lot of time staring into space. Well, it's because like I'm staring into space, I'm I'm just um in my brain, you know, like I tell people that I just have my software installed in my own mind. So I can literally sit there and just like just make the piece. Like, you know, I can make the piece, I know what tools I'm using, I know what parts of the program using, I'll just build it. So I can I'm just moving these images around um to to make things. So it's like it's so it kind of starts with like I'll just see something. I spend time meditating, like, you know, visually, uh visualizing, like in dreams. I I'll I'll see things or like when I'm reading, I'll I'll come across information or in talking to people, I'll come across information and everything is I'm processing everything visually. So like I'll spend time just looking at it, spinning it around in my mind, like looking at the parts of it and building it there, and then go into the program and then try to recreate what I just did in my mind. Oh, I got a question for you.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

How? Because I had this trying to make a beat. Here's something in your head. All right. I gotta make this get from here out here. And what you're saying sounds wild. How are you, first of all, retaining those notes without like writing them down? And then how do they go from those notes, those mental notes, mental images, out? Like, it's not some Jay-Z type. I'm just gonna walk in and it pops out. How?

Mental Prototyping And Creative Process

SPEAKER_00 24:34

I man, I'm gonna bother you a little bit more than I bother other people because it maybe it's it's it's an act of obsession where it's like this is all I can think about. Like I get an idea and like I can't stop thinking about it. I'm this is all I'm I close my eyes, it's all I'm seeing is like this this visual, and I'm playing with it, I'm interacting with it, and it just live, it'll it'll just live with me. So like I know it. Yeah, you know, um, so by the time I finally do sit down and start getting it from just living in my head to living on, you know, something I can see or you know, externalizing it, I've created this piece multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Is it ever sometimes not what you want it to be? Absolutely. What do you do?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Um so and that was that was early, like early in my career, I struggled with that where it's just like I see it and it looks so cool in my head. And when I get it out, it's not right, but it's because I have to keep sharpening my tools and like getting better with my tools and my processes and understanding what it is I'm trying to, I'm actually trying to create um and how to get get there. But it's also like a it's a mental mastery too, because I have to be able to like conjure this image and then hold it long enough and keep going back to it. So like really what ends up happening, I have like a like a living gallery like in my head of just like works and ideas I made. And I go I go into my head and walk through this space. Like it's I don't know. I don't is it astral projection? Is it like yeah, yeah. I just yeah, I'm just in my head, yeah. A lot of times, just you know, doing that, and you know, that manifests in different ways in the world because you know, that's when I'm just like I'm supposed to be at work. I'm just like no doubt, you know.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Yeah, because you gotta drive, you're gonna do these mundane human things, and yeah, got these things up that you gotta get them out, epic ideas that you're percolating on.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, and just I'm I don't know if I just got good at being able to like kind of split my consciousness a little bit where I can like be working down here in in the world in meat space with like physical things, and then also have like a separate program like kind of running in the background, just you know, like making making the work. It can be dangerous sometimes though. Zone out lots of things. That's what I'm like, oh wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Yeah, you're riding it. No, yeah. Well, and it's not like these are small concepts you're dealing with either. These are these are um big.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yeah. Yeah. When you were speaking speaking of work and creative endeavors, when you were at Richland Library, did you see any change in your ability to focus and complete tasks? Because you were working and you were there stationed specifically for a purpose around that creative identity. What was that a more fruitful time or was it more complicated?

Residency Lessons And Community Guidance

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Yeah, it was it was really fruitful. For one, um I got to know um, I got to know a lot of like the regulars, like the regular uh like patrons of the library because I had a you know, I had an open door. I was, you know, part of the you know requirements was that you have open studios and people can come, you know, knock on your door and and either sit with you then or at least schedule a time to come back. Um and that was really cool because that put me in a position to be able to give people a lot of advice and help a lot of people try to find their way um, you know, creatively. Uh because kind of going back to what you're saying before, how do you get the idea from in your head to out there? Um, some people struggle with that. Yeah. And being able to come almost like almost like a like a shaman, like, you know, or like a sharp. Like, I'm gonna guide you through this, you know, and and like see where you're getting, like, you get caught in a loop, or you get, or other, there are other mechanisms that are keeping you from, you know, from actualizing this thing, because it could be a matter of confidence. Um, it could just be a matter of like, I don't have I don't have the knowledge yet, the information to make this thing manifest. So you need to be told of like there are programs for you to use or there's a process for you to use, or just like perspective that'll help get from it being in your head out in the world, and you know, and that's people who were starting businesses. Because and I had a lot of I said which is weird too, well, not weird, interesting for me, because I spent so much time as a graphic designer helping people, like I was usually at the very beginning of a lot of like business in death. You were and because of that, I've got gained a lot of like knowledge and insight into like launching businesses and like getting business off the ground because I've seen I've seen a lot of people fail, and I've also seen a lot of people be very like wildly successful. And because I was there, you know, I was a graphic designer, I was there from you know the ground level, helping them, you know, manifest this visual, this brand identity. It um it gives me a lot of insight as to like what how people's business could be successful, um, or some things, some successful habits that I noticed, and I get to pass that on. So I got to do a lot of that at the library. Um learning how to work through distractions. I didn't get a lot of art, a lot of artwork done doing that. The one thing I did get to do, I think like the biggest project I did was the um hieroglyphic beings album art. We did a um he did a whole album jacket where it was um front cover, back cover inserts and all that. And I worked on that mostly the whole time I was there, and that was really that was really fruitful. That's dope. Yeah, that's dope.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

And it it leads into this question. Obviously, we're I want you to go through some of the art, explain it to our audience, but specifically, your relationship with symbols and what you use to give a message or to communicate an idea. How do you use the symbols to do it? And what is it that you hope, as you're explaining some of these pieces, to convey?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Um, and you can tell us where you Yeah, yeah. So um I'm gonna start with the the one on the bottom on the bottom left here. Uh this was me like depicting um a medicine ritual, uh community medicine ritual that I got to do with a um the Babylau and the Santeria practice and the Lucremie practice. Um it was it was a community ritual where people came and like we came together, we danced, we gave an offering to the earth, we cleansed ourselves, like we cleansed ourselves with um with these tools. Um so we're we had a drummer playing music, we had people with other instruments playing music, we danced, we sang, and we, you know, stripped away the things that no longer served us, and we set our intentions on the things that we wanted to manifest, and we buried that in the earth so it could grow and blossom um into a you know into a you know into a new reality. And the things that I that I I gave intention to, they did come to pass. Um so this is a depiction of that. Um these were the you know, this is the objects we used to clean ourselves with. Um this was the the offerings that we gave, you know, to the spirit that presided that presided over that work.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

Yeah.

Symbols, Rituals, And Meaning

SPEAKER_00 32:15

And um, you know, this is kind of like, you know, this is a reflection of that. Um, so you know, like because my work has a there's a temporal quality to my work. Um I consider myself an Afrofuturist for a long time, but I've actually stepped more into like Afro-surrealism. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Um but um Can you explain the difference for the audience in case they're understand?

Afrofuturism Versus Afro-Surrealism

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah, yeah, let me put a pen in that and I'll I'll come back to it. But yeah, so Afrofuturism, Afro-surrealism. I think that Afrofuturism, I think Afrofuturism deals with um deals with the like temporal reality of the fact that black people exist in the future. Um if you look at what the last 500 years have been like um for you know indigenous people the world over, um, struggling against uh the forces of uh colonization, yeah, um, erasure is a big thing. Um in order to call it like to successfully colonize a people, like you have to erase all of their history, erase all of their culture and replace it with your own ideology so that these people are no longer who they used to be, they are just like a a lesser duplication of who you are, the colonizer. So um Afrofuturism rejects that um in the sense that we can, you know, our ancestors like we like our ancestors exist in the future, right? So um meaning that we exist in the future, we carry our ancestors with us. So like I exist in the year 3000, you know, because like you know, the people like the the work that I create, the people I inspire, um, and you know, maybe even like my own DNA travels, you know, into into time and knowing that like our own parts of us are immortal as well, because like the DNA that's in me existed from way on back mitochondrial eve. Yep. You know, so it's so we're really timeless. So Afrofuturism does become a a celebration of the timelessness, um, the eternity of um, you know, of of the people, of our culture, of uh, of our physical, you know, our flesh and bone. Um but then so if you look at Afrofuturism kind of dealing with time, I'm in Afro-surrealism, my approach is more dealing with like dimensionality. So if you think about time as like a linear concept, um Afrofuturism actually kind of challenges that and posits that time as a recursive model. Um and if you get into if you get into like black quantum futurism, which is an idea that was penned by uh Rashida Phillips and Moore Mother, um, who's a phenomenal uh musician, they spend a lot of they they spent time talking about and creating like acts of like temporal justice and thinking about what you know temporal reparations mean and how um how our time was colonized. Yeah, I like this. You know, yeah. Um so in understanding that and reclaiming that time, um, that you know kind of yeah, that helps kind of reframe what time is for you know black people, um for all people. Um but redefining what time is, showing people that time isn't just like one linear thing that goes forever in the future, but that time cycles, or it's a bit of both, like time cycles and time has a linear quality. So really it's just a spiral that you know moves in both directions. Yep. Um but with Afro-surrealism, I'm looking at dimensions. So if everything is always existing at one point in time, the eternal now moment, um, we experience change when we jump up in dimensions. So if this is a third, if this is 3D, this is the third dimension, all right. We're viewing 3D from the perspective of a fourth dimension. Um, what does it look like a few dimensions higher? Yeah. So if you were to look in the mirror, a magical mirror that could show you what you look like in a higher dimension, what would you look like? Because there are things that we there are aspects of us that we can only see with our with our naked human eye, but the third eye could show us a lot more. Yeah, yeah. Um, you think about like the aura, like the the natural energy, like the light energy that radiates from our bodies. Um, even in, you know, you you go go deep in trance, you can see things that aren't necessarily present in this dimension, but they are, right? So consider the fact that everything that we see exists, or everything that we can see, or everything that we can sense exists on this electromagnetic spectrum. Yeah. But the visual part, like if the electromagnetic spectrum is this big, there's a tiny sliver of that which is visible light. So think about how much more exists that we have technology that can sense, yeah, but exists beyond what we can see, what we can hear, yeah. We can feel it. There are there are subtle senses in our body that can pick up on things that we can't necessarily see. Oh, wow. We still experience that. Oh, yeah. So if we were to broaden our ability to perceive beyond the electromagnetic spectrum, what would we see? So, what would you see of yourself? So, the idea for my approach to Afro-surrealism is let me show you what black people look like when you kind of strip away the boundaries of the visible spectrum and start showing you like more of you. So, think about the way that deities are represented. Like people have seen like the images of like of like Krishna or images of like you know, Aludamare or Babaluway or like Oshun. And there are always these like these grand images, like the gods come to us, spirit comes to us with these, with this, you know, this grandiose, the colors are different. They have, they may have horns, they may have wings, they may have multiple arms, they have these aspects of them, but that's because in our mind, you can convey more than what is physically possible because we're not limited by you know the we're not limited by that little sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, the visible spectrum, or what we can you know perceive with our eyes. So, in the same sense, I can show you your God form from a higher perspective through this surrealist approach to art. Like, you look way different than you see in the mirror, like if you can see yourself from a higher point. So that's what I'm kind of doing is just like, all right, well, let me take things that are considered like things that are mundane and transform them into something that is like actually showing all the true, all the aspects of them beyond just you know what you see with your own two eyes. Man, that's cold.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Yeah, all right. I I I I have to have you explain another piece before we start our wrap up because I know I I wanted to sit, but I had to bother you about that question because I knew that you could elaborate on it. Yeah, but what what piece would you like to Okay?

SPEAKER_00 39:28

So um I spent a lot of time talking about like the spiritual aspect of a lot of my work. Um, and we talked a bit about how Afro Afrofuturism is is is a liberatory practice and reclaiming our time and all that. Over over the years, my work has started to shift a little bit from so like esoteric and spiritual into things that are more like political, um, more real, like just the material realities of the people and our experiences um and all that. And you know, we see what's happening in the world today. Preach.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

That's why you know, and it's okay to speak about everything.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Yeah, you know, we see what's happening in the world today, and it's important um that my art speaks um less, well, not so much less, but like kind of shifts from things that are you know so esoteric to things that are a little bit more like exoteric in the sense that things that are that we can that we have to process and know about. So, you know, and it connects to the Afrofuturism in the sense that there's a temporal quality and that I'm you know I'm remembering my ancestors.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Gotcha.

Martyrs, Memory, And Political Art

SPEAKER_00 40:35

So this piece in the center uh with the red background, uh they only kill you if you're righteous. Um and it is um it is a is a reflection and uh and remembering uh black uh uh activists who were, you know, who were martyred in the pursuit of liberation for the people. So all these people, um, these people who were who died, who were killed by the state or killed by agents of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of uh imperialism, of colonization, um, who paid the ultimate price, you know, to fight for our freedom. Um so you know, each of the people depicted here, um, you know, they they they met their demise in a quest for liberation. Some of them was personal liberation, some of them was was liberation for us as a people. They were fighting for our rights. Like we're all familiar with the Black Panthers. Yes. Um, you know, uh, and we kind of know that I think at a certain point, what maybe 30 of those original members were all, you know, martyred by the FBI and CIA. Um facts. You know, and uh, you know, we have we we have to we I'm honoring their sacrifice for what they did because their work still still resonates. Like we're still following their model for um teaching, like show, like showing us real act actual ways to impact our community and remove ourselves from the system and provide for ourselves and um you know be a collective, you know, and care for each other. Because otherwise it's like if they if we're being denied access to the things we need, we're capable of providing it ourselves. And the Black Panthers were a fantastic model for how to do that. Yes. Um, and you know, you you know, there are people, so there are people from, you know, there's uh Asada Shakur who's depicted here, there's Fred Hampton's depicted here, um uh little Bobby Hutton's depicted here. Um and then even outside of like the Blant Panthers, um, like Marsha B. Johnson's depicted here. These are all people who, you know, who who laid their lives down or lost their lives in that pursuit of freedom back back in the 70s, 60s, and 70s. And then we have like more modern people. We have uh Moy Dean Moye, who is um a Charleston activist, who's uh whose I guess fame, if you consider it that, was you know, the video of him like jumping over a protest line to snatch down a Confederate flag. Like, you know, um there's uh Darren Seals, who's a Ferguson activist, who him with maybe four other people, four other Ferguson activists were all suspiciously found and murdered in their cars. You know, um, and it's like in learning these these histories, you kind of see the picture that's being painted here is that like if you if you dare challenge the system, like you there's something waiting for you. It may not be you know a beautiful thing, but very true, it's important because these people did it anyways, they knew the risk, but they knew that like I have to use my voice and use my my whole entire being to gain liberty, like liberation for my people. Um you know, uh uh Toyin uh Salau, um, another one say Ferguson active uh Ferguson activist who was murdered by somebody, um murdered by somebody, found dead. Like so much of this keeps happening, right? Um and it's important that we tell their story, remember their names, um, and we you know we tell their histories because we like we need to know like we need to know like we need to know the nature of like the people who intend to to to colonize us and exploit us and um you know ultimately like bring us to our own device. It's important to tell that story because that helps reframe and understand what is happening in the world now. You know, we seeing what happened in Minneapolis, like that's been that's what happened in Minneapolis happened to every single one of these people. That's the point. You know, and it's yeah, we need to have a clear understanding of that to know that like it's not a game. These people are out here to like not to make us not be here anymore. Because that's their idea, that's their idea of what they want the world to be. So it's up to us to understand the price they paid and what they went through in order to know how we need to move going forward.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

And it's a motivating factor. I always tell folks it it people don't like to always discuss those topics because they can be kind of morbid, but uh I always see it as motivating because it especially if you expect to to be here, you have to be here. Yeah, and you have to have something to motivate you beyond just selfish pursuits, yeah. Or you know, wants for you know um corporal pleasures, the infinite entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

I think that and I think that a lot of artists um have given, unfortunately, have given. a lot of their power to like capitalist structures for the pursuit of like personal gain. Um like at one point artists were the vanguard like were the were like were the creative vanguard of revolution meaning that like the artists like I I think that for some time the artist duty was to challenge and critique culture. Thank the Lord yes society. Yes. And I think that yes unfortunately I think that a lot of a lot of I think the arts industry in general has lost its way in that sense like art has become commodified. It's become something that can just be used to um market. To mark yeah you know it's like it's it's like capitalism has his fingers like so deep in like in art that like I think that we forget that it's our duty to use our platform and to use our gifts of you know all the things I've talked about before of like the way I can live in my head and like bring images out to be like I can use that power to set up you know I'm depicting beautiful things but I'm like telling history yeah I'm I'm I'm making this art and I'm putting it places and you know like this the the piece with the red background they only kill you for righteous that was on display for a month at Storm Artist Studios and in the artist statement like it tells that history and it lists their names. Now you know now you have to now you need to go research all these people and know what happened to them and understand um you know understand what their story was and that's going to illuminate you so I'm like I'm passing critical information forward and critiquing this the systems of power that made these things happen. And that's feels a lot right now it feels a lot more important to me than just creating like beauty for beauty sake or um entertaining just for you know entertainment's sake or you know being entertaining just for like you know like the quick check like nah man we got we have a world to save and like it's us with these with these abilities yeah um that we you know that we have to put ourselves we have to put ourselves out there and you know make scene the information that they otherwise want to hide from the people like superheroes. Yeah something like that like I think that something like that yeah I think all like all like visual artists musicians like actors like whatever your creative gift is like it needs to be in service of the people and when it is in service of the people like you know then we can't be silenced we can't have our culture appropriated or used against us or you know exploited in a way that you know we end up just like feeding the machine like we gotta use we gotta use our our creative gifts to like get us free.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Yeah yeah we just can't sell um very crispity crunchity chicken yeah I have one other thing to say and then I I need you to do your your shameless plugins for the capitalistic society get that that Skriller to you but yeah I have to ask this I we had one of our studio audience members we were talking and discussing before he came and this is a good question that came in for for folks that delve and deal in digital mixed media do you ever deal do you ever have to deal with the stigma that what you do is not true art um yeah I wrestled with that for some time and I that's also what kind of led me um to say I putting a lot more like practical like effect to what I do.

Art’s Duty Beyond Commodification

Is Digital “Real” Art

SPEAKER_00 49:12

You know when I first started it was everything I made was just digital and I printed it and that piece existed. But um this kind of goes back to the conversation that was being had before about like the idea of the NFT where it's just like and this digital form exists forever but there's got to be another element to it that makes it you know very unique um to itself. So I think that like yeah digital art like is is art is valid it exists as it is the medium provides the opportunity for it to um exist in multiple ways but like in the same sense okay so if you think about digital art and its ability for the art to be reproduced and is it real art or not well how do how does everybody see a movie right everybody sees a movie because uh because an original thing was like created and it was put it was it was created but it was duplicated multiple times like time and time again you know like they took the stage play and then used technology to document it you know and then and reproduce it out so more people could could see it. So that was so how is that any different than using um you know using digital processes to create art um and then also duplicating it and putting it out there in the world. That's true. Yeah or like a photograph doesn't invalidate the portrait but a photograph also doesn't invalidate the original piece either um so yeah it's important to to have a perspective of that um uh but yeah you know um I think that you think about like this the inherent value of art the value of art isn't necessarily the the sum of its materials or or you know even like the the sum of of of time and effort but it's like it's the impact that it makes that's good you know and I guess how do you even put a price tag on that yeah you know there is a price tag on it though like yeah you got to put a price on it how to do it that's the discussion yeah yeah and that's it's a fine line that you have to like you know that that I find myself like juggling a lot of like you know how do I sustain myself um knowing that my art is valuable but ultimately um what you know what's what what's what's the most valuable part of of the art being made is it the finished product is the energy that went into it um and it dawned on me the most valuable part of of art is the process of creating it. So like honestly like I get the most value from the art not because it's monetary but because I got to make this thing um I got to use my brain in a way that like a lot of people don't get to or don't think to um so I and I strive to kind of share that with as many people as possible and kind of bring people to that of being like you can do it too like you know I think that might go into like what you asked me next about like the shameless plug yeah what you got going on next you got how can we make sure we put something in your pocket yeah so um helping other people make art um really fulfills me as a person. The things that I create and I put out there that's cool like I enjoy it but it's I'm it's almost as if like I'm using well I feel like I'm not hustling backwards but I'm hustling in a different sense of like instead of me you instead of me doing other things yeah yeah to push people to buying this yeah I'm more of making this to push people to like bring me into community. So what I want what sustains me is like bring me in for a workshop bring bring bring the people that you have around you together to me to let's make art together let me show you some of my process let me let me teach you how I do what I do so you can go and do it. And now I as much as if I can duplicate my own mental processes and duplicate my own brain as many times as possible by planting those seeds in uh the minds of not even just young artists of anybody that's more important to me than anything else. You're dangerous. Yeah it is like you know and it's intentional I'm aware of that. So yeah um I do a lot of collaborative collage-based workshops where me and a room full of people all get to put our minds on art in different ways. You can find out more about that on my website I post about it on my Instagram um and that's I think that's the that's the best way to like support me in what I'm doing is like bring me like find opportunities for me to be able to share my art with people and share um or not so much share my art with people but share the creative process with people through booking me for workshops. So you you want to be out there in the community yeah community is a is I mean it's is everything for me like I'm actually working on a program now um where we can start giving away free art supplies to our homeless neighbors. So like if you think about um if you think about like there there's a group out here called Food Not Bombs and they they're they're out in the streets four days a week giving free meals to the homeless. There's um another group that gives uh that gives uh medical supplies like wound care and hygiene and um you know that kind of stuff that's necessary goods to you know have a you know have a healthy and dignified life they just they get donations and they put kits together and they give that out for free. Well art and create and you know creative expression is just as essential as those things that we eat um as the way we you know clean and care for our bodies um and I don't see anybody really doing that um so I'm like all right well in the same using the same mechanisms as people who give food and you know toiletries away clothes things like that the same thing needs to happen so with art you know creativity so I am and I'm saying this to the world now I'm saying this to my creative friends in Columbia South Carolina join me in in in finding and find finding the funding finding the materials to help me build kits like meaningful like useful kits of art supplies that we just give away for free to people who may not have access to that because they have a story to tell I feel like their story is probably more valuable than like than the story of somebody who has all the resources and has the comforts of life to be able to you know XYZ like there are people who who who like life is like more life and more dignity is being given to them by giving them the opportunity and access to tell their stories and tell their perspective and know what's going on in their minds. So I want to do that like so bringing me in for workshops helping me get this thing out into the world of um giving out free art supplies to the people like that's that's that's what I that's what's gonna that's what's gonna sustain me.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Man excellent dope dope dope blew my mind all right my fault all right we wrap up I'm gonna listen back to this one I don't normally listen back to episodes because I don't like hearing myself talk.

Workshops, Community, And Access

SPEAKER_00 56:24

However I'm listening back some deep conversations to do for the Hilltop Globe layers back the real real talk and obviously um shout out to the live audience we appreciate y'all being here um I know wrapping up now I'm DJ and what it's Mike Skip and social medias we need social media art by Krieger um this it's pretty straightforward artbyer.com is my website art by Krieger on uh Instagram and I think Facebook and threads and blue squat uh blue sky um I'm not on twitter slash X anymore because don't because fuck that fascist go ahead but everywhere else you can find me awesome oh and I forgot did anybody want to ask our guests any questions huh it's a big number let me get back to you about that was a real question it's let it's less about a solid number and more about like a steady cash flow because we have ongoing we have ongoing expenses to make this happen. Okay. Um it's not really a question but it's a I admire the collage when I think of collage I think of pieces like put together but I like the way you use the positive and negative space in this red yes oh yeah so I like that yeah yeah thank you inside the box good job appreciate it there's another question too question question establishing the nonprofit for your efforts yeah absolutely um I think that the the nonprofits have a have a useful structure to be able to like take donations and and that charitable model and that what we're doing is is charity is charity is community building so yeah um I'll be doing that as well um that's a bit of a process that is my creative brain it is you know it struggles with a little bit but there there are things that exist out here that help artists like me like actually get that so you know shout out to alternate roots yeah yeah um to arts commission these uh south kind of arts commission yep um these are two entities that have helped me you know sustain my career and um you know get my get my stuff out there well so yeah well you gotta announce yourself our esteemed guest Dogon Krieger we thank you so much it's been a pleasure yeah it's our pleasure thank you um signing out make sure you tell somebody next to you that you love them and you appreciate them you may not have that chance to do it tomorrow please do it today to next time peace