Family Roots And Early Art Sparks

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Fairy. Um, as we do with all of our guests when they first come in, we always like to ask them about their background, their early beginning, and their life influences because that matters so much to how we are sparked, how we are um uh raised and and brought into the world. So uh for everybody and all of our audience who's listening, if you could just tell us a little bit about your background, what early sparks you had, and what we always like to ask is did you have any siblings?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I have yes, grew up in a house with four sisters, have a brother from my dad's second marriage, and uh two step, a stepbrother and stepsisters. Wow. So we had a huge family growing up. Um, seven in my house. Uh as far as art, it was deeply influenced. I remember my mom sitting us down one day, living in a country, not a whole lot of entertainment. We had three channels, no cable, but showed us how to draw a lotus flower. And I don't know if that's something that sparked that art in me at that time, but I remember first grade, my teacher had a the school had a contest to draw something about the constitution. I didn't know what the constitution was in first grade, but knew it was something about a flag. I drew a bird with the flag flying behind it, um, the little lumpy clouds in the sky, the little half circle up in the corner for the sun, um, and won first place. I got a $50 savings bond.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Wow. Why?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

After that, I was known as the one to come to whenever anybody had art projects that had to be done. But the Spark King, the love of it, was based off of um a cartoon, the X-Men series that came out around '92.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

That was the jail!

SPEAKER_00 3:48

You couldn't tell me I wasn't gonna create my own comic book characters and have a comic book when I grew up. Uh-huh. So from I would say from sixth grade up until my senior year in high school, I don't care where I was, whether it was um at the Kingdom Hall drawn in the the corners of my Watchtower and Awake magazines or at the house at the kitchen table, I would sneak the printer paper out of my teacher's printers every year. And it was drawing nonstop every day. So I think it was that cartoon and the comic that pulled me into art in the first

Hand-Drawn Animation And Digital Debate

SPEAKER_00 4:23

place. Wasn't it cool how they drew everything by hand back in the day? It's amazing. And I think seeing that back then and knowing that they did it by hand is so easy to identify now if somebody's doing it digital. Digital. And digital, I can respect digital, but you can tell they're doing it with AI.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's different. It's different.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Are actually drawing it with the pin on the pad, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

You can tell. Because even with the digital, you still have to draw it.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

You still get the influence. You can see the lines, you can see what a person. Yeah, you can.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

I've uh I got a deep respect for digital artists. I bought an iPad, um, got the Apple Pencil, the software called Procreate, and it's for me, it was not the same as you know, getting a traditional pad and pencil, yeah, coloring it in.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Um I got an overlay to put on the screen to make it feel like paper, but it's still not the same.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah, because it's like that it has to be calibrated. Of course, your pen has to be calibrated, but it just feels a little, a little bit off. It's not the same. Like destroying it. It's different.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

For real.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

It's different. You better off just drawing on a pad and then transferring it, like scan it in to the computer.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

It'll allow you to do that though. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's been um I like the conveniences of zooming in. My eyes aren't as strong as they used to be. So on a tablet, you can zoom in and do fine details, but after a while, 30 or 40 minutes in, things start dying. I, you know what? Let me just get my sketchpad and pull it out. So yeah, it's a difference, but I still have a respect for digital artists for sure.

Growing Up Jehovah’s Witness And Escaping

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Now, as a child, did you ever draw on furniture or on the walls?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Oh no, I was super structured. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

You were a good child. No, I didn't draw on the super structured, good, super good. And you said this earlier. I got you said Kingdom Hall. Jehovah's Witness? Absolutely. Still to this day? No. I had to ask because I had a lot of brother Timmy. We was in the we were in the Kingdom Halls too. Really? Yeah, we went to Kingdom Halls. We went to Holy Pentacles. We went to all them churches. We used to have people up here dancing, running down the aisle, falling, falling out. They went one time they closed the the uh the doors on us midnight on um on New Year's. We were having like a uh it was creepy. They turned the lights off at midnight, all the kids started screaming. What'd they turn the lights off? I don't know. They thought they were like the holiness, the Holy Ghost in the sun. I don't know. Oh, it was New Year's.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, New Year's. The New Year's, it was creepy. That never scared me. And if you were in the Kingdom Hall, I don't know how deep you went, how deep you were. Um, we never got to experience that. Holy Ghost or kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was at the Pentecostals church. Okay, that wasn't at the whole that was Jehovah Whit that was different. The Kingdom Hall was different. They they painted it in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Everybody, you know, and that's why you said structure. I was like, as you start getting older, it it took me until I was maybe in my 30s to say, wait a minute, which parts are Barry and which parts are the pieces that because you don't think about it when you're there. No. You don't think about I'm acting this way because this is what's expected. And once you walk away, it's almost like rebuilding your life from scratch. Which parts of me are me and which parts are the pieces that were there because it was expected. Um I remember was it guilt? As I'm sitting there drawing, it and it wasn't locking in and paying attention. I think it was my escapism. Because me and my sisters, the ones who ended up leaving the faith too, if we sit down and talk about those times, they say, Do you remember you were challenging and asking them questions in second grade and saying, wait a minute, I like Russell and Leanne. Do you mean to tell me they're gonna die because they're not witnesses? It didn't make sense to me, even at that early an age. Yeah. So as I was sitting there listening to everything they were teaching, I was making my own worlds. I wanted to be an X-Men when I grew up. So I was drawing myself as an X-Men and I was drawing action scenes in every we were supposed to study before every single meeting. You were I would get a highlighter and just make some lines in there, not really paying attention to what I was marking, just so it looked like I was studying, but I was exploring. I was exploring.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

I like that you says that because we don't realize, like they make you do work, like you got workbooks. It's you don't just go to Kingdom Hall to go to get, you know, you teach because like my my mother, she would do like she would do the the Sunday school and stuff for the kids and teach the kids, and we would do the workbook. So we when we started going to the holiness churches, she would also, she bought that type of thing over to the only church. She would teach the classes for the kids, and we would do study books. Because my mom, she was an educator, so she would make us do study books. I think that's what she kind of liked that about the Jehovah's Witness Church is the fact that they had to study. But that is interesting. I had to ask this question I know before we move on because you said you kept talking about X-Men and being in the in Jehovah's Witness.

Why X-Men Felt Like Home

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Did you find any any relief in watching X-Men? I know I did as a child because I always saw the difference between X-Men in that Marvel world and the DC world in the sense that the X-Men were way more encompassing and inviting of all types of people. DC, not so much. DC was more so like cold, hearted, calculated, really um technocratic. And there's some DC stuff I like, but Marvel more so, especially with X-Men. I could see myself in X-Men. And it made me want to be in that universe. That's why I was drawn to that show so much. My brother tells you horrible. I'm watching, I'm I was so happy when they re-rebooted it. My wife was like, What are you watching? Why do you keep watching this show? And I was like, you don't know. This is an addiction. 97 doesn't hit like 93.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

It doesn't. It doesn't. It's it looks, you can tell the difference. I love the animation style, but it's something. I don't know if it's because we were younger, but something just hit. It was it was that same feeling. Yeah. I could see myself as an X-Men. I couldn't see myself in the Justice League. No. I couldn't see myself as a Green Lantern. I couldn't see myself as an Avenger. No. But the X-Men, and I didn't even think about it until you said that, whether it was how accepting they were. Um I could see myself in other worlds. I used to love Peter Pan and The Pirates, the Fox series. Yeah. Do it back. Yes. I was like, I want Tinkerbell to come. Please come take me. Come take me. I would sometimes sit outside daydreaming and think that I saw a sparkle in the grass.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

That's your imagination going wild though.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Oh, well, my imagination would take me outside to look in the view to see is Tinkerbell up. But you know, that was fourth or fifth grade. But it was going back to the witness thing, it's it was so hard to plan a future. Or and it's not knocking them because there are plenty of people that I know who were able to get out earlier or expand their minds to say, but in my head, it's like a countdown. I have until 10 years, and I'm gonna be killed because I don't really believe in this. It puts you in this box and you don't even realize it until after the fact. So um, yeah, it was definitely trying to escape that, get out of it. But um, yeah, X-Men had a big role to play. Um the characters, the storyline, some of it was so relatable to wanting to escape and get out of there.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

The older and I think what what you're saying too is with the the change in the um with the new um series, they had to change the storyline a little bit to make it like contemporary. But I think like the lines that they had from back in '92 were so cool because the the things that they were discussing, even if they would have kept that same, it would have been very relevant to today. Very much so. Um I don't think there would have been much of a difference. But yeah, they were on point. They were on point. They were on point. They were on point. Um I just had to jump in that because I know I I love it. I can talk about X all day long.

Meeting Mentors And Learning Foundations

SPEAKER_02 12:19

So do you like um Sanford Green's work?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I love Sanford Green's work.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I figured.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, I love his work. And I I met him, it was like a happy accident. He he posted happenstance. Whoa. He posted that he was um social media back, I would say 2010s or so. Um I didn't even know he was an instructor.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yeah, he was my teacher. I admitted it.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Okay, so he was offering a educators have to go and get like refresher credits during the summer, and he had one for art teachers. Oh, wow. I work in IT. I'm not an art teacher. But I I never had any formal art training. Um I do is self-taught, whether it's looking down and trying to copy what I'd seen in comics. I saw him make this post, and I knew he was a comic artist and big nationally known internationally known, living right here in Columbia. But I sent him a message and said, I'm not a teacher, but I see you offering this class. Can I attend? He said, Absolutely. Okay, your money, you can come.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Was it at the museum?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

It was at Benedict.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Oh, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

We met at Benedict. Um, I reached out to my boss, my supervisor at the time, and said, I want to take these classes. He signed off on and said it was fine. So for a week, I was able to sit side by side with instructors from around the state that were there getting their renewal credits. Um, a class with Sanford Green, which was uh sequential art, pretty much learning how to get into comics. And Tyrone Jeter.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah, Mr. Jeter is my teacher too.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Had a class where he was offering um learning to draw from life. It was a live model. Yep. And I'd I'd never done it before. So I stepped in. It's nothing like being humbled, thinking, I've been doing this all this time drawing your sharp jaws and your over-exaggerated features on everybody, and it's so, and then getting there, and he was like, You think you know what you're doing, but you don't know. And I didn't, I received it openly. He said, You need to work on anatomy because what you think you're doing is not what it's supposed to be. It looks right, and it's true, you know. Um, and I think it might have been hubris, pride, me thinking, I've been drawing my own little comics ever since middle school. Everybody's telling me how good it looks. They're coming to me to do all their artwork. My teachers are telling me how good I am at it, but I never took the time to actually learn proper techniques. Uh so I took his advice. He told me about the Andrew Loomis method for doing heads. He gave me some videos to take a look at on YouTube. Wow. He told me to go home and draw a hundred hands, and I went home and did it. And I can't even think of how I was drawing before that. It becomes natural.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Natural muscle memory.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Muscle memory. So yeah, what I do my heads now, I do a circle, I do the guidelines. You get to a point where you can still eyeball it, but he taught me a lot. Um, and and Mr. Jeter, we had a that's the first time I had a live model in front of me. It was it wasn't like that. But he told me, you got something there. Yeah. Look into it. And so I started going and painting live models at different places and ended up Mr. Green was still, and I call because he was a teacher to me then. You know, I he I would reach out to him and tell him we'd have workshops at the library where he would bring um students that he taught throughout the semester to the helping breaking them into the game, you know, telling them this is how this works and this works. Those young ladies and young men were so far past me. So at this point, this isn't the teachers anymore. That you know, he actually had classes, master classes for his students. Yeah, and I stuck on with that for years, maybe three or four years. I would come. I don't know whether it was work, or at the time I told him comics aren't for me. I want to do the fun parts, and he brought that to our attention. Everybody thinks is you know, you're drawing the poses and the costumes and the hair and uh superpowers. No, you got backgrounds and you got poses a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah. And I said, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

That's awesome. I've been doing painting. I think I'm gonna go in that direction more. He said, It's all good. So that's what led me from doing traditional comic work or trying to make comics. I fell in love with painting. So I made that pivot at that point. Uh, maybe with like the last five or six years now, so it's still really new to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Mr. Jita will push you out your comfort zone, I'm telling you. Yes, yes. I remember we went on strike in his class.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I'm like, listen, it's not my only classic.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

You want me to, like you said, paint a hundred hands or draw a hundred hands?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

I got other I got other classes.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

But I got that sketchbook and I drew those hundred hands, you know, and and he had us doing landscapes and like um city street scenes out of New York. And they actually, that foundation builds everything across the board.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

So once I did that, I did it for the class and then said, okay, now let me go back to drawing my bodies. Yeah, you know. So he was like Mr. Miyagi.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

He was teaching you all to wax all and wax off.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

He's like, before you start walking, you will crawl. And we didn't realize it at that point because I remember one class we were drawing grids.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

The lines coming out from the center diagonally. He was like, You actually really good at that. Drawing slanted lines. I thought he played me. Yeah, that's what you're doing. That's what you do. Yeah, that's how you do perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

So I yeah, I learned a lot. The the foundational aspects of the arts. It'll it'll literally everywhere I go, you can tell if something's off-centered, or you can just tell if something's crooked, just because your eye is just like muscle memory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, you're trained. He's training you to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Like you said, wax on, wax off.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Man, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Wow.

Self-Taught Versus Formal Training

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Now, obviously, I mean, and it's it's in your bio, self-taught, but you went out and you sought more education and more instruction. Um, for a lot of folks that listen to our podcast, one of the reasons they listen to our podcast is because they want to hear from people that have found ways to become either professionals or entrepreneurs in certain areas, and they want to know, okay, why was it important to do the certain things? Like what steps do you use to build towards something? So, in hearing that with your background, I just have to ask, do you think that if you had been just started off formally that you would be further than where you are? Or do you think just based on your love for it and just your grit and and and want to do it, that you would have been where you wanted to be anyway?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

I believe my personal beliefs, everything happens when it's supposed to. So if I had taken classes, I had opportunities to do it. Okay. In high school, um, instead of taking an art class, I decided to have an open period. Um in college as an elective, I had an art class, and the instructor then said, What's your major? I said computer science. He said, You're in the wrong one. He said, You should have been doing art. But somebody had put in my head in high school Barry, artists don't make no money. Go and do computers. So I I've never sat back to think, what if I would have taken art more seriously then? But again, I think I was super cocky and thought I'm good at this. So I can't even say I knew that I wanted to learn more, but I thought by going to those classes with Sanford Green and then eventually Mr. Jeter, it was more so, I want to show them what I can do. No, sit back down, learn, learn, learn. So it was realizing how little I knew that made me want to start seeking more. Um and it was I was afraid of it at first because I thought that meant that I wasn't as good as I thought I was. But anybody who's learning in any craft, you have that foundation and it might have to take you back, you know, a couple steps. But once you get that, you're just gonna add on to it. Keep growing, keep learning. It's just gonna make you better. So even now, as I'm flipping through TikTok or Instagram or Facebook, and I see something that says every acrylic artist should know this. Look at oh, look at the video. Oh, they're talking about blending colors. How can I use that? Oh, they're talking about learning the different symbols on your paint tube and whether it's opaque or transparent. Oh, so that's why my my neon orange wasn't showing up. Okay. So you so I'm still learning to sure, yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

It's literally math. Art is literally, I think of it as math. If you have two of this and two of that, you mix it to this, and then you gotta think about the complementary colors. What yellow looks good with purple, red looks good with green, orange looks good with blue. You just start to see that stuff everywhere now.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

And you understand why the world is made up the way it is. Exactly. It goes into marketing, it goes into entertainment, it goes into business media.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

You can change someone's mood just because of uh the color of the walls. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Grocery stores are horrible for doing that. Yes, they are that make you hungry. Yes, they are. Nah, that when I learned that, I remember learning that, and I was just like, okay, this is not the world that I thought I was in. It goes into so much. I need to watch out for McDonald's. Yeah, hospitals, restaurants, it's yeah, it's everywhere.

Color Theory And Art As Math

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Speaking of, I know this next question that we get into before before we um move on is just talking about therapy and art, speaking about how things make you feel, um, processing emotions and et cetera. You are a black man. As a fellow black man, um, we are you know, I gotta point the obvious out. Um when talking about processing trauma, societal expectations, or inner conflict, language can sometimes feel limited. Um I think I know as a black man, I know a lot of us delve into or jump into the arts to help to try to either express or process those things. How has the actual process of painting served as a therapeutic tool for you? And how do you see visual art as an opening pathway for emotional healing for black men?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

That's a great

Painting As Therapy For Black Men

SPEAKER_00 23:04

question. All before I would say 2020, after I got out of high school, except for the college class I I mentioned, that was back in 01 or 02, I was not at home once I moved out of my parents' house, started working, going to college, I was not creating anything. And I can't say if it put me in a slump, but it just didn't seem like a priority. I got work, I got bills, I gotta pay, I gotta worry about insurance and taxes. But around I left the faith, the religion back around 2012 or so. And the confidence that came from wait a minute, I can do comic shows. Wait a minute, I can do an artist alley. I can I impulsively went and bought some markers and did my first comic show at uh Captain's Con, I think that's the name of it, down in Charleston, my first comic show. Um at that point I realized how what I'm creating on paper is helping bring me down a couple notches and keep me level and help me find out who Barry really is. So I started drawing again around then and then the pandemic hit. I was in Charleston at the time. Um I did the comic show, but I moved back up here in 2016. And when they sent us home for the pandemic, I remember everybody at work saying, They're saying that we can't go to the movies and we can't dance. Yes, you can. You can watch movies at your house. Right. Dance at your house. That was me saying that there publicly. We I think they sent us home March 18th that year. And this journey of me trying to find myself around this time, I was trying to find a like a regular bar to frequent.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

And the closest one to my house was uh Top Dogs and Sand Hills. And I went there that afternoon, the same day they sent us home. I had my sketchbook and I went to the bar and I was drawn, and just the heaviness of everybody, I don't know why. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

So I'm sitting there drawing my people, tears running down my face, and a girl came over and she she didn't address the tears at all. She said, You need to find something distinct in your style to help you stand out, maybe some dots or some type of signature to make your work stand out. And I said, Okay. I went home every morning before signing into my computer at work. I would walk down to the park on Summit Parkway, sit at that table, and draw, and draw, and and that helped keep me so level. That contact that we lost, it it was almost like a veil between everybody and art helped me keep myself centered. My health catapulted. I mean, everything. I feel like that was a time for people to either heal and grow or to get stuck. And I know a lot of bad things happened with people during that time. I agree. But art saved me. I know it did. Health-wise, physical, mental, spiritual, art did that for me. So when I create pieces now, it used to just be drawing what I liked and what I thought looked good. But talking to other black men, I I realized I was, even though growing up as a witness, my actual household, the pressures, and the things that I hear other men my age that were being told in their houses, I never heard that from my parents. I could express myself openly. Wow. I could, they never said, be strong and be tough.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

You better not cry. They they never got on me. I went outside. I I had chores to do. We had a farm, so I had to water the hogs and cut grass. I was in the house playing Barbie. But still, my parents were never, they they openly let me express. I never felt guilty for being angry or happy or sad. Wow. I never felt that. So as I got older and realized so many of my friends that I see every day and communicate with were having such a hard time because they didn't know how to express. I had art as an outlet. What are these guys doing? They're worrying about their families, their relationships, work. So I started putting that into my art to let them know I can see your beauty. I see your beauty. I see you. So initially it was doing that for them, and I said, wait a minute. I've been lessening myself, and this is a journey for me. I don't have all the answers. You saying that made me realize a point I wanted to bring out. I've been shrinking myself for years. And I don't know why it was I think fear of what you don't want people to see. You walk into a room and say, uh-uh, I don't want anybody to know this. And is you can mentally, I think everybody has some type of superpower, and I can say, be invisible. I don't want them to see me. You're the invisible man. I was the invisible man. I would sit there and not be seen. I could be in a presence, but I didn't want any attention drawn to me. Yeah. So I said, wait a minute. My art is saying what I'm not saying outside. So my affirmations change from certain things are gonna come. It didn't have to be, I want money, I want help, I want the mm-mm be seen. So I would get into the mirror and say, be seen, be seen. And it didn't take very long for me to start being seen, and that's just been with within the last year. So that's what my art is. Be seen. That and that's what my healing journey has been to be to make myself be seen for sure. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Pick A Card Starts Deeper Stories

SPEAKER_02 29:15

I know um Oh, about time for you to pull a card. Yeah, so this is pick a card, pick a card, any card.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Explain it, explain it to us. So this season of the Hill Talk Glow podcast, we're doing something a little different. Um, we have uh created these cards. These cards are gonna give you um some questions that we can ask you, but you get to pull these questions. You get to make these decisions for yourself. You don't gotta worry about what we put up here. It's good, we got it as a as a little thing. So, um, how many cards are we gonna do? Three cards? So pull three right now. Three cards.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

We'll do one first, and then we'll see how far it is.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Because it might be in depth. This one is talking to me. Do I flip it now?

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Go ahead and read it. Read

A Public Art Setback And What It Taught

SPEAKER_02 29:52

it out.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

The failure card. Tell us about a time something didn't work out and why you're glad it happened. Um, something that I've been holding on to for quite some time. Everybody wants to be accepted, especially by your people. And so me having a struggle with thinking, where am I gonna fit in? I remember I went to an event here in Columbia that I'd seen posted online, and I was like, oh, I don't have anything to do that Saturday or Friday, whatever day it was. I'm gonna go check it out. So I went and saw somebody in their drawing. And I was like, oh, you're an artist too? And he said, Yeah, absolutely. So we talked about art. He said, as a matter of fact, I know this is last minute, we're having this event for something totally different. But if you're an artist, why don't you grab some of your stuff and come in here and share it? I said, All right. My first public show was at Rock Bottom Studios. Um then it was down on uh Garner's Ferry. Wow. And we had a show one weekend. That was the first time I'd ever publicly shown my artwork. So I was still on the high from that. Um had collected my artwork. I think it might have been shortly after that show. Yeah. But I'm like, okay, doors are opening. I went and got my when it sat down, he told me at the end of the event he would have me come in and display my artwork. So it wasn't too long, and it might have been my own insecurities, but it wasn't long too long within the show that I realized this is probably not the place for me to be showing my work. Because at the time I was going to, again, pursuing painting live models. I was going to those erotic painting sips. Oh, one of my homegirls opened a business and I hit her up and said, Can men come too? She said, Absolutely. So I wasn't going online and saying, I need a man to come and let me paint him. Yeah. She would have those shows and I would go there and I was going in there. They didn't back then they weren't like dollars and music and Hennessy. It wasn't back then.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

It's crazy. Back then, I didn't know about that.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I didn't know about it. That's how it is now. Oh, yeah, it's a whole thing. I didn't know. It's the industry. It's growing up painting sips for sure. See, you gotta be able to go make an extra dollar. Y'all aren't on the same fees that I'm on on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

You ain't not that one is you.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Okay. I saw her make the post and I asked her if it was cool if I could come. And it wasn't like a a model sitting there. It, you know, he going around getting his money. He working. He working. But I went in and I had my sketchbook and my keyboard. He was a hustler. And I sat there and I talked to him and drew him. Yeah. I painted him. Yep. So as my confidence grew with that, I had a lot of paintings like that, the male form at this event that was talking about black men and vulnerability. And I was thinking, this is gonna be a safe space. And maybe it would have been if I would have told what it was first. But as I'm sitting listening to these people present and given their experiences, I was like, You in the wrong place. What am I gonna do? I done ate these people chicken. Oh they already said, so get this here. So he came over and said, Alright, we're about to you up. I went to the car. I had all of canvases, and I I wanted to go in order from and thinking, I'm gonna say, This is when I first started, and this is when I did this, and this is when I did that. And I went and stood up, and I turned the first painting around, and it wasn't anything audible. Yeah. You just feel that. Ooh. And I felt that. And you look for a safe face in the crowd, or you look for something, and that was not there. It felt like I was so I fought through it and said, This is when I first started, and I gave a story about that one, and then I gave a story about this one. Oh, you kept going? I kept going. I'm not strong, brother. You strong. You strong. Oh, and it's always black women coming to the rescue every single time. I believe it. So it was a man. He said, he said, Oh, you Dennis Rodman.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

What?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

I ignore it. And she said, uh-uh, we're not gonna do that. Exactly. Not gonna do that. Exactly. And he simmered on down. I finished. You remember that old SNL skit when the girl would get nervous and arms started sweating and the arms was burning. I would have sat down and I was like, Barry, you did it. I know I was popping beats of sweat. You made it through. I made it through afterwards. Um he called everybody up to take pictures. When I saw the pictures posted for the event the next day, that Joker had cut me out of everything. I was not known I was ever there. But natural, I would say lower level Barry would have been hurt. Yeah. It was still, you know, you again going back, you want to be accepted by your people. I should have let him know what my style of art were. You know, we just talked and were excited about being artists, but that helped me realize um what I learned from that. I knew that I wasn't gonna let it hold me down, but I felt like it's a place for everything. Um, as long as I accept it and know the spaces that I'm accepted in, it's all good. So it was no love lost for that. I just knew, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

But it's one of those things, and I'm happy you shared that experience because, like you said, it's something people don't like, it's like a comedian who bombs, right? They don't ever want to really talk about it, but it's good to express to people, hey, we don't always hit everything, right? And those failures make you stronger. And like said, you learned a lesson from it. You learned, okay, maybe next time I'm gonna tell you, hey, this type of art, I'm gonna have you screen it. You tell me if this is appropriate for where we're gonna be at today. And what's interesting is technically that was art and that should have been expressed. It's something that could have been expressed in that location, but it'd been good for them to know in advance.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

And accept it. Yeah, they're so like critical all the time. But when we our foundation is Mr. Jeter's class making you appreciate the body, male or female. Yeah, a full. So we have a different eye for it or a love for it.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

That's like a basis in art.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Uh you'd be surprised. Um it's a sigh of relief and appreciation when another black man comes to me and says that he likes my art or he can look at it without Yeah. Yeah. It's okay, you get me. I'm not coming at you. Yeah. I'm not trying to do anything to you. But for them to be able to see it and be like, that is dope. I love that because my it might have been the circles I was in. I was so used to them saying, uh-uh, but where's the women? Well, it's art. Why can't you see anything?

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

So um since then, if I like it, I'm gonna love it. You know, it it feels good for other people to appreciate it, but a lot of what I do is because I like it. Exactly. You know, I pick out what I want to do, and it's been fine since then. Yeah, it has been. You gotta have that freedom. Got to. I'm gonna have to pick another card.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Because it's funny because you answered one of our questions. Yeah, you did. I was just looking at that. It was in the conversation. It was called representation.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

I think I talked too much.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Nah, nah.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Origin story.

Leaving The Faith And Rebuilding Identity

SPEAKER_00 37:49

What moment changed the direction of your life? At what point? It seemed, I think you said like art is math. I feel like the universal language, our our lives, is if you can figure out your formula, and I tell my nieces and nephews this, I tell my friends. If you figure out what your formula is, then you can succeed. It might change a little bit, the variables will change. Um, and for me to have been a computer science major, I'm terrible with math. That's crazy. So a lot of things that I navigate through. So what point for me really changed who I was? If it was, and I won't say an old berry and a new berry, but it was like a rebirth. Um I probably in between 2012 and 26, well, 2020. It wasn't like an overnight thing. And I always tell folks, it's not as hard as you think is taking that first step. I don't have this amazing drawn-out thing that says, step one, I did this. It's learning to accept yourself and making small changes. And it might be a different change today, but that small effort is all it takes for your life to get on that different path to where you want to go. So around that same time, I'd realized that being a witness was not for me.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

I can, and it it wasn't um, I I didn't believe in the teachings. I was miserable there. I and I was thinking, how are all these people saying they're happy? I felt guilty for not being happy there. I was not happy. I had friends that I loved genuinely, and I hate that they haven't gotten the chance to know the real me. And it's probably because I stepped away. You know, they teach that once you leave, you don't. Yeah, yeah, that's a real thing. Yep, it's a real thing. Um, my family has has kept in touch with me. We still have a great relationship, but it's friends that I haven't spoken to in years because it so it was like rebuilding myself. So at that point, I look back and say, I'm glad that I had that courage. Because a lot of people stick there and you can see in their eyes we don't want to be there. But if you say it to them, they'll yes, I do. Yeah. Yes, I do. It it's that trap feeling is terrible. They put that fear into them that they don't get burned in that lake of fire. They put that fear. Yeah, it's in there. And it's more so thinking, I'll have folks laugh and it's like, that's not funny. They'll say, you know, if you go to college, you're gonna go to class and somebody's gonna give you cocaine, and then you're gonna go to the club and get shot. If only you were at the kingdom hall. No, no lie.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Look, y'all thinking that's crazy. No lie. It's extreme. It's very extreme. They whatever they like. That's why that only the way I can explain it because a lot of black people we aren't Mormons because they don't teach that black people because we're evil, right? But that's the closest that black people get to Mormonism is Kingdom Hall. I hate to say it like that. They'll say it's I was there. I was there.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

They'll say Barry wanted a job in corporate America. He went to the job and everybody liked him, and they invited him out for drinks. Was Barry following what Jehovah said about going and getting drinks? Barry went out and had drinks.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

And died in a car accident that night. And where do you think his soul went?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Now, what would have happened if Barry was out in field service if he listened to Jehovah? So you're sitting there like, oh my God, if I get a job and people ask about drinks, I'm gonna die. It's it's fear. Yeah. It keeps folks in fear. So I've always appreciated friends that left before me at an earlier age. Y'all had to go through this when you were 18, 19 years old. Yeah. And here it is, me trying to navigate it when I'm in my 30s. It was hell.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Do you think that's like kind of like selling your soul? Because you only get one life to live.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

I don't know what the the universe or I definitely believe they harvest in people's energy. And I think that's one of the ways of keeping people down. Dang, that was real.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

That's the first time I've heard somebody say it that openly.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

That open they're harvesting energy from people, and that's just one of the ways they do it, sadly, through religion. And in that one, it's so many people that never live out wanting to be an artist or wanting to be a fashion designer or wanting to be a doctor. Yeah. Because productive for the community. You, this is your priority. You going out in the field ministry, you come into the meetings. Yeah. I understand they've changed their views, but some things and people will contest it online. We could not go to college when we were growing up. They told us it was no college.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

That's the part that got me, is that they were against higher education. And money. I think that's one reason why my mom kind of left, because she was educated, and like she was like, no, my children go to school. Like, so we ended up going to end up kind of called a hole and then we moved to other church.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Certain people could get away with letting their kids go to school and it's messed up. But if um if you were a black family and you had some weight and some money, yeah, yeah, yeah. They'd turn out, you know, your kids can go to school, but the rest of us, the best you can, which is nothing wrong with getting a trade, but that was I remember them saying, Well, Barry, we thought you were gonna be a truck driver. Why did you think that?

SPEAKER_04 42:59

God! They made you a truck driver!

SPEAKER_00 43:03

They selected you. Why did y'all think that? I didn't think about that. That made y'all think I was driving. Yeah, so he looked like a lot of things. Yeah, so yeah, that or he looks like a CDL.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

It's people your name is Barry White. Come on. They weren't expecting you to come on, they're married to voice DLC. They were projecting on you hard.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

I don't know how hard you're doing, but I went to school intentionally because they told me I wasn't supposed to. Happy. I'm happy for that. Intentionally because of that reason. So it was it was still like me rebelling in my own way. But yeah, y'all are not gonna tell me what to do. No.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

I'm glad you stayed curious throughout your life. Yeah, I could tell you're still curious to all to learn.

Being Seen Through Portraits And Awards

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Another card.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

So you could yeah, pick another card and then we can tell us about your events you have coming up.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

The hidden struggle. What's something people see you doing well today that they don't realize was once a major struggle? Um speaking up for myself and the art. I remember again going back to that not be seen. I was not drawing men at all because I was scared of people teasing me or judging me based off what I so I started drawing superhero women all the time. Um so when people compliment me now and say, like the choices of what I've bought in. These are people that I know. Now, this is not, this is my favorite painting. It was the first one that I did that I put in that show that Corey had at Rock Bottom, one of the first ones. He was having some artists come out um and just doing jam sessions together. Yeah. And I did that piece, and even though my style has changed since then, that's still my favorite picture out of all of them. And that was done last year around February. This is my homeboy Brandon that I knew from growing up. Hey. And I I always ask people permission. That shine, I don't know him. That was from an old vibe magazine from back in the day. So I did not ask Shine. Yeah, because it's old vibe magazine. Okay, okay. And it was black and white, so I just did my colors on it myself. Yeah, but I love the way that one turned out. That one looks good. Um, I always ask folks in advance if I can paint them. And that was somebody that I knew from a couple years ago. Um, he let me take the picture, so it was okay to paint it. Good. So yeah, they I always ask permission before I paint them, but I've been painting this guy for years, and I bought it in because that's the you know, we had field day growing up. Yeah. I never won a ribbon. Never.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

I remember field days.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Man, I don't know if they're really doing field days anymore. So egg race. Yeah, hopping into little things. Yeah, this I did field day.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Um with Savannah.

unknown 45:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Savannah lucky. She lucky. Yeah. They better bring back that fitness.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

So you put that on there or show in the Low Country Fine Art Show was in Monk's Corner. Uh the Goose Creek Art Guild threw it and put out a call for art where artists can submit pieces. I submitted mine, and when I went to go drop it off, I love to hear people talking about it. So I heard somebody saying, He's not using traditional techniques. And I heard another young lady saying, Oh, he doesn't have to use brown to show a skin tone. He's using different colors. So I was like, oh, so they can see what I'm going for. And a day or so later, one of my homeboys said, Yeah, your piece is getting a lot of attention. Um so when I got the email, I'd even get to attend the show where the jewelry artist picked me to be first place in my category. But that's the first, and this is just from maybe a month or so ago, the first ribbon I've ever gotten in anything. So that ribbon is never coming off of that.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yeah, congratulations. No, it can stay on there forever. Yeah. Congrats.

Upcoming Shows And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_02 46:59

So, what do you have coming up that people can support you, follow you, stalk you? No, you don't want to stalk us.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

In between Columbia, I think I do more events in Charleston.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

That's amazing, though.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

And it is only because um I've made a lot of connections there, um, but Columbia still embraces me just fine. So the next thing I have coming up currently at the Public Works Arts Center in Somerville, there's a show going on called Spark. They've gotten artists from across the entire state. I have a piece there that's I think showing through um October. I submit it for the state fair. My fingers are crossed that they select me. I I yeah, I think I do have it too. We're gonna say that. Um Culture Clash is a big hip hop and arts collaborative event down in Charleston. Okay, so you've heard of it. Yeah. I submit it for Culture Clash, I think that's coming up in November. Um Clover did a call for art for uh self-portraits. So I've been doing myself for years too. I figured I can't paint beauty that I see in other black men without painting myself. Yeah. So I did a piece for that that I need to go and drop off next week, I believe. Um my social is that's what you're gonna say. Yeah, yeah. All that stuff is. Talk to them. They won't follow you. People always ask where the name came from is Typh Adamus. And it came from with going back to X-Men, I I assigned a character that corresponded to each X-Men to my black classmate. So I had a black Cyclops. Oh Gambit. Uh-huh. I I assigned characters to everybody and changed the names on them. Okay. I don't know if it was because it was a strong black figure. I didn't want to be Wolverine. Who wants to scratch people? That's kind of true. I wanted I wanted to be Storm. Can I say that? Storm? I wanted to be Storm was the same.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Storm is the best, the most strongest, strongest characters outside of those other Omega levels because she can actually manipulate weather. Yeah. But you're ready after after Wolverine went through a very traumatic edition of Adam and like it wasn't pretty. His experience is horrible. I don't mind that experience. Yeah, it's stormed the most.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

And I remember what what captured it is on that episode, she and Rogue were in a mall rescuing Jubilee, and those unstable molecules in her clothes, she shot the lightning at her feet and went up to the ceiling. I said, Who is that? So I made myself Storm, but I made a male version called Typhoon. So that carried on through the years. Um, once I started realizing I can't copy everything X-Men does, I made the name Tyfe. So my handle is at Tyfe Adamus. T-Y-P-H-E A-D-A-M-U-S is my handle on Instagram. I have to do better with posting because I've probably got 20 pieces I've done in the last two months that I'm still, again, still getting used to that vulnerability of sharing. Um so folks can follow me there and I'll do better with posting my upcoming events and successes and wins and journey.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

Yeah. You have to. You have to. If you won't, who will tell you a story, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Right. Pop your collar.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Yeah, pop it. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

There you go. Nice shirt.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Nice shirt. Might as well pop that collar. Thank you. Um, outside of that, I believe we are where we need to be at.

Gratitude And Closing Message

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Um man. You did a good job. You did a great job. Thank you so much. This felt organic, yeah. It felt good. That's what we want. Um, I I will tell you, um, obviously, we're in uh season six.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

Seven.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Seven. Gosh, we're that far ahead. We are in season seven. So um feel feel free to come back at any time if you have something going on. Let us let us know about it. Make sure so we can spread out to our audience so they're aware of what you got going on. But we appreciate you. Uh, this is DJing what?

SPEAKER_02 51:01

Tamaya.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Skip. Our assistant. I love Savannah. Say your name. That's the voice of the Hilltop Glow Pocket. Say it.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

Big Virgo energy in the building.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Big peanut energy.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

There it is, all right. And our esteemed guest, Barry White, uh, other otherwise known as Typha Domus.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

Thank you very much for having me, y'all. We appreciate you so much. Make sure that you tell somebody next to you that you love them and you appreciate them. You don't know when you'll have another chance to do so. Until the next time, y'all, buy gas if you can afford it.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

Peace.