Woman to Woman
Guest Journalist: Rutendo
Mudzamiri
Introduction by: Raven Ekundayo
rutendo.mudz@gmail.com
The conversation with Dr. Hammond (Dean of Graduate Studies at the Maryland Institute Collage of Art as well as the Chairperson for the Reginald F. Lewis Museum here in Baltimore) couldn’t be contained to just one interview. So we decided to make it two. When I went to interview my aunt for the Anniversary issue she introduced my Art Director and I to Rutendo Mudzamiri, an aspiring Film Maker from Zimbabwe. This young sister has great drive and energy. She has big plans not only for Africa but America as well. I was pleased to have her interview Dr. Hammond because I was certain this interview would be quite different from my own. I wasn’t disappointed and you won’t be either. This is a very important interview for young Black women to read….actually this is an important interview for anyone to read. It’s about empowerment, love of self and the determination to go after your dreams. This is the FIRST international interview for eXcape the matrix magazine. Enjoy.
Rutendo – In 2008 You’ll be working on The life and work of Hughie Lee Smith. Can you explain to the ETM readers who he is what this story will be about?
LKH – Well this is a major step forward for me. This is a book that will be published by Pomegranate Series. They have been doing wonderful books that are filling the huge gaps in American art. They’ve always said “where are the African American artists, we can’t find them”. Hughie Lee Smith is male a painter who came out of the depression era of the 1930’s. He became a painter that addressed the landscape by interjecting a lone figure, usually of a male, which in and of itself during the period of modernism and realism made a very potent statement. New light was shed about the confrontation that African Americans , especially males , were having as they engaged their relationships as to what America was the mean to them. So Hughie who worked all the way up to 1999 constantly did variations where he would interject a figure, sometimes 3 figures, sometimes 4 figures in a landscape. Sometimes it was harmonious and sometimes it was decaying. I’m telling his story. I’m telling it from his words. I try to write the artist’s story using his words. I’m looking at the artist as an individual. His papers were passed on to me. This man was an actor, he was a singer and he was a painter and I knew him. It was with his blessing before he passed in 1999 that I do this story.
Rutendo – What does it mean to you to be successful in this industry?
LKH – It means….well to be successful in this industry means that I have been able to make an impact on other women; and with the impossibilities and challenges that I have had in my life it gives them hope and inspiration and examples of how to live a life for themselves. My life is not ordinary. My life is Unique in its own way, but my life is an example of how somebody else with other kinds of challenges, and all women have enormous, complicated and layered challenges, that they can take the examples that I have done and hopefully transpose them into an act of meaning for themselves and to empower themselves. I’m about empowerment. Women taking control of their lives is of great importance. I listened to a show we have hear in America called Maury or was it Jerry Springer? Or any of these shows and I listen to these women crying that they lost a man who was unfaithful to them, was abusive to them, doesn’t care about them….but they love him. My question is do you love yourself FIRST, ok, to establish a level of integrity in your life where you don’t allow yourself or your children or your loved ones to be abused. Abuse isn’t acceptable in any form, any shape, anytime, any way or under conditions and I can’t abide by it. So if there’s anything, a molecule of what I do that can give somebody some hope or inspiration to move themselves to a position of feeling strong or having the courage to take that risk to want to do something better for your life and for your community then so be it. I’m just another nobody in this world, that’s all, I’m just another nobody.
( Quill, The Director of ETM’s Arts Dept cuts her off)
Quill – You’re far from nobody.
Raven – You took the words out of my mouth. I know you’re trying to be humble Aunt Leslie, but you’re not a nobody.
(We all start to laugh)
Rutendo
– I was going to say the same thing. Now you mentioned during your talk with
Raven about the challenges of growing up as a young woman. Can you share some of
those challenges with the readers of eXcape the matrix, because maybe there’s
someone out there who’s going through the same challenges.
LKH – I think that one of the first challenges is to do away with the expectations that other people place on you; Starting with your family. Your family loves you the best way they possibly can, but sometimes your family or your community or the individuals you grow up with in your immediate circle unwittingly place insecurities in you about what you can do, what’s proper to do, what you should do. They set up a standard for you that you haven’t really accepted for yourself or thought through. The first thing you have to do is think about whose life you are living. Am I living this life for me? Is it for my future family, my children? Am I trying to meet the expectations of my parents or my grandparents? Am I recognizing whatever strength of skills that I have? What are my contributions to the world? What are my contributions to me?
(I look at Quill and Raven with a look of shock on my face)
Rutendo – She’s talking about me….
(We all begin to laugh)
Rutendo – That’s what happened to me because those are the challenges I was facing when I….
LKH – (Smiling and Laughing) Well what kind of challenges did you have? You’re 22! I’m 63 OK! Tell me YOUR challenges.
Rutendo - Well it was hard for me to really be in the arts coming from a family where everybody is a doctor or a professor or lecturer. I really wanted to be in the arts but to my family that was something that just wasn’t it. My family would look at me in a way like I really shouldn’t. So they would force me to take secretarial courses. I use to drop out because I knew it wasn’t what I wanted….
Raven – It wasn’t your passion.
LKH – Exactly! You were bored.
Rutendo – That’s what I tried to say to them. I told them, honestly speaking, that they could chase me away from the house but I’m definitely going to pursue the arts. It’s where my strength is, it’s where my calling it. It was really hard until I really started putting all of my energy into the arts and all that I had into the arts, that’s when I started to get all of the opportunities that I wanted In life that the doctors and professors in the family still don’t have, even now. I’m really proud to stand tall and to really say it’s about what you want to do; it’s about your passion and what you want to do with your life.
Raven – So ugh, has it dawned on either of you that Rutendo has only asked two questions so far? LOL.
LKH – That’s ok, it’s the Anniversary issue. Lol
Rutendo – (Laugh) Ok. I really wanted to know what it feels like to be a woman leader in the arts.
LKH – You ask the question what does it feel like to be a leader and I know intellectually that I’ve been in the business a long time, but I don’t really see myself as a leader. I mean I’ve been so busy working that I seen that part of me. I know that’s what I’m called by other people and I know that I’m not afraid to speak my mind or state a position or engage a question, but if someone was to say where’s the leader I’d probably look around or behind me or in front of me. It wouldn’t be me I was looking for because that has never been my primary objective. I’m not campaigning. I’m just out here trying to find young women (looks at Raven and Quill) AND men. Lol, who are to be our future leaders. Women can’t be leaders without the appropriate male compliment. There are two genders and we’re only one species and we need to rethink how we create these relationships. So I’m looking for you.
Rutendo
– Well, you’re getting to my other question…
LKH – Oh I’m sorry (Starts to laugh)
Raven – See that’s what happens. You’ll interview someone and have 12 questions. By the end you will have asked 6 because they kept answering other questions while they were talking. Lol
Rutendo – I’m looking at you now and it’s just…well I’m looking at a woman who has been a path finder, not only for the students that you teach but also for the rest of the generation of women and this generation of artists. Do you think that there are young people who will step up and run with the success story of us?
LKH – I am so willing and so ready to pass the baton. It’s time for me to pass the baton on to other individuals who are ready, willing and unsuspecting of this work that needs to be done. It is arrogant to live a life and have a level of success I have had, I have been absolutely blessed. I’m an anomaly in the field. I can count probably on one hand the women who are like me in this discipline. But for me to think that I should own or keep this information is deeply painful. I gravitated towards you Rutendo so immediately because I saw that spirit and that energy. I know I can be there for you if you need me. If you need me it’s done. But it’s very rare because you’re gifted and you’re blessed. A lot of people look at me and they think I’m nuts. Lol. And I am. Lol. I’m crazy, I’m wacky…I’m not normal.
Rutendo – And you don’t have to be.
LKH – I don’t have to be. And I’m comfortable in being who I am. I’m human. If I can embrace my humanity then that’s what I want young women to do is embrace their humanity.
Rutendo – Ok. Well finally, what do you think is your legacy?
LKH – I don’t have a clue. I really don’t have a clue. I just hope that whatever it is that I’ve done will be useful in the future. Someone can use what I’ve done as a tool to make a way for themselves or someone else or another community. Maybe that’s my legacy.
Rutendo – I like that. Thanks so much!
LKH – And thank you!