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A weekly look at creativity, arts, and culture in southwest Michigan, hosted by Zinta Aistars.Fridays in Morning Edition at 7:50am and at 4:20pm during All Things Considered.

Art Beat: Through rage with joy

Artist Maya James smiling and paint-spattered, stands in front of a painting in progress
Artist Maya James. "Me, in my element."

A multidisciplinary social practice multimedia artist, graphic novelist, author, arts educator, journalist, and recipient of the Vanguard Award in ArtPrize 2023, Maya James says she often channels her rage into her art. Yet James is simultaneously filled with joy. She believes change in society is possible – and the goal of her art is to achieve that.

“In fact, I am now writing a book about how to create dangerously, which is basically my motto,” James says. “It was coined by Camus in a very famous essay around which I have reshaped my brand. Everything I do is in search of some sort of ethical change, and I do believe art has a political capability to do so.”

A conversation with Maya James

James says her art has the mission to give voice to undervalued groups, including but not limited to black women and black LGBTQIA+ individuals. Her art addresses abolition, anti-racism, feminism, and freedom, among other social injustice issues. She was raised by her father to whom she attributes much of the influence on her life and art.

"Literacy Lane," by Maya James. A colorful wheel of images and texts covering a large area of asphalt
Michael Burrill
"Literacy Lane," by Maya James, 2024

“Everything I learned came from him,” she says. “He grew up in Texas, and he was born in 1947, so what does that tell you? He experienced a time in this nation when we were at our worst. He could share those stories with me and heed the warnings of history. That was how I was raised. I was raised in a kind of parable where everything had some kind of moral connection.”

As a young freelance journalist, James’ works were featured in New York Times Race/Related, USA Today College, and YR Media. James is a member of Forbes the Culture and the recipient of the Underdog Award in ArtPrize for her Black Femme Rider Waite Taurus collection in 2022. She is author and illustrator of Maamoul Press’s graphic novel LUKUMI, a story of the importance of black female solidarity, friendship, loss, and diasporic faith. Her mural of 94 faces honoring those who have suffered social injustice can be seen in the Vine neighborhood in Kalamazoo.

“I feel like anger and rage is an important emotion that is suppressed,” James says. “The suppression of rage can turn to violence pretty quickly … When people use harmful things about me, I would rather reappropriate those words and dive into them. Working with anger, because it’s not going away, I trigger people in that nuanced way where my connection to my anger and my awareness of my anger and my rage … I’m owning it in my creations.”

Listen to WMUK's Art Beat every Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.

Zinta Aistars is our resident book expert. She started interviewing authors and artists for our Arts & More program in 2011.
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