BmoreArt

What are some changes needed to shape the future that Baltimore creatives deserve?

I think that if we want to get to a place where we have a just creative economy as a city, we have to get to a place where we are creating and supporting institutions by us, for us—institutions that are led by people of color, institutions that are led by artists. I would love to see a Baltimore where our city’s creatives are invested in at the level that they are investing in the city, and at the level of the value that they create. Oftentimes, we’re not the beneficiaries of the value that we create; the cultural legacy of Baltimore has often been a legacy of extraction, and that’s not sustainable or fair. The more that we can create our own institutions and self-organize, the clearer the path toward a future of abundance and belonging.

What led you to starting BCAN?

While I was working with EMP, I came across a lot of these systemic challenges that we face as creatives who are looking to actualize our visions in the city. So I started working with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, where I led a lot of community-based arts initiatives. I ran grant programs where we would support artists who were collaborating with community organizations and organizers to produce public art projects. I did that work for several years, where I just tried to hear out, like, what are artists and residents looking for? How can we do right by people? How can we get more local artists to get support from these bigger contracts that the city was offering at the time? I did a lot of work to try to make those opportunities more accessible.

And through that, I then got recruited in 2017 to start BCAN, which began as a concept paper developed by Sammy Hoi, the former president of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). I worked in collaboration with Sammy Hoi, Sharayna Christmas, and many other creative leaders across the city to create what became BCAN. 

As practicing creative entrepreneurs who had been working in the local landscape for years, Sharayna and I wanted to create resources that were meaningful and real. I’m very proud of the impact we had through our leadership. We engaged over 2400 creatives in our business acceleration and networking programs. We deployed over $1 million in direct and partnered grants into the hands of the city’s creative entrepreneurs, most of them Black women and people of color. We were also able to successfully advocate for the inclusion of our city’s cultural and creative economies in long-term citywide and regional economic development strategies.

You left BCAN in March. How are you handling this period of transformation, and what are your next steps?

I’m building a couple of new ventures that I’m really excited about. I established a consultancy called Conjure the Future; I’ve been working with different groups around creative strategy work. The goal is to provide a possibility platform: Who are the visionaries that are really designing for the futures that we actually want to see, and what are the systems and resources that need to be put into place to make those visions real? I’ve been doing workshops and consulting work, supporting creative entrepreneurs and arts service organizations, and designing and developing some of these systems and resources—much in the way that I’d always done as part of an institution or collective. But in this case, I’m thinking more widely because a lot of the stuff I’m interested in involves large-scale shifts in policy and practice that’s not specific to Baltimore.

And then I’m also working on creating a space really dear to my heart: La Sonora, a live Latin music club and culture hub that I’m launching in Baltimore where we’re focused on connecting the Latinx diaspora through sound and movement. As we grow as artists, as people, and as movers in the city, we have to evolve. We have to transform our thinking about what’s possible. For me, La Sonora and Conjure the Future are really about finding ways to play my part in this throughline into the future, a future where culture can flourish. I feel like it’s so early in all of these processes of building these businesses, but I know that my experiences leading up to this point have shaped them, and I’m just really passionate and excited about the work and looking forward to building community and seeing what the future holds.

You mentioned that you took some time to grieve post-BCAN. What advice would you give to someone in that phase of their transitional situation?

My performance background really allows me to understand that these things are part of a process. BCAN is something that I designed from the ground up and poured a lot of myself into. On one hand, I knew that there would be a transition at some point, but it was definitely a shock to the system, just because it’s, like, oh my gosh, I’ve been doing this thing for seven years. What do I do now?

Listen to yourself, give yourself grace, take time. Being able to be with my family and be an artist that participates as an individual that deserves to explore their creativity has been awesome. I’m happier than I’ve been in decades. It’s not to say that I wasn’t passionate or didn’t love the work or anything like that, but I was starting to run on empty at a certain point, and I’m very glad to have created space for myself to be able to explore that creativity, again. It’s, like, as soon as I sit by the water and enjoy the eclipse, I’m, like, oh, okay, I know exactly where I’m going, what I’m doing, and what I need to prioritize. 

I was working on a project in which I was looking to unlock that sort of opportunity and creation of ownership for others but was not actively doing that for myself. That isn’t how I want to exist in the world anymore. At the end of the day, if we’re not whole, and we’re not caring for ourselves, remembering who we are, and trusting ourselves and our integrity, then what’s the point? One of the biggest lessons of this time period is that this creative power that we have is infinite. I can’t think of an energy that is more powerful than that. 

How would you describe your relationship to the artwork that you create?

It is a relationship of exploration and understanding. I get curious about something and then I want to keep scratching and scratching to try to understand it, and then through that, the medium reveals itself to me.

What are some media that you work with, and how do you approach your creative practice and process?

I like tactile things. I’ve woven fiber-based sculptures together that have been pretty large-scale. In a couple instances, they were sort of interpreting creation myths that I was learning about from Latin America. It’s curiosity, play, and trying to understand what the relationship to creation looks like across generations and civilizations, what’s coming up for me at this moment, and how I can use that to create a portal for myself to get closer to that level of understanding. As far as how I create, it’s not even about the audience. It’s, like, I just want to know. I want to figure this out and have a good time.

What are some of your earliest memories related to art?

My mom was in love with Grupo Niche, this salsa band from Colombia, and she would take us little kids to go see them. I also remember after school programs and making bracelets and selling them to my friends—trying to find a way to use creativity to make things happen for myself, even as a little kid. 

What was the first play you saw?

I don’t even remember the first play I saw. But I remember a young playwright in high school who put together this piece about reconnecting with his family around dominoes, which are really big in Cuban culture. I’m not Cuban, but there are a lot of Cubans in Miami, and this personal story was really resonant for me as a young person. Especially coming from an immigrant background, our culture is important to who we are and how we make a way. But there’s also these tensions. I’m very grateful that my family trusted me to make that creative life for myself; it is a huge privilege. 

I think coming from a working-class family informed how I got so involved in the practical and pragmatic sides of, like, how do you actually make this work? What are the careers where I could still have this creative life while also ensuring that my and my family’s needs are met? That was always something of a driving force.

What else has motivated your career path?

Even though he would never call himself a creative person, my dad is a maker. He’s a person who was a machinist his whole life and trained in that and decided that he would utilize that skill set to start his own business. It’s a small family business, and we all worked for him on the side after school—just kind of helping him out. I remember making logos for him as a kid. That was a huge motivating factor because it was this reminder of how we all have these innate gifts. If we nurture them and allow them to breathe, you can create these pathways that are generative.

What would you say to someone embarking on a period of metamorphosis?

It’s something that is inevitable, so embrace it. Really step into and think about who it is you actually want to become and what kind of life you want to live. Get excited about the opportunity to shed all these things that aren’t serving you anymore. We have to acknowledge and purge things that are holding us back, and once that starts to happen for people on an individual level, we can start to get to the larger, collective transformations that we’re all so hungry for. But a lot of times, those things that are holding us back are ourselves, and that’s the hardest part of the work.