 I'm Anna Kinloch with the Digital Artisans Program at the Brooklyn Museum, and I'm here to introduce another prominent figure in the black arts movement. J. Jarrell, born in 1935 in Cleveland, Ohio, is a fashion designer and mixed media artist. Her art explores themes such as black pride, the African-American family and community, and the African diaspora. One of her most famous works, Urban Wallsuit 1969, was exhibited in our own Brooklyn Museum's 2014 exhibition, Witness, Art, and Civil Rights in the 60s, and is currently on view upstairs in We Wanted a Revolution, Black Radical Woman, 1965 to 1985. One thing that I especially love about Urban Wallsuit are the messages of positivity painted on the suit, like black princess and mis-attitude. In a society that criticizes, shames, and oppresses black women, her works and her presence in the art world inspire, motivate, and empower me. Please welcome J. Jarrell. Thank you. Appreciate it. It's such an honor to be here with you today. And I thought maybe we could start talking about Chicago. Dr. Jones just mentioned Catlett's experience in Chicago. And I know you've talked about how Chicago, the city, allowed and encouraged, in a way, the founding of Afro-Cobra. And I wondered if maybe we could start there. Well, that sounds good. Chicago was at the time really prominent in encouraging people to search out their art, make their expressions, and be involved in the visual art movement. And there were a number of us artists that had felt that we had done all we wanted to do, and we were big. And that was it, and we won't get bigger. And at some point, we realized that if we enjoined others, that we could really be big. And what it took was a number of discharges, discharge the ego. Put purpose as your motivation. And with all of the revolution around us in our nation and in the world, we really needed to have a purpose to address that in a visual manner. And so we engaged other artists that might be interested and said, let's come together. Wadsworth, Gerald, my husband, and I had a studio that would afford folks to drop in and pitch ideas. And we got together as early as 1967 and just decided to come chat every Sunday afternoon, every other Sunday perhaps, along with jazz and snacks and lots of newspapers and magazines and information of what is going on in and out of our nation, but most of all in our neighborhood. It had really backed up to our front door. So a realism to see what artists can do, visual artists can do and empower our people through the imagery that we create, we wanted first of all for our people to realize that we're there when you go to the museum. You wish to be included. And we thought that was something that we could develop in such a beautiful manner that perhaps our people could see through our exhibits and our art shows that we had been invited to if we address the issues that people are concerned about. And most of all, let them know that they are counted, they're important, and they are the first thing on our agenda. So by 1968, we had talked about this. We spent all 68 talking about it. And at some point, we decided we're going to have to come forth with an idea that might best be powerful. And we chose to do Black Family, so many of us had experienced over the years and centuries. Just a denigration of the Black Family by separating us by segregation in our communities. So much was working against empowerment of togetherness. So you know how hard it is to get going. And though we chose Black Family, it took several Sundays coming in with examples of what we were going to do. And then it took an invitation by a TV station to be reviewed, our work all there, and our presence by the end of 1968. We did the interview, and it really jumped started us. At the time, I had a young son who was less than a year. He was sort of an Afro-Cobra mascot, from the get. The beauty of Afro-Cobra is that we lived family. We met in our studio, as I mentioned, our son toddling around the jazz playing. The crib nearby took his naps by Afro-Cobra. They became uncles and aunts to him. It was he was visited by their children, whoever was courageous enough to bring their young and put them in this wide open barn-like studio that was truly a freedom place. But it was encouraging to feel that we were safe, that it was worth setting down your privateness about your work that is in progress. That was something that wasn't done except in a demand of a classroom while training. So for you to trust this fellow artist in a sometimes good step that you would like, and we're proud to share, or one that you're stuck. But we trusted enough to be vocal on one another's work. Some people took the suggestions or the ovation, whatever, we trusted. And that was something that was a family-like thing that we could bring to that first project when we talked about imagery that we could give to our community. And Ebony family, which we have on the screen and is in the exhibition upstairs, was your contribution to that first project? That's right. I guess for the most part, Washington and I both came from similar families. Remember, we were the babies of the family. So we had all these products ahead of us that we could measure and say, I want to do that and I better not do that. And we looked at these big brothers and sisters that were very parent-like with us. The older ones, as usually happens in large black families, the older ones take on the posture of directing you and looking out for you. So that's something that I wanted to get into my piece to show the holistic family, the father, the mother, the children feeling safe and in comfort with one another and some gestures that make you know you're loved. I did this in Velvet, oh, I'm sorry. I did this in Velvet in Appacay of Velvet Ribbon, also part collage of Velvet on Velvet. It's Velvet Teen, really. But cutting out the parts to be able to create my own fabric so the image is not, at this time, a painted image nor a printed image, but Appacay and pieceworked. And you wore them. I wore them. Yeah, I wore them. So here we have the picture of you wearing the urban wall suit in 19. I don't have the date on that. What date would you guess? With my son. That would be 1971. Yeah, we left Chicago. We went to Boston. We really were going to Connecticut, but got waylaid. And we kept thinking that we, well, let me tell you about how we hang. Please. Oh, yes. There's not such a good expression nowadays. But nonetheless, in the big studio, there were two big doors that separated my studio from Wadsworth in Chicago. And I had a full workroom and all. But I'd like to hang the latest calendar on it. Our son would learn all that was to be, that there was a board of importance. That's where you hang the child's drawing, whatever. And it was an information center. So at some point, Wadsworth and I decided to leave Chicago. And we played with ideas of where we might go. And I had lived in Boston before I married him and thought that it was an important place to me. And also, the East was good. So far, schools were concerned. It's really the home of my mother. And so I just thought the East was good. And we thought we might deserve New York, but who knows who could do that with these children we were planning on. So therefore, I conceded and said we could get close to New York by moving to Connecticut. And we got a map and decided where should we go in Connecticut. And I kid you not, Wadsworth, I asked him to put a blindfold on me and I put my finger on the map. And wherever the finger landed is where we were going. And it turned out to be Waterbury. And never heard of it, but we got out the encyclopedia and read about it and made a date when we were going to get out of town. And so it turned out that the moving truck came and hauled us all our belongings up there. But we had no address. My rule is if you want a vacation, if you want to go someplace, just pick up, pack a bag, go to it, get a job, and hang out. And that you'll learn if that. So practicing something that I had tried a couple of times before I met Wadsworth, I thought, OK, this works. We got the truck to go to Waterbury. We told the driver that there was a check coming from some job we had done for Woodlawn Experimental Schools Project. And Wadsworth's check hadn't come. Mine came. So I left with my daughter, three months old. That's her and her poofs there. I left and went to meet with the landlords and real estate dealers. So that was one day. And Wadsworth followed the next day when his check fell. And I had to get there to beat the movers because they were going to put it in storage if I told them to if we didn't find something by the end of the day. And otherwise, we tell them to store it, and we will keep looking at Wadsworth if we're there. So that was just to give you a sense of how we were. So after we looked at some of the places that I was shown and by the end of the day, we went downtown to see what downtown was like. And by that time, this was when stores were closing, big stores, and a huge department closed. And it left a big void downtown. And so what had been that apartment building that was historic, the corner part of it was rented and made to be a pizza parlor. And the kids, the teenage kids from downtown were downtown and hanging around the pizza parlor. The city square had park benches, and homeless were lying on the benches at 5.30. So Wadsworth said, the sun ain't going to set on my ass. And we grabbed a cab and went to the nearest Connecticut civil city around the university. And that's sort of how things kind of went. So we moved on to Boston. I told them, I know Boston. I lived in Boston. Let's go there. So we had the summer that we wanted to get to. And we got an apartment. And we were still determined to go to Hartford. Some part of Connecticut we chose maybe Hartford because it had a lot of black people in it and a lot of big companies. And we thought we could do well. So we moved there to, I'm sorry, we, in our coming staying in Boston, I would travel with the children to Hartford on the weekends to see if we could find anything. And as it turned out, didn't. And we decided to accept an offer he had received from Howard University from Jeff Donaldson to join the art department. We went there. And later, while we were looking through our old albums we were looking about what we did in Connecticut. And then we saw the Boston weekend that we went, took the kids to an old Revere Beach amusement park. And we took pictures. And that's Wadsworth, Jr. with me. And Jennifer, who's three months old. What kind of response would you get when you would wear the suit? This is after having visited my old job in Boston. And my head of the department was there. And she received me. And I dialed up in my urban wall suit. Went to visit her. When she saw me last, I was all about vogue and bizarre kind of dress. And I come back graffitied with pride. And I said, this is how it's done. But she could tell that there was always a tilt to me in the first place. So she probably took it in stride and showed just really deliberate pride. She was happy that I was proud to wear my garments, be an activist, and to rear my children in a way that they can share the activism and be with a mate that could keep it going. So that it was very purposeful visit. And I was quite happy that she was proud of me. We just have a couple minutes left. And I just want to ask you about, you said in an interview that you saw the walls in Chicago in your neighborhood. And you mentioned this just a second ago about your studio, about walls where people could write things and people could respond to each other. And they become a kind of place for the community to engage. And that you thought about that as you made the urban wall suit. And I think that's such a, particularly in this day and age, when we think about walls differently, that's such a lovely idea. Yeah. You will see in one of the photographs of Afro-Cobra, our family pictures. So we went out to a wall of the IC, near the IC. That had a bit of graffiti on it. We liked it. And it was simply people signing and mentioning their gang, whatever. But I was really struck by under the viaducts, the messages from somebody sharing that they liked somebody and someone else coming through and finding out that's so. And saying, oh yeah. But it was just a simple message for it. And it was so nice because people tracked places on a regular basis. And so they might check to see what else is on there. And it got really important to post important messages, dates, things to do, or just where you at in your head. So I like the Black Prince idea. I like the sweet young thing kind of thing. It's a place where it's your private, but your public. And that's a good thing to straddle. And it completely encapsulates the suit, right? You're wearing it, and it's public, but it's also very personal. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.