Maya Freelon
Artwork: Swept (detail)
Medium: Tissue Ink Monoprint
Dimensions: 44”x25”
Year: 2017
Zig Zag Hoops: Modern Weaving
Available at Vert & Vogue
Photography: Jillian Clark
Interview by:
Charman Driver
Our Empower muse, because the best place to get inspiration is from other people.
Maya Freelon | Artist. Queer. Vulnerable. Honest. Human.
“I embrace the myriad of my otherness”
- Maya Freelon
MF: Otherness is interesting, it’s something as a black female, I was born into, I didn’t have a choice but everyone goes through phases of rejection and feeling like they want to fit in but as I grew older I realized that my otherness is what makes me special and I learned that when I started making art. Other isn’t a bad thing. I think it helps us see the beauty of everybody individually. I think sometimes we can also kind of compartmentalize so much so that we don’t fit in anywhere, so I’m careful and clear about the things that I’m proud of: being a mom, being black, being a female, being a daughter, being a partner. At first, I didn’t think sexuality was anybody’s business but then I thought there are people who need to hear it. All of those things are who I am and I like other.
CD: You’ve said your job as artist is to utilize your freedom to speak your mind and inspire.
MF: I wake up thinking about what I want to make and how I want to change the world.
As a creative person, my artwork always circles back to healing, and being whole and finding beauty in things that are considered low art, or trash, or craft. Making art is my job and I have an innate sense of passion to make things that are beautiful. It challenges you, or makes you want to be around it, touch it, feel it and ask questions about it.
Being an abstract artist makes it hard for people to identify me by race based on just looking at it. I like that. I’ve run into a lot of people, older white men in particular, who can’t believe I’m the artist. And while that is condescending, it also makes them rethink stereotypes.
CD: What is it to be Nourished?
MF: I think about being in a warm bath, or a natural spring. It always goes back to water for me — being quenched. You’re full and you feel comfortable being yourself. In my water, I’m completely naked because I don’t have any insecurities and I feel held by the ground and the earth when I’m nourished. Fed well, loved, respected and comfortable.
CD: What is it to be Empowered?
MF: Empowerment feels like you’re in the driver seat, you own the car, the lot and the house on the lot. Empowerment is an attitude, a drive. Along with working hard you need someone to say you have as much a right to this as anyone else. It may be your parents, teacher or mentor. To be empowered isn’t about dominating someone else or having more than others. It’s about feeling that you have equal access to anything you need.
CD: How do you empower others?
MF: Once you’re empowered and you’re confidently there, you can empower others — its almost like a gift. My grandmother let me know that I have purpose and she helped me access my own worth. I can take those lessons she taught me and pass those on as well. Especially for me as a young black, queer female. I hope I can empower girls who identify that way — publicly or not — that I made something out of nothing and they can too. Trust and believe that what you’re doing in life has value.
CD: How do you Shape your body?
MF: Yoga three times a week, meditation and speaking kindly to the mirror. When I look at myself, I honor the moment, not wishing my body looked some other way. I ask myself, “What can I appreciate about my body right now?” “Am I breathing?” “Am I walking?” “Am I smiling?” “Can you stretch?” “Can I take a deep breath?” I find something to be grateful for in my body every day. Life may be very short or very long, but all we know is right now. Feel it and listen to it.
CD: What is it to be Transformed?
MF: To me transformation is the capacity to take you from where you are and morph into the future. It can happen slowly or fast but it’s going to happen. The only thing that’s constant is change. I like to grow and when I learn something, I like to immediately put it into action. Sometimes I look back in my journals from years ago and see that I have transformed and grown and I didn’t even realize it. The ability to transform should give people hope.
CD: What is to be in the community and of the community?
MF: Everybody wants to be a part of something. If you don’t have community, you don’t have anything. Maybe values clash from one to another, but its important to embrace that there are myriad of ways to be in it.
I appreciate and honor community and thinks it so important to cross into others in order to learn empathy and understanding.
CD: How do you show up for your community and others?
MF: My creative art projects are interactive. I ask people to join me and to make art with me. It doesn’t matter your mental capacity, how old or young you are, your ethnicity. You sit and you do this activity that is seemingly easy and you build something together with your neighbor on the left and right of you. It’s my way to talk to people, my art is a universal language, and I can do it in any setting and in any place. I’ve done it around the world, around the corner and we can grow.