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[AUDIO LOGO] SPEAKER: Hello. Thank you so much for coming. It's wonderful to see you all here in celebration of this fantastic exhibition. Before introducing our guest of honor this evening, I just want to say a few words about the genesis of this project.
So it was a number of years ago now-- I've been here for a little while already at Cornell-- that I learned about this group of 18 albums in Cornell's library collections. These are photograph albums that were created and held by Black families, photos made across the United States from the 1860s up until the 1980s, so a pretty extraordinary collection. And these are records of Black American life from the Civil War and Reconstruction eras through Civil Rights and beyond. And I wanted to activate these objects in some way and not have them sitting idle in the library's collections but to respectfully make known the stories that they tell about Black life in this country.
As Tina Campt has written, photographs like these are, quote, "banal, as well as singular. They articulate both the ordinary and the extraordinary texture of Black life." But how to do this, how to present these albums, the question, and it was in speaking with my colleague Andrea Inselman, our Drucker curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, that Andrea suggested commissioning an artist to make new work in response to these photograph albums, and she floated Nydia's name. I had seen Nydia's exhibition, Black Magic, at Corners Gallery here in Ithaca in 2018. And I had greatly admired her poetic approach to image making and to her subjects. Here were pictures that explored Black life, in particularly the experiences of Black girls and women, in a way that I hadn't seen before, full of psychological complexity but also undeniable visual beauty.
I did a little bit more research into Nydia and learned of her community-based approach and her work with her own family photographs, which she had incorporated into her photographic series in multiple ways, and she was from Ithaca. So in short she was the perfect person, and I am still grateful that she accepted to take this project on. And it was an absolute pleasure working with her.
Critically, this project was supported early on by Kofi Acree, who is here today, who in addition to directing the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library is curator of the library's Africana collections in which the photo albums reside. And it was one of the great pleasures of my time in my role here at Cornell so far to see alongside Kofi the contours of this project develop in Nydia's hands and to be part of conversations about Black History in Ithaca, the community today, and photography as a family and community practice, a producer of artifacts and knowledge, and in the best of circumstances a tool of liberation, self-representation, and celebration.
Nydia Blas, as many of you know, grew up in Ithaca and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Ithaca College and received her MFA from Syracuse University in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She's an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Visual Culture at Spelman College in Atlanta. She has also taught courses and continues to teach courses for the High Museum of Art, Anderson Ranch, the Image Text MFA program at both Ithaca College and Cornell, and for Syracuse University in the Department of Transmedia.
In addition to her artistic practice and her work as an educator, Nydia regularly contributes editorial work to publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, and many others. Prior to moving to Atlanta, Nydia served as the acting executive director of Ithaca's Southside Community Center. Please join me in welcoming the fabulous Nydia Blas.
[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]
NYDIA BLAS: Hello. Hello. I have envisioned this moment for quite a while with pure excitement to be able to talk to all of you today. So I just want to thank everybody for coming. This is a big-- a little emotional moment so thank you for my introduction and thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to work on this project. And thank you to the Johnson Museum and all the staff. You guys have put up with my shenanigans and my late emails and everything, so I want to thank everybody for that. I have a few notes.
So, one, I want to say hi-- now everybody in the room but also I should have a lot of my students watching since I had to miss class today. So, yes, write your one-page response for me, please.
But I also want to shout out Atlanta, Georgia, because a big piece of my heart is there in my new home. I also want to take a moment in the city that I come from and this project that I worked on for the past two years that has also helped me heal something here.
So I'm not going to say that part because it's going to make me cry. But in this room, if you feel proud of me right now, I would like you to feel proud of all of you, all of yourselves-- Monique, you got me crying-- because there's so many of you that have had personal connections with and so many of you that have contributed to my life and my career and my family. [CRYING]
I'm a crier, and I'm not ashamed. So don't feel embarrassed for me.
So I just know that there's so much going on in the world right now, and I want to remind everybody that this is a celebration.
So I ask that you sit in this room with me today and ground yourself here. I also want to shout out one of my students, Tila, who traveled from Spelman College to be here for the weekend. Whew. All right, and let me get myself together because one thing I learned is how to talk a lot to people, especially during the pandemic, when I taught online and gave lots of artist talks.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you on a journey of who I am, and most of me but you don't also know me specifically in this capacity. So this is my first time really giving a big talk in Ithaca, and it is an honor.
So, one, what I do. Thank you, Katie, for that. I'm an educator in my blood and my roots. I teach at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm also-- I also do workshops, artist talks. I'm an artist, freelance photographer like you said. My work is really about looking at the world through this Black feminine lens. I photograph in community and people I know, and I make mostly staged and constructed images, which I will talk about a little bit more.
But just as a shout out, I teach at Spelman College. It's the number one HBCU in the country. Thank you. I just have to say that and shout that out. It is the most magical place that I have ever been in my entire life, amazing Black women supporting each other. And it is, again, an honor for me to be there.
I also love photobooks, things that have been instilled in me by old professors. Hello, Miss [INAUDIBLE], one of my favorite professors of all time.
And, yeah, and I exhibit my work, and I talk about my work. And I do commissions for museums like the Johnson. But I'm also a freelance photographer, and I do editorial work when I am called upon to do so for the last thing I did was Fani Willis for The New York Times in Atlanta.
This work excites me because I like thinking on my toes. I be getting somewhere and figuring out what to do and how to do it best. And my work is really rooted in portraiture. And I have to say-- I'm just going to be a dork and say that I love photography. I do. It's just in my heart and in my soul, and it's something that I started doing when I was in seventh grade here in Ithaca at LACS. Miss Amber Boyd, my first model who risked frostbite half naked in the snow in the backyard of 205 Second Street, and so thank you. And thank you to all the other people who have risked their lives for my photographs. I appreciate you.
But I like-- I love photography for a few things, and I'll just mention this for all the young people in the room. I like photography because when I was in seventh grade, it was something that I was good at, and I don't think we take enough time out to appreciate the things that you are naturally good at. So I have this beautiful life that I manifested where I get to do everything that I love, and if it is not fun, then most likely I do not want to do it.
But photography has always been for me expression. It's an outlook, output, an outlet, and it's always helped me to have a better understanding of myself in the world. I'm also really interested in photography's ability to subvert meaning. I'm interested in the way that it has conversations over time and over generations. This is my favorite photograph of all time by James Van Der Zee called Couple, made in 1932 in Harlem.
And this is my photograph from 2016 called Honey Belly. And so these coats repeat themselves, these fur coats, and I didn't even realize what I was doing there, that that work was an inspiration. And yet it showed up and created this conversation that photography has the amazing ability to do.
I'm also interested in photography's ability to create a counter narrative, one that is told by you and in opposition to narratives that may have told-- been told by you by other people. And so this is the work also of James Van Der Zee known for creating this counter narrative of Black folks, one that says this is what we look like. We are proud. We are beautiful.
And also parallels between James Van Der Zee's work and mine as I'm thinking about it wrapping up my thesis at Syracuse University but I was really thinking about this notion of controlling the entire environment. So James Van Der Zee worked a lot in the studio, and so I'm always interested in props in my models in what I call costume or clothing and also gestures or actions.
Some of-- my favorite ways that photography has been used is one by Sojourner Truth. So Sojourner Truth understood the power of photography and being able to create your own image and that that image is a construction. And so what she did was she would have her photographs made, and she would sell her photographs to support her work. So the tagline on these cabinet cards read I sell the shadow to support the substance.
And I want a little college on you. I'm not going to read all of this. Let's not forget I'm teaching every day.
But Frederick Douglass, who also understood the power of photography and he was the most photographed man of the 19th century, sitting for more than 160 portraits, a lot of them daguerreotypes that have this beautiful mirror-like quality. They're one of a kind. They just are beautiful objects.
And Frederick Douglass never smiled, understanding that there's something that comes from the interior. We're so used to putting on. We're so used to smiling. We're so used to presenting this best version of ourselves. And if you are familiar with my work at all, you know that I do not allow my subjects to smile. But in the show, you will see that this is the most smiling that has happened-- joy, smirks, genuine excitement-- and that's exciting to see.
Frederick Douglass, just to say, he also wrote about photography, which at the time wasn't too exciting for folks. But please check that out if that is of interest to you. And another shout out would have to be to WEB DuBois and the presentation that was a collaboration between AUC students. And AUC in Atlanta is Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Clark University. And in 1900, understanding the power of photography, he creates this exhibition with students that consists of-- how many photographs-- 363 images of Black folks creating again a counter narrative, and he takes this work along with these beautiful data portraits to the 1900 Paris Exposition and ends up winning a gold medal for this exhibition. And these are some of the photographs of Black folks engaging in everyday life.
So I want to talk a little bit about my influence and inspiration. I work really intuitively, so I make things and make things and then I look back at those things to understand what I've made. And I really wanted to understand my first experience with photography. And so, one, I have a love for people of African descent. It is just in my bones.
I am also always commenting on my lived experience. So I grew up in Ithaca. I became a mom when I was 18. We are born into bodies, and those bodies provide us with experiences. We can inherit privilege, or we can inherit disadvantages, so my lived experience has always been an important role-- played an important role in my work. Also my family pictures which I'll talk a little bit about and, of course, books, film, and music.
So these are my great-grandparents, Mariam and Leon Martin. And my family has lived in Ithaca for over 100 years and resided on Ithaca's north side on Second Street. Leon was a chef for a fraternity here at Cornell, and Mariam stayed home and took in the laundry of professors.
And this is a young Beverly J. Martin on the left. For those who don't know, Beverly J. Martin is my great aunt, and she actually graduated from Cornell, I think, in 1956 or '57. And she went on to be a teacher and then the principal at what was then Central. And in 1992, Central was renamed after her, as she was then serving as the director of affirmative action for the Ithaca City School District. If you look at the exhibition by my statement, you will see a picture of a young Nydia pinning on to her I think a flower, and I gave a speech for her. So this in the middle is Mariam, and young Beverly, and my grandfather Vernon Martin.
So-- this gets me every time-- it was a joy yesterday. We had fourth graders from BJM here. They have been looking at this exhibition for the past five weeks, and then they came to visit. And it was wonderful to sit with them and all of their energy.
But in looking back, I really understood how much of an influence that Aunt Beverly played on a lot of things, but one is this notion of magic. So magic is something that I'm just interested in the world. I think with so much-- so much going on that these little glimmers of magic have been really important, and when I say magic it can be the light coming in through the window dancing on the wall. It can be something serendipitous, somebody doing something beautiful for you that day, somebody buying you a coffee, anything, and I encourage you to find the magic every day in your life.
But she gave me this book when I was little called The People Could Fly, and it is an American Black folktales by Virginia Hamilton. And in it were these beautiful illustrations, and people could fly and animals could talk. And I think, with magic, I'm really interested in this line where you choose to believe in magic. That is a choice. That is something that you have to choose to believe in.
And when and when you read magical stories, you bring them to life. You engage. You make a pact almost with magic, and that's something that I like to explore in my work.
Also when I was young, she made sure that these images by Brenda Joysmith were on my wall as a child, so images of Black girls engaging in play and fun but also these rituals, these hand games, these beauty rituals. And so when I started to think about my engagement with photography, I really started to say what was my first image that I ever saw or what was something that I just remember. And I ask my students to think about that a lot. What is the first image that you remember seeing, especially in this super digital age?
But I want to talk really quickly-- Love, You Came from Greatness is a little bit-- I wouldn't call it a departure from my normal work, but it's a bit of a mediation, a collaboration. So first, I just want to tell you about this project that I made in Ithaca, New York, when I was a graduate student at Syracuse University.
And it was-- I worked on it for three years, and it was it's called The Girls Who Spun Gold. And it is-- I appropriated this title from another Virginia Hamilton book, The Girl Who Spun Gold, which is like a Caribbean or African-American retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. And I was really interested in this notion to spin. What does it-- I'm really big on definitions-- but what does it mean to relate or create, to spin a story, to provide an interpretation of especially in a way meant to public opinion?
I do have to add that I am not interested in swaying public opinion. I am interested in creating a record and a space of reflection for my subjects to reside.
But I made this project. Before going on to Syracuse University, I worked at Southside Community center, and I met a group of girls that I worked with for a year. And I decided that it was-- that I had to go on to graduate school, and I was really sad to leave them. And so as this mediation between taking a bus to Syracuse because I was still scared to drive-- now I run Atlanta streets safely-- but I-- what was I saying-- so I-- as a way to continue our bonds, I started to photograph them.
And so we're rooted in this girl empowerment group so this mediation between me bringing things to them that I had learned in my time and in my studies at Ithaca College where I studied cinema and photography and minored in African Diaspora Studies. So I had these things that I was really excited in this new way that I had learned to unpack the world, being able to put words and history to my experiences, that time where you feel like something is a little off. Something you said was a little racist. It was a little sexist. And when I left Ithaca College, my favorite line was, well, historically and then I would go from there. Thank you again to you know whom.
And so I was traveling back and forth from Syracuse on a bus often with equipment. I was teaching. I was taking a full course load. I was being a single mom.
And so this work with the girls evolved from this place of wanting to continue our relationship but also wanting to make art and get my homework done. And so we worked together collaboratively to make images that were really about our experiences together. And at this time, I really wanted to be able to control every aspect of the work I was thinking about, the model and the girls I was working with, but also thinking about, again, props, costumes, clothing, and what I would also like to call a gesture or action, like how her hand is on her shoulder and how her hand is resting on her hip.
And, yeah, I always-- there's so much in this body of work that I think I will leave it there. But at the core this project and I think all of my work is about intimacy. And I will say this as we sit on the picture of feet on face that intimacy is not just this beautiful thing. Intimacy is sticky. Intimacy is painful. Intimacy is growth. It's discomfort. And I often find beauty in all of these things.
But let's get to the stuff that we came here for today. And usually I start a artist talk by saying I come from this little city called Ithaca, New York. And I remember when I started at Syracuse University, a lovely professor of mine called Doug DuBois-- hello, sir-- said to me when I said I'm from Ithaca, he said that you're one of God's people. And that has stuck with me all the time, and I still think about this even not working on this project.
Ithaca-- 10 square miles surrounded by reality. I think I always took that as Ithaca is this place that is somehow so magical that is exempt from the realities of the world, which is just not true. And I've been struggling with the way to talk about Ithaca.
Let me still contemplate that for a second as I move on a little bit. I was doing some research, and I found this great article about history of Black folks in Ithaca written by somebody who had gone to Cornell. And I just thought it would maybe be interesting to think about this. And the history of Black folks in Ithaca reaches back 200 years. I'm going to read a little bit. This is not my research.
The first white settlers from Maryland and Virginia brought slaves with them to Ithaca and Caroline around 1805. When New York abolished slavery in 1827, Black folks began settling in Ithaca, and in 1840, there were 136 Black folks here.
Important to know for folks that don't know, Saint James AME Zion Church on Wheat Street, which is now Cleveland Avenue, was constructed 1836, and it was a station on the Underground Railroad. And since this time since the 1930s, a significant number of Black folks have lived on Ithaca's Southside, historically a Black neighborhood that has become very gentrified. And I have witnessed over my time here-- I left Ithaca about five years ago, 2018-- witnessed this push of people to the outskirts of town and that neighborhood shift significantly, but that's the neighborhood where my family lived. That's actually the street where one of my great-great-cousins Alice was murdered by her husband. And then the first Black police officer in Ithaca passed away chasing her murderer.
And so project on that forthcoming. But what I thought was interesting that I read in this article is that some of the research that they had done in speaking with Black Ithacans was that they don't remember having any race problems per se but that you could get ignored, which made your movement in the city such as housing or applying for a job or getting a bite to eat hard. And I thought that was interesting because before my grandfather passed, I remember asking him questions, and he was just a beautiful, gentle, magnificent man who really didn't say anything bad ever. But I do remember him saying this to me and not quite remembering anything in Ithaca, even though he did marry a white woman in-- what year was that?-- yeah, in the '50s, we'll say.
But I also want to remind you-- and I don't know if everybody knows-- that in the fall of 1925, 500 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched through downtown Ithaca. And that evening, they held a ceremony at the circus flats-- is that where Wegmans is? Yeah. There's another picture that I couldn't find which is right on that land-- concluding with the burning of a cross.
And I just add these in here.
I think also because Love, You Came from Greatness is about remembering where you came from, and I always say that the-- my home at 205 Second Street was filled with images of my ancestors from beautiful shades-- super, super fair skin to beautifully dark skin-- and my ancestors were loving and caring and happy and engaging in their education and playing instruments and working. And that served as proof that I came from greatness. Growing up in a predominantly white city, those images at my home felt like proof, and that's where this title came from, Love, You Came from Greatness. So love is a term of endearment, and you came from greatness is a reminder.
I want to read this statement that is on the wall without crying but let me see if I can. And it is about home. So what is home? Is it the place that raised you or the place that you currently reside? Is it even a place or rather a people?
I currently live in Atlanta, the South. It soothes something in me that my hometown broke, something that was given to me there from my people and then chipped away at over the years. Something magical has found me again in Georgia in land that did not bear me. I grew up in Ithaca, 10 square miles surrounded by reality, a place that took almost 40 years to leave, and that I returned to make this body of work. Our family home at 205 Second Street was filled with photographs of my ancestors. Again, they ranged in beautiful shades from very fair to dark skin always dressed impeccably, exuding joy even when they were not smiling.
Growing up in a predominantly white place, these images were paramount to my understanding of myself. They served as proof that I indeed came from greatness. In the albums that inspired my images, Black folks pose in their yards next to cars, on porches, in living rooms. What does it mean to put these private, personal objects on display for the public to see, and how do I respond in a way which feels honest and vulnerable?
There is a reverence in these images, for the power of photography, its ability to record, tell a truth, expand a narrative, and take control of one's own image. But also for magic, something beyond us, something that is hopeful, something that is rooted in nature, in the sky, in the water, in the trees, in the land, and in the very existence of a people, people of African descent.
Leon and Mariam Martin, my great-grandparents, a chef at a Cornell fraternity and a laundress, great-cousin Alice Barnes, murdered by her husband on Cleveland Ave, great-aunt Beverly J. Martin, a Cornell graduate and renowned Ithaca educator, I say their names. I want to say all of your names in pictures that speak. Stake claim to your existence in a city, in a world that has not fully seen you. Where did you come from if not from greatness?
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
And now I want to talk a little bit about these albums. So because I have such a large family archive, I've always been interested in archives and vernacular images in their ability to create a record to stake claim to existence. And so when the idea was that I would look at these 18 images in this collection and create some sort of thought around the albums based on research and looking at the albums and looking at the themes that are present and reoccurring and then to make new photos of families of African descent.
And so you'll hear me say African descent because I had to think long and hard about Ithaca, a tricky place, a place where there are lots of light-skinned folks like me, a place where there are lots of people who may have one white parent, a place where I'm speaking to this notion of having come from African descent. I remember being-- no, I'm not. I can go on a tangent. I'm not going to go on a tangent.
But I'm interested in, one, in these family albums as objects, 18 albums owned by 18 different families all with their different flair we can say on the outside but also for the content of what is inside. So I was really interested in these albums as, one, physical objects, especially because we are in a digital age in 2013. Who still has family albums? Yeah. The old people.
I'm just like-- I just turned 42. And I think as we move into this digital age and people are not getting photographs printed-- the fourth graders from BJM yesterday were so shocked that the things that they had been looking at on the screen were actual physical objects on the wall. So what does that mean, one, the importance of photographing somebody? What are you doing there when you say you're important enough, Otis, to photograph, and I'm going to print this photograph and make it large and put it in a beautiful frame on the wall.
And so, one, these albums are sort of physical objects. And, two, I saw the albums as a curation. These are curation of people's lives. And as witness-- to bear witness not only to the lives of the people in the albums but I think also something that kept reoccurring was this notion of leisure, which I'll sort of get back to, but just to throw that out there.
But also I saw the albums as art. A lot of them involved collage. So I invite all of you after to head into the gallery for a reception, and you can look at the work. So there are 22 new photographs that I've made, and then in cases, you will see the photographs in the albums that spoke to me the most. So you'll see some of the collage.
But I was also really thinking about what does it mean to make something personal private. So for people who've had photo albums, your photo album is something special, something that maybe you pull out to look at or your family does or when your friends or other family come over. So what does it mean to take something that was intended to be personal and make that-- or private and make that public? And who has the right to do it? Do I have the right to-- do we have the right?
And I was also realizing as I was looking at the albums I was elevating certain photographs to art. I was like this one is art. That one is so-- this one person was a photographer for sure. But I was also thinking about that notion of who gets to do that, what makes the photograph art.
I have some answers, but I'll leave questions. But I'm just going to share-- sorry, not the best quality. Didn't realize that-- two of images that really struck me in the albums. And this is one of the images that I used for inspiration in one of the photographs in the exhibit. And the other one that struck me was this man that I just felt like I knew him. His gaze was so powerful.
And so I was really thinking a lot, of course, about the themes in the album. So what was going on what was reoccurring in them. So one was a military Army, Navy. Another one, of course, is portraits-- portraits in the studio, candid portraits, all the portraits. Home exteriors or interiors, people posing in their backyards, on their porches, people posing in front of cars-- that was a big one-- in backyards, photographs of holidays, going out to eat, different other events, parties. Another reoccurring theme was monuments or attractions, school pictures, and, of course, holidays like Christmas.
But what I really also saw were images of people living and loving and celebrating and for the last one relaxing. For a people whose existence in the United States has been so tied to labor, this notion of leisure was a really beautiful thing for me. What does it mean to engage in leisure and to-- not a fully formed thought. I will return.
So the plan for responding to these albums was to photograph people of African descent in Ithaca. I started there. My process is that I often photograph people that I know, and I like my images to be a collaboration.
I'm used to making images that are very staged and constructed, and working with Katie, we found this really great medium between what is a document and what is a staged or constructed photo as often working in almost opposition to each other. And I'm used to doing this in some of my editorial work. You get there to make a picture of somebody, but then you're also posing them. You're finding the best light. You're directing them. And so this really interesting space between documentary and construction is one that I found in the work and found an interesting departure.
So that's one. And I'm also-- so I reached out to families that I knew, and I began photographing them. So I photographed over two summers, and the other times during that time, I was researching and reading and looking at the images that I had made.
So because I tend to work intuitively and have to work backwards, there was something that I found so reoccurring in all of these images, and I think it's reoccurring in a lot of my images is, one, hands. I think I'm still figuring that one out, but something that was also reoccurring in the photographs that I made was nature. And I've often been asked in interviews why nature. Why are your subject-- and I didn't know.
And I think working on this project also-- I said it healed something in me, but it also made me realize that Ithaca made me and that there's a pride in that. For all the problems I could list all the times I was so angry as a teenager living in this boring town that I feel really grateful that it made me who I am and that nature is a really big part of that for me. And so I sought people out, people who wanted to be photographed, and I went to them and I photographed them. I let them choose what they wanted to wear, let go of some of my Scorpio control, and I let them choose what they wanted to wear and found these moments in collaboration with them.
And, yeah, and I think-- it's interesting. Yesterday was the first time I saw the exhibition in person. I've seen it, of course, through my images. I've seen it through lovely people who've come to see the exhibition and taken photos and videos, but there's something about seeing an image printed and seeing it big that there were these little details that I didn't see. If you go look at this image in the wing gallery, you could see the tiny hairs on his finger. You can see the inside of his jacket actually is a similar pattern to that on his daughter's dress, and just I had to walk through the show not as mine but as an observer, as somebody who was looking at the work from the outside to see if it-- to see if it moved me.
But I had a list of images that I was also making. So the couch became an important meeting spot and a gathering place-- the living room, the couch, the front porch. Graduation was something that was reoccurring in the themes, too, and so I was lucky enough to photograph Nyrese when she-- on her graduation day. And so, again, always thank you to my collaborators and people who let me into their lives and to their spaces.
This is dear Atula. And I think this is where that magic starts entering the work. I think, for me, photographs have to hit this emotional reaction first. When I look at something, I want to feel something. And then from there, I want to be a little confused. I want to question what's going on. I need there to be a little mystery because that makes you want to look longer.
And think this is my last slide. But this image is called grounded. Yeah, I think I'm done talking. I was letting spirit guide me, and spirit said I'm done.
But I think we're going to also take questions, and I encourage you to ask me anything. I didn't cover, of course, everything that I could, but there's still lots more in my head. So thank you.
[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE]?
NYDIA BLAS: Yes, of course. Where do you want me?
SPEAKER: You just stay here.
NYDIA BLAS: Oh, OK.
SPEAKER: So, yeah, we have some time for Q&A, so questions, please.
NYDIA BLAS: I'm looking at my students.
AUDIENCE: Earlier, you talked about [INAUDIBLE].
NYDIA BLAS: Oh, oops. Right. [LAUGHS]
AUDIENCE: Cool.
So you mentioned earlier in the talk about how your early work started with the Girls Who Spun Gold. You wanted this kind of complete control over everything. Right? The reaction, the model, the clothing, et cetera. But then, you talked about this work being a space you let them choose their own clothes, where you kind of were inspired by these images that were found in this archival footage. There's a lot of loss of control in that. So I'm wondering, one, how did you navigate that shift in your work from letting go of the anxiety, I think, that drives that sense of control?
And then two, how do you see that additional freedom show up in your work versus-- in this work, versus other work you've done?
NYDIA BLAS: Thank you, Ricky. I can say the one of the letting go of control was also probably some personal work, some personal healing I think was one. But before making images that were constructed and so controlled, I wanted to make images that were so constructed and controlled. So I worked myself up to making photos in that way, for one. And so one of the things that I've been trying to do as a artist is to be OK with things shifting, to be OK with making something that's not how I'd regularly make it.
I remember when I first moved to Atlanta and I didn't know anybody, I made some landscape images in my backyard. I lived by the airport. And I was thinking about the sky, and all of these things. And I was like, they're landscape photographs. Nobody's going to like them. This is not the work that I make. Or there'll be times where I have a lot of freelance jobs, and times where I have none. So I've been-- I've tried to get OK with this notion of things shifting, and moving, and seasons changing, and the season for working on one thing, and then that shifting to something else.
And I think also, because we're in collaboration, I remember there was this one photograph that I really loved. And because my work is so personal, sometimes, it's hard to step away from that, especially since I know my subjects and we have these connections. But I think we-- you helped me with this. And I'm grateful because it's another way that I can photograph now. So I've always been like, give me a camera and I'll figure it out. But I like that shift in adding to my abilities, or things I'm interested in. Yes. [INAUDIBLE].
[LAUGHS]
OK.
SPEAKER: I think one of the really exciting things for a lot of viewers about a project like this is seeing people that they know, seeing community members in the photographs. And something I think that even people who don't know the people in the photographs would recognize is the locations, or something that is very Ithaca about these photographs, even if you don't know the people in them.
And I was wondering, this is something that I don't think we've ever actually talked about. How did you choose the locations for the photographs? Was that a collaboration between you and the subject? Were these places that held some personal meaning for you, or for them, or something that kind of said Ithaca in a way? Or was it something more intuitive.
NYDIA BLAS: Oh, thank you. First of all, thank you to anybody who let me photograph them for this project. I know there are people in the room that let me photograph them and worked with me. So yeah, I like to think of things as a collaboration. And so I asked the subjects where they wanted to be photographed. Where was a spot for you? So this is Nasir and Ezra. And I photographed them at Kathy's house, on Second Street.
And so that was a choosing-- that was a location of their choice. So I tried to go to the subjects in a space that felt comfortable for them to be photographed, oftentimes at their homes. But if people didn't want to be photographed inside, I would photograph people outside. Yeah, and that's one of the exciting things. The fourth graders yesterday were like, I know him. That's Leslie from [INAUDIBLE]. That's my-- that's Mike. That's-- who else was a popular one in the photographs?
But that was really exciting to see-- grow up in Ithaca, this is our museum. A lot of us who grew up here came here as children on buses from schools. And we-- this is our museum. So what does that mean to see yourself reflected here, right? It's really powerful. And if it's not you, and if it's not somebody you know, then it's somebody who looks like you, or somebody that you love.
And so that was a special-- that was really important to me to create a reflection-- to see yourself reflected in the work. And then because the images are also framed in glass, you can literally like see your reflection in the work.
AUDIENCE: I loved your talk. It was awesome. The thing I loved about it was the background that you gave. And as a librarian, the books that you mentioned, I know those books. But I didn't interpret them the way you did. And I thought that was so beautiful, the way you wove it in with your passion, and to tell a story. So because the picture with the little girl at the stream holding up the arms took me back to that book. But I haven't-- so I just really want to thank you for all of this, but also providing the background story, which I think helps with the exhibit.
NYDIA BLAS: Thank you. And thank you for your time, and all your work on this project too. Thank you. Oh. That's my student from Spelman. She's graduating. She's an amazing photographer.
AUDIENCE: This is not a fully-formed thought, but I'm thinking about how-- first of all, congratulations.
NYDIA BLAS: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: But I'm thinking about how you said you started photography in seventh grade, and how you were good at it. So I'm wondering how you worked yourself up to the stage of taking photographs that you said, it's really important that your photographs make you feel. So how through your life of being a photographer did you get to that stage of not just taking a good photo, but making a photo that makes you feel? Or-- when you're picking photos for an exhibition and stuff, choosing a photo that makes you feel.
NYDIA BLAS: Thank you. I think photography is about choices all of the time because we-- when we make photographs, we're not starting from nothing. Sorry if you're a painter. I'm not saying it's nothing. I cannot even draw or hold a paintbrush. But what I'm saying is that if you're a painter, I think that-- I know some painters. You start with a canvas, and you start with paint, and you start with a brush, and you're creating something from nothing.
But as a photographer, you're arranging the world, and you're creating relationships between things. And so that's why I always tell you one of my favorite things is to move. Move your body. Get low. Go up. Go-- right? Because you're changing the-- not only the relationship between the subject to the camera, but you're changing what it-- what the image is saying. So photographs tell us. They're documents. They say, OK, on this day in 2022, these people were here in Ithaca, New York. All right? That's a document.
We know that that happened. But like I said, photographs also make us feel. So for instance, in this photograph, I photograph really down low. So I do that often with my subjects because if you are looking up, I want my subjects to feel powerful and to feel strong. And I want them-- I want them to look down on you a little bit in a nice way. But I want them to stand in their power. And so those-- that's one of the ways that you can guide a feeling. But I also work intuitively.
I just-- I listen to something inside and outside of myself. And just to go back to that, choices, we know when we're taking images, how many images did I take of this, right? And then I had to edit and make the choice of which one to show. Which one said the thing? Which one worked with the other images? Because there were a couple of these that we liked. We're like, one's too editorial. This one feels better.
And so those choices. But that feeling, I'm going to have to think about that one. That feeling. Yeah. We know you don't. We'll go for it anyway.
AUDIENCE: I'm just curious. Could you elaborate a little bit more about your thought process and how you create? You mentioned that you kind of create things a little bit more backwards. And so I'm curious about that.
NYDIA BLAS: OK.
AUDIENCE: Why don't you talk about that a little more?
NYDIA BLAS: All right. Well, I'm just going to stand in my power, and I'm going to stand in all the magic. And I'm going to say that for a long time, it really started, I think, mostly with the Girls Who Spun Gold or in some of my thesis work at Ithaca College, I have visions for photographs. I get inspired. I can get inspired by a person. I have to photograph this person. In the beginning, you saw I photographed Simone Honey Belly when she was pregnant when she was a senior in high school.
And so I knew that I wanted to photograph Simone. I just knew I had to photograph her. And something said to me, photograph her in a fur coat with honey on her belly. That was the vision. I saw it. And from there, I pieced that together. I had Facebook at the time. I said, who has a fur coat? And somebody said, I do. Thank you, Autumn. And thank you-- somebody else gave me that other fur coat. But right-- OK, sorry, my memory. But right?
And so and then I said, OK, where is this image going to be? And this was in my friend's kitchen. And in that way, those layers are built, but very much by, one, that vision I had, and then I think also, the things that are available to me. I can't make my work by myself. I don't work like that. I have asked. And there are so many of you in this room that have done favors for me and have given me your time and your energy. And I thank you for that. So the work is always a collaboration too. So it just happened to be that this is a kitchen. But then that also worked to build this other meaning.
What does it mean for her, a young Black woman to be in a domestic space, to be in a kitchen? What does it mean that I then flipped that meaning? And why are they wearing fur coats? And why-- what's that on her belly? And what's that-- and so because I work intuitively, which means I listen to myself and I try to keep that voice that is like, that doesn't make sense, what are people going to think? I try to quiet that voice and try to make the thing. And then I work backwards. For me in making this image per se, I had to say, OK, well, let me research what honey represents.
Let me research-- I use gold a lot-- let me research not only what that means culturally or historically, but then how am I attaching that to my work in the way that I'm looking at something? So to tell you the truth, I have not fully comprehended that work that I've made. And it will take me a while.
And so there'll be things that I'm always going to be thinking about. I know the process, I know why I made it, I know-- but I think I am always trying to figure that out. Yeah, you're welcome.
AUDIENCE: I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I have the microphone to ask you a question, and that the slide is up on the screen. Looking at this amazing James Van Der Zee photograph you said was your favorite photograph, which is a wonderful thing to know. And I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about why this is your favorite photograph.
NYDIA BLAS: Wow. That's a really good question. I don't think I ever thought about it. I think it just-- it just hits me somewhere. I love portraiture. I think their stance is so strong. I like the way that they're looking at the camera. I think about the gaze a lot. I'm thinking about the way that the subject is addressing the viewer, and the ways that you feel either included in the story or you feel on the periphery of the story, and what does that do.
I just, I love the light. I love-- I don't know. There's these little things in the photograph that kind of hit me. But I remember my first time visiting Atlanta. I was in the High Museum before in like 2014. And I turned a corner. And this image was on the wall. And it was a magical moment indeed. Yes. Yeah. Hope that answers.
AUDIENCE: It's one that a lot of us remember seeing this for the first time.
NYDIA BLAS: Yeah. It was made in Harlem. My people come from Harlem too back in the day. So that part.
AUDIENCE: I think this is the last statement I want to make. What I love about your exhibit and your presentation is that you're also showing Black folk as regular folk, where you're not showing us with welts on our back, you're not showing us incarcerated, all these other things. Because for a lot of people, that's the first thing they actually see when you come talk about Black folk. But you're showing Black folk just regular, like here in the kitchen, whatever. So I just want to thank you for that, and any thoughts that you have about that in terms of driving you to put together this beautiful exhibition.
NYDIA BLAS: Thank you. I think a long time ago, there was something that I always wanted. The work of Kara Walker, if you know her, was interesting to me, and this ability to tell the truth. And I think my truth is also one that just resides in a beauty, thinking of those family photographs of mine. But also, how do we lead with not just the trauma? How do we lead with the magic? How do we lead with the beauty? How do we lead with some of these other things? And sometimes, I battled with how much to say in my work because there's so much in it, especially in something like the Girls Who Spun Gold.
But I think like, what does it mean to create a counter-narrative, or something that also works, in-- as a resistance in this really special way to make something that is a reflection of what you see and what you know that is complicated and has layers, but is also just rooted in beauty and in love? We don't say that enough, love. I love you. We don't say that enough. Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for this wonderful presentation and talk. I'm curious how this body of work is inspiring your thinking for what you'll do next.
NYDIA BLAS: Ooh, thank you. More commissions from museums. And so I spent a good three years while I was in grad school manifesting my life over, and over, and over. I wrote the same things on a piece of paper. I said, I will be a professor. I will have freelance work. And people will come to me to ask me to make the things that I make in my own style in my own voice and my own art. I will have photo books. I will talk about photography. I will write about photography.
And so thinking about the future, and sort of being open to what comes, and what may not, and being OK with things shifting, and sort of changing, my next goal, I-- the latest project I've done is called The Silver Women Becoming Afro Latina, and it is based on work that I traveled to Panama for a month last summer, which is where my father was born. And I made work there that is about me and about that land. So turning the camera on myself.
I think I needed some time to live where I live. So I'm in my fifth year living in Atlanta, Georgia on the Southwest side in this beautiful little house I bought. And I want to make work about Atlanta, but I feel I didn't own it yet. I was not part of Atlanta. And I feel ready to do that now. So I'm feeling-- we may need some funds. But I'm feeling Gregory Crewdson but with Black people.
That's the vision in my head. If you don't know, he makes staged photographs that are almost like movie sets, but makes one photograph from them. And none of his subjects are of non-white people. So that is sort of that vision in my head.
AUDIENCE: Great. Well, think there'll be lots more time to talk afterwards in the galleries, the reception. Thank you so much, Nydia. Thank you.
NYDIA BLAS: Thank all of you. Thank you to you.
[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]
Oh. Thank you! Oh, wow.
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks!
Atlanta-based artist Nydia Blas was born and raised in Ithaca, part of a local community studded with names beloved locally and known nationwide, from her aunt Beverly J. Martin to Dorothy Cotton, Alex Haley, Cecil A. Malone, and Ruth Carol Taylor. Her exhibition at the Johnson Museum, “Love, You Came from Greatness” (August 19, 2023–January 7, 2024) is a new body of work portraying Black families in Ithaca and created in response to a collection of Black family albums held by Cornell University Library.
This talk was supported by gifts made in memory of Richard Sukenik ’59.
