David Driskell:

I don’t want the art to be static in any form of fashion. So I’m trying, as you said, and I think you are on target. I try and draw from so many different sources so that it isn’t static. It’s um, um, it’s moving. I have been informed by so many different cultures. I have been informed, my art has been informed by so many masters, and one of the great masters, uh, of collage, Romare Bearden. Um, I happen to have had his tutelage, been a dear friend, um, letters of exchange and advice that he gave me about painting. Um, my first one person show in New York, my dealers here, Bridget Moore from DC Moore Gallery, and, uh, my first show, uh, supposedly was in 1980, uh, down in the East Village. And, um, there was a painting that I did that was, just kind of, uh, major in the sense that I was paying much to Romare Bearden. And he came in and he saw the painting and he said, I’m very delighted that you did this. He said, but I want you to seek your own voice. Now only a friend would tell you that. And there was another little painting where I had torn the the collage instead of cutting it and so forth, and he went over to it and he said, I’m gonna buy this one. And, uh, he said, that’s you because you are using the medium and you are expressing it through yourself. And it was a real lesson in learning for me.