Afro-American Aesthetic
This tradition is an open-ended one that favors extensive experimentation in a search for novelty. This is an aesthetic of freewheeling improvisation and innovation, and the art works it generates and the cultural contexts in which it operates are marked by a distinctive dynamism that can be regarded as indicative of black cultural contexts in which it operates are marked by a distinctive dynamism that can be regarded as indicative of black cultural values. This dynamism stems from an ever-present delight in the surprise value of new, not completely anticipated discovery.
When commenting about his elaborate ornamental ironwork designs, Philip Simmons, one of the foremost Afro-American blacksmiths still practicing his craft, noted: "It isn't always a thing gonna be set in your mind and when just half way you can see you ain't gonna like it . . . You think you like it to start, [but] it isn't always you like something that you can visualize . . . I may not like these scroll[s] when I start but still I see it that way after puttin' it in and I see where I can improve it." These words about ironwork other black artists have said about music, dance, and many other expressive forms: namely, that the preferred shape of a specific work will only be known when it is completed.
As Simmons indicates, the black folk artist himself may at midpoint sense that something is amiss in his performance, but, rather than starting is amiss in his performance, but, rather than staring over completely, he will work with what he has until a satisfying pattern emerges. The artist is then doubly rewarded for his effort in that both his product and his creative process are enjoyable. In the end, he has a beautiful item and has solved his problem of composition by playing with it.
The Afro-American aesthetic encourages the exploration of new possibilities such as unlikely blendings of motifs, inversions of common patterns, and the layering of embellishments on standard forms. Black quilters can make quilt tops that have much in common with Anglo-American patterns, but when they enact their most distinctive artistic codes their bed covers can be spectacularly different after only a minor adjustment of a "normal" quilt motif. Consider, for example, the commonplace log cabin quilt square, a block composed of small, concentrically arranged strips that are usually no larger than one foot on a side. Many of these blocks will be set into a grid to form a quilt top. Black quilters employ this particular motif in an ordered and precisely geometric manner, but they can also make the log cabin so big that one block alone will constitute the entire quilt top. They may also skew the center of the block to one side and select high effect colors that are rarely employed by Anglo-American quilters. Such a quilt when viewed from the perspective of the Anglo-American aesthetic would seem strange of flawed or even so lacking in aesthetic quality that it could only be referred to as "crazy." Closer consideration, however, reveals that such a quilt, which seems random, misshapen, and crazed, does in fact have an order, albeit not an order marked by the same meticulous, geometric precision employed by white quilters. The black quilt, when harshly evaluated, might be read as a distorted white pattern, but when viewed from the perspective of the Afro American aesthetic its randomness, its off-balance composition, and its deviance from the "norm" should be read as playfulness, as willingness to test the norm, as a strong desire to find novelty within the familiar.
Such quilts manifest the same spirit of innovation and improvisation that is encountered in Philip Simmon's ironwork. In the midst of composition and performance the artist gathers new insights about previously unconsidered possibilities. If judged as positive, these possibilities become "improvements," and they are used to convert the usual quilt or ironwork or song or dance step into something unusual. Thus, Afro-American works have an emergent quality to complement the open endedness of their design. Improvisations, testings, or improvements are compiled to produce and additively composed artwork. Because this additive approach is incremental, even piecemeal, the final goal is not often seen from the outset of the creative process. Later, at some critical, even magical point, when an acceptable shape begins to emerge, it may seem that the work almost creates itself. In an instant, seemingly random elements come together and appear as powerful, evocative, or beautiful.
It is not surprising, then, that many black folk artists speak of a visionary episode as the source of their work. The plans for their creativity, they say, come in dreams, mysterious voices, prophecies, or spiritual visitations: that is, from some external force over which they have no control. Clay sculptor and bluesman James "Son" Thomas reports: "The dreams just come to me. If I'm working with clay, you have that on your mind when you lay down. You dream some. Then you get up and try." Leon Rucker, a carver of fancy walking sticks, explains his ideas in the following manner: "The idea came with the voice of the man. Now who was the man, I don't know but I say he must have been a god cause man couldn't do a thing like that just by himself." Gravestone maker William Edmondson while lying in bed received a command to carve from his "Heavenly Daddy." Soon after that communication he experienced another extraordinary event: "I looked up in the sky and right there in the noon day light He hung a tombstone out for me to make." Beneath such divers statements is the Afro-American aesthetic that encourages its proponents to experiment spontaneously and somewhat randomly until they seize upon an order that suits them. That order will seem marvelously self-generated even though it is the artists who are actually responsible.
Improvisation is sometimes perceived as a symptom of the decline of tradition; it is thought to signal the demise of historically sanctioned standards. When a form changes constantly, it is assumed that its traditional base must be unstable and its aesthetic impact must be weakening. This is not the case in Afro-American culture where novelty is expected as the norm, where the rules of artistic composition are loosely rather than rigidly enforced, where the creator is expected to stand out from his community. There is thus a strong sense of individuality in black folk expression. Cultural license exists for black artists to do whatever they do in their own way. Blues singers today often refer to standard numbers by famous traditional celebrities such as Robert Johnson or Charley Patton as "my own" even though the original authorship is well-known to all. They are expected to remake the tradition and in fat they do transform old favorites with the addition of their own new elements. Sonny Matthews explains: "I will sing their songs, but I will put the words my way. If he have a word do one way, I'll change it and put it another. That's the way I do most of my singing." Philip Simmons in like manner claims: "I like doing my own work." A strong sense of self, then, enters black folk art and is responsible not for the demise of the tradition but for its perpetuation. The aesthetic of improvisation promotes a freedom to explore the limits of one's imagination, encouraging each would-be artist to examine fully the creative formats of his or her community. Such freedom could lead to chaos and confusion, but this is not the case, for most artists exercise their options for self expression conservatively and modestly, observing that the past is a valuable and useful resource. They negotiate between their sense of self and their sense of society. Their creativity involves a measure of compromise between what they think is good and what their audience will accept as good. Because the shape of these negotiations is similar to the testings and probings required for the composition and performance of black expressive culture, the Afro-American aesthetic seems to consist not simply of the rules for creativity but also of the rules for living.
John Michael Vlach
George Washington University
From ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, edited by William Ferris and Charles Reagan Wilson. Copyright 1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
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