Exquisite Corpse: Contemporary Conversations
Exquisite Corpse: Contemporary Conversations is a podcast series from the National Academy of Design featuring conversations between National Academicians. This podcast is a space for the artists and architects who have shaped this institution to connect, discuss, and ask questions of each other. National Academy Director of Programs and Series Host Adrienne Elise Tarver takes you into the organization that is contending with its almost 200-year history and finding its place in the 21st century.
Exquisite Corpse: Contemporary Conversations
Lisa Corinne Davis NA + Richard Mayhew NA
In this episode, we hear a conversation between abstract painter Lisa Corinne Davis and Richard Mayhew, a luminary landscape painter, who, at 98, is still painting every day. They discuss their respective approaches to painting, their use of color, and how they address internal and intellectual “subjects” with their painting. They also talk about how they became artists and the roles that their families played in their development. Richard tells us about his Shinnecock grandmother’s support of his early artistic work and how this heritage influenced his art making. He regales us with stories about his influences from Toni Morrison to his peers in the Spiral collective and sculptor Augusta Savage. Lisa and Richard relate to each other as interdisciplinary educators and share their experiences with how their progressive approaches to arts education were received with some resistance at times. Interesting connections between the two painters emerge throughout the conversation despite being from different generations as they discuss important centers of Black American artistic practice over the years. Both discuss the honor of being elected by their peers as National Academicians and how their inductions are separated by nearly 50 years.
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Hi, I'm Adrian Elise Tarver, the Director of Programs and the host of the National Academy Podcast - Exquisite Corpse. This podcast is a series of conversations between artists and architects, who've been elected by their peers, to the National Academy of Design for their extraordinary contributions to art and culture in America. These are the National Academicians and they are at the core of the oldest artist run organization in the United States. This is Exquisite Corpse. Hello and welcome to the Exquisite Corpse podcast. We're back with a new episode featuring more Academicians in conversation. I'm really excited to share this one with you so, let's get started. So, the National Academy has been around for almost 200 years. This is something we think about and talk about a lot internally. When you've been around as long as we have, your history becomes just as important as your present. And because in this country, we don't have a lot of things that have been around for almost two centuries, that kind of history can begin to overshadow what's happening in the moment. The reality is we were founded as a contemporary art and architecture institution and the Academicians that joined in the 19th century work contemporary, at the time. Since 1825, there have been over 2000 members inducted into the National Academy of Design. And at any given time, the roughly 450 living members are representative of a range of generations. It's one of the reasons it's such a great honor to be inducted into the Academy. Your peers and often your former professors mentors, and really your heroes, are the ones validating and nominating you to join this distinguished group of creators. This mix of generations is special at the National Academy and we're always excited to draw upon the living history that exists in our members who've been around for a while. Their legacy helps to bridge the gap between what was, and what's next. You may remember from the last episode that this season we're bringing in other voices from the National Academy for our historical acknowledgement. It expresses a shared sentiment and I'm excited for you all to hear from more of us that are helping to move the organization forward. And now our historical acknowledgement.
Thomas Moore:Hi, my name is Thomas Moore and I'm the Director of Development at the National Academy of Design. The National Academy of Design was initiated by artists and architects to fill a void in the American artistic landscape of the 19th century. But we recognize our history has excluded many communities and cultures whose lineages and practices must be included in this country's art historical canon. Indigenous peoples, people of color, queer and non-binary individuals and people with disabilities. We are committed to a practice of dismantling the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism and white supremacy. We are excited to move forward and have conversations that reflect the important questions and issues of today. We are the National Academy of Design and you are listening to the Exquisite Courts Podcast.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:This is a conversation I was really excited about. It started with me reaching out to Lisa Corine Davis, an incredible black abstract artists who has made her own mark and painting. She's also been an educator at many prestigious institutions, influencing current generations of artists, and was ducted into the academy five years ago. Lisa requested to speak with Richard Mayhew. Richard, or Rick, as he asked us to call him, was inducted into the National Academy 50 years ago. His stories were like listening to a history book. He was involved in Spiral, a collective of black artists, including Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff and more. He was friends with a young Toni Morrison and was deeply influenced by sculptor Augusta Savage. In his 98 years, he's made work that has inspired artists for decades. And his unique approach to teaching made a huge impact on his students, as you'll hear more about in this episode. Rick and Lisa really bond over their similar approaches to teaching. And it's great to hear them share their reflections on these two identities as artists and educators. Aside from their bonding moments, one of my favorite parts of this episode is Rick adapting to the podcast set up. Like I mentioned, last episode, the microphone and headphones set up can be a little awkward when recording the podcasts. So when he refers to being in space or on the moon, he's talking about this strange podcast universe we all find ourselves in. So, please join us now in podcast space.
Lisa Corinne:I'm Lisa Corrine Davis. And I'm here in Brooklyn, New York.
Richard Mayhew:Uh, Richard Mayhew. It's like I'm on the moon somewhere. Anyway... I'm in Socal, California. There's other aliases they call me, so anyway...
Lisa Corinne:Well, that'll be interesting to find out, right?
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Well, thank you so much for joining. So Richard, I was told on our phone call to call you Rick. Can I call you Rick? Or should I call you Richard?
Richard Mayhew:Rich.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Okay. Okay. Rick and Lisa, thank you so much for joining. So I'm just going to start with one question to Lisa. And that is, Lisa, I reached out to you first to see who you would like to speak with amongst your peers in the National Academy. And you selected Richard Mayhew. So why did you select him?
Lisa Corinne:Well, I met Richard, Richard, I don't know if you remember this, in 2018. And I was on a panel discussion for your exhibition at Hunter College. The one curated by Howard Singerman and Sarah Watson called the Acts of Art and Rebuttal in 1971. And I, uh, was on the panel talking with you and Dinga and a few others. And I was very moved by your work and by you. I felt a warmth from you. And, um, I thought when I got contacted by you, Adrienne like, wow, what an opportunity to have a conversation with you. Because there's no other format that I would be talking with you more and on this one-to-one basis. So, that's why I chose Rick to have this conversation with. Also, I think of him as a really important part of African-American history. And I, that's, that's kind of special.
Richard Mayhew:Well, I'm glad to have this opportunity to, uh, to meet you in a strange kind of atmosphere of space out, in space somewhere, right? Well, anyway, when, when did you become an Academician?
Lisa Corinne:In, what was it, 2017, 2017.
Richard Mayhew:2017, ok.
Lisa Corinne:And you?
Richard Mayhew:1971.
Lisa Corinne:Well, I was, uh, let me see, I was in middle school. So, uh, that was quite uh, distance between our time.
Richard Mayhew:I guess I'm one of the oldest one still hanging in there, over there, right?
Lisa Corinne:Yeah. Yeah, you have to go for that. So, there's so many things I wanted to talk to you about. Um, can I start with asking some questions to you, Rick?
Richard Mayhew:Very good.
Lisa Corinne:So, one of the things I've always thought about with, in relationship to my own work, which I related to you as an artist too, is both being African-American and both making art that doesn't apparently deal with the themes of race. I think in both of our cases, it's definitely folded into what we make and how we make it. But we don't have the themes and iconography of the cultures of our race in our work. And so, I was curious, in your landscape painting, it embodies your understanding of space through a culture. And I'd like to hear you, what you think, if you think that's true and what you think about that?
Richard Mayhew:Well yeah, landscape and painting actually ended up, in terms of Afro American and Native American sensibility. Because all their blood is in the soil of America. And, uh, how much, in fact, both of them were involved with a survival instinct. And uh, which Native Americans still, they're not even seen today. But Afro America, and the fact that the final, how they survived and the continually functioning in the arts, is a great concern. Because my becoming a part of Spiral was involved in meeting the, the senior African-American artists. And how much they were involved with a survival sensibility. And what seems to be left out, in terms of Spiral group, and everyone knows about Norman Lewis and Hale Woodruff and, uh, Charles Austin. With the, how much do you know about Augusta Savage. She's the one that started them off.
Lisa Corinne:Absolutely. Yeah.
Richard Mayhew:And everyone forgets about Augusta Savage. Which is a great, uh, woman sculptor. But she was the one in a, a Renaissance that actually got these men in, in that development in terms of directions and dedication. So, uh, everyone forgets about Agusta Savage. She was really part of that Spiral group.
Lisa Corinne:Did you, did you know her?
Richard Mayhew:I, I met her in the early years. But not in the late year.
Lisa Corinne:Wow.
Richard Mayhew:And I had great respect for her. Now, our communication in terms of the work that you do, how much you're involved with the visual art or involved in intellectual interpretation of time, space and form? which is great. Which is a, I was equating you with Howardena Pindell. Which is involved with a similar kind of sensibility in terms of a creative process. And a which she and I communicate frequently now. Which is very nice to hear. So in the fact that you were involved with that, in that creative ballpark, I'm really pleased to hear that.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of interested in how notions of space become a kind of a way of understanding the world through both of our work. And I think that's deeply connected to the African-American experience. So whether it's, um, spaces you, were taken way. Spaces you could be in. Spaces, you were left out of. That, I'm just so intrigued with how an understanding of navigating the world comes from a deep rooted conversation with space. I know for my work it is. Not in a landscape realm. But certainly in, how conditional space can be. And, in your sense, as you describe, the ownership of land and the understanding of land through the Native American and African-American sensibilities.
Richard Mayhew:Well, I've been criticized, um, many times because of not painting Afro-American figures. Which in the early years, I did all of that. And, um, they've never on display. Um, and many of those in, um, that faction is, which one fields that Spiral was all abstract. But all of them were involved with figurative painting in the very early years. Especially Hale Woodruff and the giant murals of Afro-American and culture. For years, and which is usually forgotten by now. When all of these artists, how much they're involved with a unique sensibility, in terms of, Norman Lewis, I guess, summed it up very well in terms of internalized creative expression. Which I, quite involved, actually reflecting how I feel as well. It's an internal state of being and a creative, a consciousness of what I'm doing in terms of media. And also the fact that the, it's a European sensibility. Because two dimensional illusion, that's a European, as opposed to Africa and Asia. And so, how much one is steeped with that background or an education from that area. Or how much the ones involved with Native American sensibility, which is internal. And, uh, my paintings are not conscious. Their subconscious. And are involved with the, just the momentary spontaneity of a creative expression. And so the, the landscapes sort of just mindscapes. They're not landscapes. To me it's mindscapes. Their based on the feeling when I start to paint at a, there's certain images on the canvas that project me to go that way. And if there's a path in my painting, that's, I'm walking that path. And they're, they actually, they're, I'm, the painting is painting and I'm on the outside. And then, and that's on the inside of that directional capability. It's a, it's a strange state of being, the fact that, I'm walking the path of the paint, in the figures and subject in the painting. So, um, I'm inside painting out, instead outside painting in. So it's, it's a joyful encounter which is continuous. Because for me, a painting is never finished. And I feel this way about your work. And when I was looking at your work, it's the same kind of thing. It's a continuation. There was no end to that.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. I think if a painting's finished, it's kind of died. It's dead. It's a dead thing. For me, it's, it's like a continual conversation. It's fluid, it's a fluid conversation. It's, and even though my work has geometrical aspects to it, it is fluid where it moves from one set of components to another. So, um, and it is all in my head. It's like, how do you feel geometry? How do you feel organic form? How do you feel color? And so that we are very much in sync with together. But I was so fascinated that you really don't look at landscape when you paint. You've traveled. You've hit the road cross country. But you just start with a mark and it creates this kind of space that's in your mind's eye. It's not observed. That to me is just fascinating. I just think it, and it lives in those canvases in the end. That kind of imagined space. It's wonderful.
Richard Mayhew:Well, when I went to study in Europe and, uh, at the, to study academia in Florence, Italy, I traveled across the Europe and each area, actually, the identity of each culture how much that's involved with painting and not necessarily. They were involved with uh, another time and space other than whom they are. And so, it was funny what was going on in Italy, which is a fantastic, uh, sensibility of two dimensional illusion. And I learned about color when I went to the academia there. How the eye sees color. And how much it has to do with the fact that you're using color in you're painting, you're completely psychologically, emotionally affected by, in control of how, what you see. Uh, I know when I got to a France and what was going on there, how they, their whole process, and, uh, energy went from, uh, the salon art to, uh, impressionists and expressionists. And then, uh, to abstract expressionism. And how it went through a whole series of that going, going to Holland and when I was involved with the Dutch painters. How much they was going through a different series of development. So my best friend was the Nelson Shanks. Uh, he was studying that, in academia, the same I was. And he's the famous portrait painter. We became very close friends. I never realized how much he was smelling each safer so the paintings there in Italy, in terms of how well they were painted, in terms of illusion. And so going from, uh, Italian art to French art to, well, Spanish art as well as then a Dutch art there was a whole different feeling of, of what was happening with them. But they were all involved with two dimensional illusion. And uh how much they effected your painting and many of the abstract paintings in the later years were not involved with two dimensional illusion. They were involved with intellectual insight, in terms of the existence. Is that true about your work?
Lisa Corinne:Yeah, no, I thank you. I that's exactly what I want to happen. So this is great. I mean, I also like, your color, I mean, thinking about those examples you brought up, it's, uh, your color has a muscular aspect to it. It exists inside the painting. It's not illuminating objects. It's, it's almost more how color functions in a Rothko for me. It's like, it has a kind of, internal effect, which, which leads to the, the felt emotional qualities of it. I mean, would you think that's an okay comparison, to talk about your color and that kind of internalized Rothko way?
Richard Mayhew:Well, I learned about color when I was in, in, in Florence. And I went to the academia there and I actually, and found in their archives, uh, how much, uh, I saw a book that was involved with the explaining how the eye sees form. So two dimensionally, there's a special way of seeing. And, uh, how much color affects and controls your sensibility and emotional response to whatever you're looking at. Uh, cause warm clothes advance on the eye and cool colors recede. And then you have a mixture of them in between, the secondary colors of orange and violet. Which create another kind of sensitivity, in terms of how you feel about it. And your whole life is exposed to various colors. So, how much you associate with that and, uh, with your feelings and what happens with a red color as opposed to a blue color. And how you feel about it. So, with your, your painting, and the color is almost completely absent except for flashes of blues and reds here and there. So, you're not involved with that at all. So, there was that, the absence of that kind of illusional, uh, visual trap, let's say, of how you see what you're looking at.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah, no, I think, I think about color more strategically. Like I think there's colors we don't question. Like primary colors. They exist to locate things. But we don't really question them. We don't feel anything. And then I think of things as, like, a more psychological colors. Like, you know, certain colors of greens or like that go off of the strict primary and that start to suggest bodies, landscapes, psychologies, et cetera. So I, I try to intermix those in the work. So it's, it's, it's not, because again, it's back to spaces for me, it's about like how everything controls a kind of either emotional or actual space that we navigate. And so, um, so color is those two wings for me that I try to mix it up at time in the painting. But it doesn't exude color. You're right. Like the way your paintings do at all. Not at all.
Richard Mayhew:Well, it is how much involved with two dimensional illusion. How much the two dimensional illusion is what the European art was based on, in terms of, how you saw salon figures, or in terms of the, uh, Italian Renaissance paintings. But I was looking at, uh, Caravaggio paintings, and in relationship to color, and how he, well-controlled your eye and sensibility. Because of the, not the subject matter or figures, you know, the figures, which were all, let's say, if you have a painting with a lot of blues and reds and purples. But no orange. And in white garment in there, because of the afterimage from blue, you'll see orange. Which fascinated me, fact, that that was going on. And how that controlled one's visual sensibility. See with your painting, the color does not introduce that way at all.
Lisa Corinne:No, it's not.
Richard Mayhew:So it's an intellectual indulgence on the consciousness of this, which is Howardena Pindell is involved with that too. She was talking about that. How much, even though she does have a hints of color once in a while, here and there. But intellectually, she's involved with another space in time. Which I appreciate very much when I talked to her. I'm trying to learn a little bit more about that. So I need to have better communication with you about this as well. That would be great. I really appreciate it.
Lisa Corinne:Well, we're having it. It's great we're having it. It's really great. Another reason I wanted to speak with you is like, I think, uh, uh, just changing a little bit here. I was thinking about how black people become painters or artists. Like the impracticability of that. So, I don't know about you. But I was raised by a single mother who put herself through school. She was the first of three African-American women in the state of Maryland to get a law degree. So she was very, very pragmatic and thought about education as the ticket to ride. And she really wanted to be a brain surgeon. But she couldn't afford to go to school that long. So she didn't do it. She got a PhD. She got a law degree. So, and then she's got these two kids that decided to be artists. And, you know, she, she thought she was, you know, producing a doctor and a lawyer for sure. Like, you know, I'm gonna get that education. You both are going to be... and it's not like she didn't support what I did. You know, she took me to the Baltimore museum. I obsessed over the Cone collection there. She didn't understand it all, but she, because she didn't get to do what she truly wanted to do. She helped support me to become an artist. Um, so I'm kind of wondering, like, what were your parents' feelings when they, or thoughts or comments when you, you know, we're heading towards painting?
Richard Mayhew:Well, my parents, father and mother, just embraced anything I did. And they loved it and they patted me on the back, anything I did. My grandmother was the one who started me becoming an artist. My grandmother was a Shinnecock Native American. And she, um, was involved with getting me a paper bag and brown wrapping paper and giving me charcoal to work on. Cause she noticed that I, I like to scribble little things. So, I used to start drawing when I was about five or six years old. And she encouraged it and got me more involved with that. She used to bring home art magazines and different pictures. And introduced me to another world. And, uh, as a little boy, actually, Apollo magazine is what she used to bring home. Which was interdisciplinary. Which, that's what I became as a teacher. I became an interdisciplinarian before academia actually even embraced it. So, I was involved with the development, early on because of my grandmother. She died when I was about 10 years old. So, she never knew I became an artist. But she encouraged me when I was very young to become an artist. Uh, I bless her. She was really supportive and, which made a difference in my life now when I look back. There's a couple of shows going in, in Long Island right now. And there's the reproduction of my grandmother in that show. And you get the chance to see her. And she's the one who introduced me to the creative lifestyle of, of the visual artist. Of which I had no idea when I started out. I said to her, everything upside down and backwards. When I went to art school, all of a sudden they want to know where I learned to draw. It was intuitive. I learned to draw as a little youngster. When it has to do with the intuitive state of how I'm painting now. Norman Lewis was the, is the famous one, uh, is involved with, on the, in looking at his abstract painting. And he used to paint from music and feeling. And I asked him, what is, what's your inspiration? He said I'm a gut painter. Painted an internalized expression. Which got me involved with the idea of the fact that's what I'm doing. I'm involved with the internalized creative expression. It's just an intuitive sensitivity. Every time I walk to the canvas and it just happens.
Lisa Corinne:So, so what a great grandmother, my gosh. Did you ever feel any obstacles along the way?
Richard Mayhew:Well, I never had any obstacles. I never thought about what I was doing had any great importance, in terms of visual art. I thought that was a natural thing of me doing it. So I never thought of it making any difference to society at all. But now, it's becoming very important. And the fact that the painting has become financially great right now. But I think that's horrible. The fact that, one is measured by money and not involved with what they do. It's really disturbing to me. And, uh, this is what the balance of things is going on, in terms of, an impression of the quality of what you do. What you're doing and how much intellectually, I think they need to study your work more on the basis of the whole sensibility of consciousness and intellectual indulgence. Because with mine, it's, it's just an emotional response. Well, I hope that is something more involved there. But, uh, with yours, there it is, it's a matter of them having to work a little bit in those and understand what's happening. One of my best friends, uh, it was Toni Morrison. In the early years, she was a editor for art magazines and books. And the early years before she became famous. And that's when I knew her. When I went to California, I lost that close contact I'd had with Toni Morrison. She's very sensitive. And in terms of the unique sensibility of exchange of ideas. And I knew her in the early years before she became very famous. But I had that great respect for her in, the beginning, and the little conversations we used to have. And, uh, how much, uh, women like that now, that gets great applause to her. But I remember her in the beginning, she had it from the beginning. Before she became famous. How unique just conversations with her at the time was very sensitive. So I'm very impressed by a lot of women in my life that made a difference. My grandmother, Toni Morrison, actually EG Montgomery. EG, Montgomery, one, not aware of who she is. She's excellent painter. She has Parkinson's right now. And she paints with a sponge. And abstract paintings are really involved with color, nuances and essence of space. So, EG Montgomery, when I met her in California, and then I think it was in 1974, and she was in, in Oakland, California with Rainbow Signs. Rainbow Signs was where all the Afro-American artists, writers and composers all met in a restaurant. That's where I met a lot of the great Afro-American writers there when they was starting out. And EG Montgomery was a supporter of Afro-American artists at that time. Which I never realized how much their movement was supported in California. All I know about was New York. And there was EG Montgomery. And now EG Montgomery left California after those early years, went to Washington. She became a representative in the government in Washington of exchange art programs of artists with Europe and Asia. Uh, and on that, on being on the board, and she was sending him American artists to Europe, she sent me to Qatar. And I did lectures in Qatar. Uh, on the artists of the United States. Which it surprised there was an Afro-American over there. And, uh, in Asia and, uh, involved with another sensibility of creative consciousness. But I have, I mention EG Montgomery, cause she's constantly for come. She's still living and still working with a sponge to paint. So maybe you're seeing her work sometime would be fantastic. I was trying to encourage her and, um, artsits of her ilk would be able to be seen. And with your art, sensibility is part of a kind of painting if you see her work. It's involved with the, um, it looks like an absence. Uh, it's not so much conscious as with yours. It's moving intellectual indulgence and learning to really embrace it.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah. I mean, I really like hearing you talk about, your painting was, you never thought it was going to be anything. I mean, there was no sense of professionalism in your purpose of doing it. And the, the long game of, of ideas that unfold as one collects things around them, engages in conversations with people who aren't painters, like Tony Morrison in your sense, how other things fill in and, and encourage that long exchange. I mean, it's, it's hard in academia sometime because they're aware of what they think is the profession. And, you know, it's funny because this semester I'm torturing my poor graduate students with making them work on a somewhat same work for the entire semester. And be conscious of their choices of what they put in, on, why, what they take out, what they listened to or saw that affected those decisions. I mean, it's grueling for them. But it's, that's, um, you know, I, I just want them to be more aware of what the exchange is that's going on and making a work. And sometimes I think the professionalism has, you know, kind of a skewed the purpose of why we make things, you know, what it's about.
Richard Mayhew:Well, I think there should be more of a visual consciousness of what you were doing. As well as say, I know uh, Howardena Pindell has become very prominent. But they're looking at her work. They don't see what she's doing. They're not conscious of what she's really doing, right? You have to realize that, uh, I became an interdisciplinarian. And academia wasn't ready for me. Now, it's an all universities. I was doing it at Hunter. They couldn't imagine what I was doing. So, they wanted me to leave.
Lisa Corinne:I know.
Richard Mayhew:So when I left there, I went to San... I went to San Jose State. And the students in New York protested my leaving Hunter. I didn't... had no idea they did that. I would have come back if I knew they were doing that.
Lisa Corinne:No, no. I was just reading all the posters that were put up around the school. Like, you know, bring you back and all the people who wrote letters on your behalf. All these famous artists that, you know, wrote to like, why are they letting go of you? So, uh, I don't know. It's, uh, I mean, just to make you feel a little better, when... my first class at Yale, someone stood up and said, this is not the Yale way. And I thought, I don't know what the Yale way is. But it was a similar thing. I was veering out of the lanes of pure painting discourse because I...
Richard Mayhew:Right.
Lisa Corinne:I too am a multidisciplinary teacher. And, uh, and so that was, like, going off the rails. They thought I'd lost my mind. So, um, yeah.
Richard Mayhew:Well, I developed an interdisciplinary, uh, sensibility when I was in Europe. Academia over there, they're involved with that. American schools are based on European educational structure. And, uh, I found out the fact that they were involved with interdisciplinary study. So, when I came back, I brought it back with me. I brought back that sensibility.
Lisa Corinne:Fantastic.
Richard Mayhew:But also, I hit, I was reading the Apollo magazine when I was a little boy. And that was interdisciplinary structure magazine. Which is very strange. That magazine is still published, by the way, coming out of the Europe. But when I was looking at it as a little boy, there was this interdisciplinary study that was involved with progressive development of ideas is in every area. In medicine, in business and science and everywhere. It was this, the extension beyond the norm. You don't stop after whatever you learn. You go beyond that. And then I tried to introduce that at Hunter. And they thought I was out of my mind. Because there's the bring actors into my class. I remember brought Olatunji drummer or into my class. I would bring actors there in terms of the mind movement and gesture as a functional existence of a human being. And Moses Gunn was a close friend of mine. I used to bring him, in terms of speech communication. And I said well. So that's where interdisciplinary study became... and they, uh, I think my faculty didn't support what I was doing at the time. So I went to San Jose State. And the same thing happened to San Jose State. They thought I was out of my mind because I was doing interdisciplinary studies there. Doing all kinds of strange things. And I blew up a balloon the size of an auditorium and put dancers inside and musicians inside of it on the campus at Sonoma State. And that was my design course by the way.
Lisa Corinne:Well, I mean, obviously Hunter students lost out because it's sad. I wish I could've been in that class. It sounds, I mean, like it's more like life, right? Like, you don't, you just don't do one thing. It's like a, we and we all have multiple interests. Like, uh, I think you're, you were also interested in acting right and dance or some... weren't you? Interested in acting or dance or theater or something like that?
Richard Mayhew:Well, I, when I started out, I didn't want to be a painter. Well, I was doing all the drawing and everything is a youngster. I studied acting with the um... actually a teacher from Broadway. And, uh, I started singing. I became a singer, actually I was jazz singer professionally for about three years in the forties. And imitated Eckstein and Arthur Price very well.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah. I mean, this is something else we have in common.
Richard Mayhew:Oh, singing? Yeah? Oh, I'd like to hear your recording... recording sometime.
Lisa Corinne:Oh no, no, I can't. I am, I am, I cannot sing. I wish. I try. I'm terrible. But I, my real love was dance and theater. And, uh...
Richard Mayhew:Right. Oh. Great.
Lisa Corinne:I don't know. I didn't fully have it. But certainly that kind of, I think performative improvisational at times aspect of, of that medium falls into the painting, right?
Richard Mayhew:Right.
Lisa Corinne:Like, I think that falls into your painting. Like, when you, you're singing across that canvas in a way, right? You're not looking at a landscape. You're just kind of, ooh...
Richard Mayhew:Acting was my love. I wanted to become an actor. I am a phony actor anyway, really. Anytime we get it in front, in front of a class to do a lecture, you gotta be on the stage, right? So, I had to learn, um, that whole sensibility of functioning. I developed a very strong voice into, uh, communication because of that. And, uh, there was a teacher from Broadway, came to a class there and I learned from her, in terms of projection. I could project my voice to the back of the theater without a mic. So, that was learning from, from that experience as being, studying as an actor. Well, it had to do with my, my daughter's famous set designer for the movie and television.
Lisa Corinne:Wow.
Richard Mayhew:And I remember bringing her to the theater with me. And I had no idea that this was going to be her future. She is a very famous designer for the movies and television right now. And, uh, Ina Mayhew. I have to mention our name.
Lisa Corinne:Good.
Richard Mayhew:Right. Very proud...
Lisa Corinne:Be a proud parent.
Richard Mayhew:Very Proud of her. Yeah, very proud parent.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah. And my son's, since we're talking children, he goes by the name G Davis Cathcart. Uh, he is an incredible drawer. He just published something online for the new Yorker in the last month. Making fun of all the neighborhoods of New York. It's quite something. But he was, you know, in order to do what I did as a mother, I had to drag my kids everywhere, right? I had to, like, I got to go see the show cause I've got to teach about it next week. So, you're coming with me and uh, one of them picked up on it. One of them has great knowledge and love for art, but has chosen my mother's route. And is Georgetown law school now. So, it's a, it's a great thing.
Richard Mayhew:Oh wonderful. I'd like to hear more about how you got involved with the direction that you working in. And we're not quite sure how that developed.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah. Yeah. I was a representational painter. And, you know, I guess, like this falls into a conversation I wanted to have with you. Because I got really, I was looking for a subject in my work, you know. I was looking for what's the work about. And I think ultimately our work is always about us. Who we are, you know? Like navigating that space. And, you know, as a light-skinned African-American woman, people were constantly projecting who I was on me. So, my early work were just simply self-portraits where I would project some cultural artifact on top of myself, setting up the question, does that face and that artifact belong together? And why do you assume it does or doesn't. But I found, like, representational work is too fixed and too strictly narrative, in a sense. And abstraction became interesting because, I don't know if you can be black and not political at all. It's like you you have to navigate a world. So there's some, it comes into you. But I was really interested in the sensibility, the word you keep using, of the space I lived in. You know, the assumptions people make. The narratives they form and how slippery they are. And that, even if you think you know, something it's contingent on what you bring to it. So, I try to set up the paintings to suggest places, spaces, perhaps things. But then you hopefully question why am I, why do I think that, you know, at some point. And that maybe everything shifts a little bit while you're even looking at it. So, that's, that's my own lived experience. And that's what I try to bring into the painting, is that kind of experience. But it is political on some level. But it's personal politics based on racial politics.
Richard Mayhew:Very, very political. And you would like to know more about it and how much in various exhibitions that you might have with, that can be emphasized in terms of the unique sensibility of consciousness that goes on in your work. And uh, sometimes because it's a visual media and it gets lost in terms of the, the, uh, background which is involved with the, uh, writing experience also, in terms of becoming a writer. As, as well as a visual artists. Which is, Howardena Pindell has become very well famous on the basis of that. We'd like to have more of that about your work. That you were involved with a simple kind of a protective consciousness and visual vision and interpretation, right? Uh, yours is more involved with an intellectual interpretation and Howardena Pindell kinda falls between in terms of a semi abstract and uh representational forms. And intellectually it doesn't, it doesn't come, come through as well as yours does. And it was, which is more projected in that direction.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah, I, I, I kind of wonder, I'm a little envious of your group, the Spiral group. That you all came together to talk about certain issues. That there was a community of support, in a sense. Or that's how I envision it. I mean, obviously there were things you were working out as far as culture, racial culture in the sixties, you know. And felt that you had to navigate it in some way. And maybe you were talking about how to do that. Things aren't that clear now. And, uh, but that kind of conversation sounds like it was, must've been a wonderful thing. What did you, what did you talk about? What did you all talk about there?
Richard Mayhew:Well, no, I'm, I'm in, involved with the response of what you're doing. Because that was part of the interdisciplinary consciousness of when I found myself lost in .And, uh, at Penn state, when I went to Penn State, I was the first one to teach interdisciplinary study. My students there, no, no undergrads. They were all grads, post-grads and, um, doctorate students that was in that class. It was short-lived because, uh, my faculty and, uh, those were not concerned about what I was doing. And so it lost support of the continuation. But I had a chance to teach what I wanted to teach after all these years. Which is involved with a natural phenomena of the educational system. It wasn't uniquely to me at all. Now all universities have interdisciplinary study. They can't realized the fact that I was a pioneer in this area. And I'm a painter. In academia in terms of interdisciplinary study. Now what is this? I I'd rather be in involved with the supporters as the artist not involved with the academic person.
Lisa Corinne:So Rick, in, in the Spiral group, though, did you talk about issues like that? Or what else did you talk about?
Richard Mayhew:Spiral was a very strange thing. When I came back from Europe, I brought academia with me from over there in terms of interdisciplinary consciousness. And then, and talking to Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff and Charles Austin, they were already there. They were way ahead of everything. I didn't realize that. So was my prejudice. When I came there, they were really super consciousness, in terms of identity and creative thinking. And, uh, which came down to the Afro-American culture of survival instinct. They were way down the road in that area. And easily talking about how they were involved with a unique sensibility that actually came out of Africa, was killed when they got involved with another religious sensibility other than their uh, spiritual sensibility. Which was their religion coming from Africa. And I had the same thing, in terms of Native American, when they were trying to embrace them into another mindset other than uniqueness of self. I'm trying to think of now, Norman Lewis was involved with the internal kind of feeling and discussed how one would, is rejected with how they think about everything. Uh, Romare Bearden was fully involved with the academic intellectual approach to it. As well as, certainly, Hale Woodruff was teaching at NYU, in terms of art education. Was heavily down the road in that area because of his giant murals that he did for years on African-American culture. Which many forget about that and seeing him as an abstractionist, that he did giant murals. Which traveled all over United States and which was Hale Woodruff involved. What, I came out there, when I came there, the fact that, they were involved with a unique mindset of continuation of survival. Which is a natural phenomenon coming out of slavery and coming out of the other repression and discrimination. And surviving that and being able to function well no matter what. So, there was a certain unique mindset that I learned from Spiral. Which was very powerful, in the sense of, able to embrace that and, and carry it further. Because there was no particular, uh, intellectual detail of what this was. It was just their internal, mine of functional creativity beyond the norm. So, how much it showed in their work, not necessarily. But what they talked about was based on creative innovation and functional existence as an Afro-American. As a native American, I always thought that was always there. And, which hear very little about it. How much they continue to survive and the omission in, the only time you hear about Native American is, I guess in western cowboy movies. Other than that, you never anything about them. But they're still functioning and they're involved with that kind of development. The whole group there, when I met with them, which was the, uh, how much they came out of the Harlem Renaissance, but also many of them came from someplace else, the center in Indiana. Hale Woodruff came from there. And also Felrath Hines came from there. And also, um, one of the younger artists was part of that background, which was really special. And no one hears about the Harlem Renaissance. But we we're trying to find out what happened with the central part of Indiana. Indianapolis, indiana, there was a, uh, art program there where these artists came from. And also, there's another center, in terms of Afro-American development. They came out of St. Louis and Chicago. Which is constantly forgotten. But that's where the contact of Spiral was involved with the connection with these other areas. And which, went beyond the norm of just the... that function there in New York. They were involved with supporting the March on Washington. Um...
Lisa Corinne:Mmhmmm...Got it. Yeah.
Richard Mayhew:Right.
Lisa Corinne:I was just thinking like, during this last couple of years of political upheaval, it would've been nice to have a group that I could speak with about that awareness and the work that I and others were making. And, um, it just must've been comforting to have that group at that time. And certainly as far as, uh, awareness, um, I mean, I certainly didn't think in my lifetime, I would see people at least trying now to form a, an archive or noting what African-American artists are making. Like, I think of someone like Pamela Joyner, who is just like committed to like, uh, something I do, which is still rare, abstraction for African-American artists. And has committed to framing that, you know, um, and making it available for future generations. It's, it's a wonderful thing.
Richard Mayhew:Well, Pamela Joyner was my mentor. I was the first one she collected. And which just seems strange. And...
Lisa Corinne:Wow, how fabulous. That's incredible.
Richard Mayhew:Right. And so, how much the fact that she's been supportive of me, but also of American artists. And I certainly introduced her to the rest of the artist. And, uh, in that area in terms of, cause I knew all the ones in Spiral. And introducing them to many other, uh, Afro-American artists. Which, uh, one would not be aware of until she embraced them and put, and put them in her book. So, there were mentors and supportive people like Pamela Joyner. And there's a couple of others. But not as prominent as she is. Because she put up two very large books now. Which are on the market on Afro-American art. Uh, which I introduced her to many of the artists that are in that book. No one knew about. Right? Right?
Lisa Corinne:I'm glad you did. That's terrific. Yes, yeah.
Richard Mayhew:But I was the first one that she collected, which is a very strange.
Lisa Corinne:A wonderful place to be.
Richard Mayhew:I think people like that, they're doing, to support us like that, are involved with the, making a difference in our society. Many writers, EG Montgomery, Toni Morrison, ones who supported her also to continue as the, a great writer. I knew her only the early is which, uh, how much she had that kind of sensibility. So, some great people like that rubbed off on me, let's say. They made a difference and my existence. So, I can take any, any advantage of the fact that it was all about me. It had nothing to do about me at all. I had all these other great people out there.
Lisa Corinne:Terrific.
Richard Mayhew:Well, EG Montgomery is really one of them. And she's constantly forgotten. And Samella Lewis is another one. And everyone forgets about Samella Lewis.. She wrote a book on Afro-American history. And I taught it at San Jose State, and, in terms of the art history program. And we used her book as the, uh, the curriculum. And I think that book is buried in their library right now. I'm sorry to say. But there's a, I had a class, it was teaching Afro-American history using Samella Lewis' history book. And then there are people like that as forgotten. Samella is, is 98 years old right now and still writing. I think that's fantastic. And she needs to be remembered. People like Samella Lewis needs to be remembered. She's still hanging in there. I'll be 98 in April.
Lisa Corinne:That's fantastic. Are you still painting every day?
Richard Mayhew:I'm painting every day. Actually behind me, you can't seem, but the studio is right behind me.
Lisa Corinne:Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What energy. That's terrific.
Richard Mayhew:No, it was no energy. It's compulsion. You know that. It's a compulsion, right?
Lisa Corinne:I know. I know. I know.
Richard Mayhew:Well, I'm surprised the fact that how you changed my work, in terms of the, uh, to have this exchange. Because your work is really close to mine in many ways, in terms of interdisciplinary consciousness.'cause I could have used your work as, in my classes, in terms of creative impulse of continuation.
Lisa Corinne:Yeah.
Richard Mayhew:And I think that needs to be publicized more of what you're doing. And visually one gets trapped in what I'm doing.
Lisa Corinne:Well, I felt, I felt certainly there was a real kinship on many levels. Even though the appearance of our work is very different. So, I'm really happy that we were able to have this conversation. It means a lot to me.
Richard Mayhew:Well, the racial background, certainly it is close communication. So, we'll have to meet. And all the rest of you people there on this stage here. I'd like to meet you. Wow.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Absolutely.
Richard Mayhew:See these images here and...
Adrienne Elise Tarver:I would love to meet you.
Richard Mayhew:This is a brand new media and how it's used to bring people together. I love it. Wow.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:One day we'll all have a group hug.
Richard Mayhew:Yeah, okay.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Um, I wanted to ask a question about this idea of influence. Also, you spoke both about being educators. And I really like this term interdisciplinary educator. Because I'm so used to hearing that in reference to an art practice, interdisciplinary artists. And so, I'm curious about the interdisciplinary education aspect, being an educator, bringing all these different influences to your students, and how did or did that affect your practice, consciously subconsciously?
Lisa Corinne:I, I mean often in education, if you teach painting, you only talk about painting. You only refer to painting. You only refer to readings about painting. But sometimes I, I always felt that better ways to understand what one's doing, or different way of taking in what you're doing, was to step outside. So, I think about uh, film and literature and poetry and dance and, um, performance art. And so I, so I definitely felt that that gives a fuller range of thinking about what you filter into what you do. Like, the more, you know, the more, you know. I don't know why you would ever want to limit what you know. So, that's what I, and I think Richard, was doing the same thing. Um, just like opening up your thinking, you know? Not limiting your thinking. It was really, and is really important to me. But it was contrary to the departments and categories and academia. And until it was embraced, as Rick said, it was not embraced. And you were thought of as a renegade or wild child, because, you know, you're talking about stuff that has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Richard Mayhew:Oh, wonderful. I taught, I realized, you know, me as a painter. I taught my whole life. I'm an educator. What is this? But you have to realize, my teaching is the fact that I was learning, I was learning from all the students that I taught. I taught at, uh, Brooklyn Museum, that's how I started teaching, at Brooklyn Museum Art Academy. Which is full job. And it was an art academy in the Brooklyn Museum. All right? And then I taught a Pratt Institute. Then the the Art Students League, Smith College, part of the five colors complex and Massachusetts. And then there's Hunter College, San Jose State, Sonoma State, Penn State. And I came back to teach art history, Afro-American art history at University of California, Santa Cruz. That was the last place I taught.
Lisa Corinne:That's a lot of teaching.
Richard Mayhew:Well anyway, my whole life, I've been a teacher. And, but I've been learning. The students are used to coming to those classes, came each, each generation came with an mindset that was completely different than the last group. And that, which I was surprised about that. How they were thinking. How they, their ambitions were quite different than the ones before them. And this was a learning process for me. Because I had to talk to them differently. So, I was learning about how to communicate on another level of consciousness, which is interdisciplinary study. I kept pushing that interdisciplinary study. Which was something which now all universities have this. University of California, Santa Cruz, when I was teaching Afro-American art history there just a few years ago, now is involved with interdisciplinary study program separate on its own. Instead of part of the curriculum of other subjects. And it's been, the fact that, I'm a teacher. Not just a painter. That was very strange to me. Out of that, had to do with the sensibility of actually pushing that I'm Native American. Because my grandmother, I was making fun of a little boy next door to me when, when I was about seven years old, that had run away from the schools that captivated Native Americans to teach them. And, uh, making fun of them. My grandmother picked me up and slapped me hard, cause she never hit me. She picked me up and then hugged me very tight, and said never forget that you're Native American. And I've never forgotten that.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:So, something else that came up and it's related to identity, but this honor that you both received, being National Academicians. So you're educators, you're painters. You're also National Academicians. And, in the phone call that Rick and I had prior, you spoke a little bit about, um, what that meant to you. I was wondering, one, if you could repeat a little bit of that sentiment about what it meant to you. But also, Lisa, I'm curious about your thoughts. Especially, you know, we've heard now about the decades in between your induction into the National Academy. So, you've, you're entering it at different phases of what it is. And it's gone through a long history. So, what has it meant to you as artists, as people in the art worlds to be a National Academician?
Richard Mayhew:To be an Academician, it's the highest honor you can receive in United States. And many that become Academicians don't realize, you're actually chosen by your peers. There's nothing more honorable than you peers respecting you and supporting you. And the fact that I was elected in 1970, and 71 becoming an academicians. Oh my goodness. That's so long ago. In fact, I feel I, I was just developing as, as an artist and the teacher at that time. To be selected by my peers that I had something to offer. So the National Academy is now, maybe this is my chance to say it. That they should not be rejected over Fifth Avenue. National Academy is one of the highest academies and sensibilities in the United States. And is now being rejected on the basis of having a building to continue its development. The National Academy is one of the highest academies in the world. And the academies, when I was in Europe, the art academies are not taught in academia. It's a separate unit. And academies, how many academies do we here in the United States? And National Academy is one of the greatest. All the artists that ever had anything in contribution as a painter or architect is a National Academician. And they don't get the honor they deserve. How much the city or the state would give them a special building. Because they have to give up the building where they are on Fifth Avenue. Which is a uh, art row, let's say.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:So what Rick is probably referring to here is the cultural institutions group, or CAG. Which started in 1869, when the New York state legislature authorized the city to construct and provide management of a facility for the New American Museum of Natural History. By 1900, New York City entered similar partnerships with five other institutions. Today, there are 34 institutions in the Cultural Institutions Group, all of which are housed in city owned buildings. The National Academy of Design, it's not now and has never been a part of this group. Nevertheless, we created a plan to sustain ourselves long-term. In 2017 and 18, we sold our upper east side buildings, created an endowment and move to temporary offices. We're currently looking for a swing space to host our ongoing exhibitions and programs while we look forward to our future permanent home.
Richard Mayhew:And how much, the fact that they have to give up space because the, the city or the state is not giving them a building to continue this great contribution to American art or American society. I've wanting to scream about that. This gives me a chance to do that publicly. The fact that they deserve the honor of, of America Academy. But New York State has the decision of making and honoring the fact that, giving them that special building right in New York City. New York City and the state owns a lot of great buildings there. And, um, and giving them this building would be a great honor and respect of the state doing something like that.
Lisa Corinne:Well, having become one, like almost 50 years after you, I think the greatest honor is what you said about being elected by your peers. There's nothing more important than, uh, because they don't have a kind of financial skin in the game or whatever. It's just about other people that do the same thing you do, find what you do important enough to honor you. And that, that's, to me is the most important part of the academy. I mean, I'm a little more, I can be cynical at times. But the, uh, sometimes institutions don't reflect, in their management, what they should. And, uh, and so, there was a kind of, when I entered a little bit of an old way of running an institution. And a way of honoring certain things within that institution that were based on things that exist in the art world that I have fought very long to try to break down. So, I'm thrilled in the new faces at the National Academy. And all the energy and new energy and change that is happening. And I'm really think, you know, uh, I want the world to know more about this institution and I really am thrilled to see that there's a channel for them to engage and get excited about it because, um, they should see what artists value. And what we can do based on our own agency. And with the support of people helping us do that. And so, I'm really, really thrilled to be here now. And I'm thrilled with the longevity and legacy that's displayed here by the conversation between Rick and myself, um, for this podcast.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Well, and I think, thank you both for one your, your answers. But your, the honesty and the openness of your answers. Because what you're saying, Lisa, about the change is exactly what we're here, the new faces. We're here to do, is to create change and to carry on the tradition. And the reason I'm so happy to be a part of the Academy is, one, this is like the most fun talking to artists like you. Um, but it's to be able to continue this legacy of artists building an institution and carrying it through. And this institution is almost 200 years old, double your age, Rick. So, you're not the oldest part of the institution. But you're both speaking to parts of the history that have been difficult, challenges, you know, hurdles to overcome. It's one of the challenges of arts institutions, in general, across the country, is how to sustain yourself. And whether it's support from a government, state government, you know, federal government. It's something that, nationally, we've struggled with support for the arts. And then nonprofits are basically set up so that we have to deal with it ourselves. With, with little support, federally, statewide, from governments. And that this, it's the challenge, but artists are resourceful. So we've gone through these evolutions. And you've changed buildings, you know, way back in the beginning of the institution. And then more recently in our history. And so we're about to change buildings again. But it's, you know, the frustration you expressed, Rick, is absolutely part of the sort of resilience of artists trying to maintain their institution.
Richard Mayhew:Yeah, but what's forgotten here is the National Academician is the, uh, actually the architects that built America. These are the designers of America with the National Academy. And the reason we become an Academician, because of the great honor of being an architect. And, uh, they built United States. And they deserved that kind of recognition and respect.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Absolutely. And yeah, so the architecture component, being linked to our building, is actually such an important point. That we're about the spaces and the things in the spaces, the people who build design those spaces and the people who, you know, fill all these spaces. So, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. This was so lovely. I can't even express to you. I'm so excited that we were able to make this happen.
Lisa Corinne:And thank you both. You've make it easy. Yeah.
Richard Mayhew:Oh we thank you so much. It's really special. And we to meet now, okay?
Lisa Corinne:Yeah. Yep.
Richard Mayhew:Absolutely. I mean...
Lisa Corinne:I see a party happening.
Richard Mayhew:Alright. Very good. Very good.
Lisa Corinne:Thank you. Thank you for having this conversation. Take care you guys.
Richard Mayhew:Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.
Lisa Corinne:Thank you.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Thank you guys.
Lisa Corinne:Bye, bye.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Bye.
Richard Mayhew:Chow, chow. Bye.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:You're listening to the Exquisite Corpse podcast. I'm so grateful to have been able to spend this time with Rick and Lisa. These are the conversations that will be a part of the history books in the future. It felt like witnessing the present moment, turning into history, as history was recalled into the present moment. On the next episode, we're joined by two artists who have a similar influence from their past.
Frances Barth:So, I was very aware of, of the center of your weight being lower...
Lorraine Shamesh:Right.
Frances Barth:In terms of Asian movement and performance. As opposed to ballet, right? Which was higher and went out from the body.
Lorraine Shamesh:Yeah. I, I mean the modern dance, the movement is downwards towards the earth.
Frances Barth:Yep.
Lorraine Shamesh:So, it's this triangle. And ballet is the denial of gravity and you're reaching up...
Frances Barth:Yes.
Lorraine Shamesh:...denying gravity and the triangle is the other way.
Adrienne Elise Tarver:Thank you for listening to Exquisite Corpse from the National Academy of Design. We are a 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting art and architecture. And we rely on your support to make programs like this possible. To learn more and to donate, visit National Academy dot org. This conversation was recorded on February 22nd, 2022 with the help of Anjelic Owens Programs Assistant at the National Academy. Exquisite Corpse is produced mixed and edited by Mike Clemow and Wade Strange at SeeThru Sound.
