Gary Gee Interview, November 17, 2020

Okay. Today is November 17th, 2020 and this interview is being conducted virtually on Their Story. My name is Claudia Vinci and today I'm interviewing Gary Gee, one of the artists of the Black Lives Matter mural in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Gary, first, do I have your permission to record the interview?

Yes, you do Claudia.

Perfect. Let's start off with a little bit about your life. Can you tell me in just a couple sentences who you are?

Well, I am Gary Gee. I was actually born in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been I guess passionate about art since I was about four or five years old and I took it up professionally in my mid to late 30s.

Okay. So you mentioned you liked art when you were a child. Can you tell me a little bit more about your childhood experiences? You mentioned you are from Indianapolis, what it was like growing up there?

It's pretty, pretty quiet for the most part. I grew up in my grandparents' house. My mom worked a lot, me and my sisters. So I think as far as like drawing, I've pretty much been laying on the floor drawing on the back of envelopes and old paper sacks for as long as I can. I remember when I was in the sixth grade my mom brought me a professional art kit for the long Christmas breaks, and I probably must have just fell in love with everything in the kit and just kept playing with everything from pastels, oil paints. By like seventh grade, I went to a School 101 here, Harshman Junior High and they had a scholarship where you can go to Herron School of Art for Saturday school and I ended up winning those scholarships both semesters of seventh grade and both semesters of eighth grade year and after that, I was one of the first black kids to go to Indiana University Summer Arts Institute. Somewhere in high school, maybe sophomore year, one of my art teachers kind of just turned me off against commercially – like really didn't push into it. I transferred schools from Tech to Arlington and I always still dealt with art, but I really didn't dive into art like I did in my youthful years. I kind of got into music, later on ended up in the military, after that I ended up in the streets, then I ended up on a prison conviction that was unlawful that I had overturned. But while I was there, I began drawing again loosely, came home. I was selling hair products and doing hair and it led me back into school and Ivy Tech for graphic design and the graphic design courses actually led me back to Fine Art where I believe I was really supposed to be, so kind of rooted in Indiana for my whole life.

I actually saw the YouTube video on your website where you talked about being in prison and how that was kind of the path of finding yourself. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how it kind of led you back to art?

Yeah. I mean really it's like – so a lot of us, you know, you can blame the system, which sometimes like in my case the system can be shady. It's not set up right, but prison doesn't rehabilitate anybody. I think it's as hard as people and actually makes us worse. You have to rehabilitate yourself. So I was fortunate enough that I just hung out with, around a lot of the older guys at first and you just kind of learn things as you're going on. So like one of my favorite sayings is: slow motion beats no motion. And then the extra part of that was everybody wanted what they want today two weeks ago, you know what I mean? So we all wanted to be free. We all want to get out of here, but you have to make the most of your time while you was there. So as I looked around, I mean it's easy to get into nonsense but it was like the one thing they couldn't take from me was my mind. So I just began to read more books again on a regular basis and then drawing was kind of like just one of my escapes because you know, you couldn't always get on the phone or call home or just do whatever you wanted to do. So, I think I just took two steps with them myself was like, let me change and recondition my own thought process now.

So tell me about your life now as a professional artist. What kind of work do you usually do?

I do a lot of mixed media work, primarily drawings. So my degree from Herron is Interdisciplinary Studio Practices. This basically means you can do more than one thing. My focuses are primarily drawing and Ceramics. So like I said, I've been drawing basically my whole life and it's kind of the supporting undertone of all our work, whether it's painting, sculpting even a Ceramics, graphic design, everything, so I can always kind of lean on drawing. And my thought process is I've been drawn to conclusions my whole life. So the drawing is the biggest form of my artwork, but I do go 2D and 3D and I love mixed media. I believe because it's – it doesn't limit you to what you can use so I may try to mix mediums that may not traditionally go together like for instance, acrylic and spray paint on ceramic pieces. I like the result.

So within that, can you describe your art style for me and do you think that's changed since you've started?

Yes and no, primarily a lot of my work, I try to revisit the 12 and 13 year old version of myself, I feel like that was the most creative, free-ist, purist artist that I could have been. I may not have had all the tools or the knowledge at the time but it was just like, as a kid, you are unafraid to make mistakes, there's nothing that's really – it's like a challenge that's going to stop you. You're just going to keep on because you have the time to pursue that so I kind of tried to incorporate that into my practice but it's really pretty much like just a feeling or an expression like I don't try to be tied necessarily to one particular style. Like I think I'm purposely trying to go against the classical portraitures and landscapes just to kind of shake up conformity.

With that, can you give me any examples of some of your major projects in your career, like any art pieces or examples of your work?

So a lot of the work – so for instance two murals around the city last year. I got into doing a lot more murals and I know one of my first murals I did is an old bar and grill called the Masterpiece that they were bringing it back. And the owner wanted a piece that was reminiscent of Sugar Shack by Ernie Barnes, like the Marvin Gaye I Want You cover, so I knew I couldn't do that but the beauty in that was that Good Times and Ernie Barnes' artwork in particular was actually my influence throughout life without knowing who Ernie Barnes was. Someone would say who is your artistic influence, it would be J.J. Evans from Good Times. And so I was in college and I'm taking a professor Victor De Campos, he's like I that answer but J.J. Evans didn't paint those paintings. So that's when I did my research and I found out about Ernie Barnes. So basically like Ernie Barnes and his elongated figures was a big influence on my artwork, hip-hop culture is a major influence on my artwork. And then I also like the old 70s cartoons and comic books, so primarily like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's work were also influences on me and my work. I guess like overall I saw a lot of the stuff I do is kind of like – it may have a cartoony feel to it at times, even if it has some realism to it. It may still have kind of a cartoony comic book type of montage or formatting feel to it.

So another thing I saw on your website was your Monday 2 Monday videos. Can you talk about that?

So the Monday 2 Monday videos actually started for me as a way to kind of keep myself in check. 2018, I was the featured visual artist for the Arts Council's Art and Soul here in the city, so I needed to kind of stay on track. And that was the first time that I was going to do a show where they specifically want to all ceramic pieces so it was a challenge to me because I hadn't done an all ceramic show or even have ways of firing my stuff like consistently once I left Herron. I think I had been out of school for like maybe a year and a half. So it was an interesting challenge to do that. And so the Monday 2 Monday was basically to help me stay on track and I was like – kind of the visual diary and I will see other people with motivational videos and well, I don't know what I'm talking about. So I just started around the time of the art show. It's in its third season now, ironically and other people would like what I was doing or they also found motivation in it and so it basically started for me just to help myself but as others have kind of chimed in or joined in or other people send me the quotes. I mean, sometimes it's basically a lot of stuff like the sayings I've heard in life. Something somebody said to me or an experience I had but a lot of it is quotes and sayings that are just out here floating in free space and I don't know maybe kind of like a sermon. I look at it like the pastor or like a little quote from The Bible or Quran or something and it's like, how can I put these together and I just feel like they start speaking to me. Yeah. I don't know, it's just a great feeling that other people benefit from it as well as myself.

Awesome, kind of going along with that, do you consider yourself an activist?

At times I didn't but I really think that I am. I think I've always been pretty much for like justice and truth even in an unjust world. So I mean, say for instance, even when I was necessarily like hanging out in the streets, I still have a moral code or a moral compass, you know. Comic book analogies I use a lot, it is kind of like Batman in a sense. So me artistically with the tool belt and just the thought processes, like he's a mortal man amongst all these superheroes, but can hold his own so ideally I try to walk through my life like that.

So do you see your activism as separate from your art or do you think it's a part of your work?

I mean, I think it's hard to separate that. I mean there could be things that I could be doing that is just playful and pure and I'm not thinking about it, but I think to my core and my heart, I really believe in it, activism is just the way of life.

So this might seem like an obvious question, but do you consider yourself a part of or a member of Black Lives Matter?

Well, yeah. I mean I was undoubtedly born into the movement, but as this is going on now and it's like a movement in society, I wasn't necessarily attached or detached from it, but just how paths cross and things align, I feel like things happen for a reason. So with the murals downtown, so we had the Murals for Radical Justice right after the riots when the buildings were boarded up. I wasn't in the first wave. It was like a lot of people were out on my social media or just in person advocating for me to like: Hey you need to do a mural. Where is your mural at or when are you going to be doing a mural? So it's kind of like people around the city or not even just beyond the city like you was even social media, people I know outside of Indianapolis were basically advocating for me to be involved with it and it could be based off of some of my work in the past, just my personality in general. But for me, it was kind of like it's an honor to be involved and I feel like it's a part of history that we couldn't see and then the same with the mural on Indiana Avenue. It was one where I almost wasn't a part of it, another artist dropped out of it and then I came into it. So like even talking to some of the artists in The Eighteen, it was like: No, you were supposed to be here. So I just feel like you know, like divine intervention, yeah, I'm supposed to be here, I have to do whatever it is. I don't feel like I'm divested and dove in as deep as I probably need to or possibly can or will one day, but right now in the moment. Yeah, I mean, this is definitely an honor to be part of it. You know what I'm saying, and not just one but two murals and then I picked up another mural behind that or just the context of my work in general. So yeah.

So before we talk more about the mural, what specific events motivate your activism and to go along with that, how has your life been shaped by experiences of racial discrimination?

Well, I think for me a lot of my thought process and mindset stems from growing up in my grandparents' house. So my grandparents were born respectively in like 1913 and 1915, I believe, so when I was a little kid, I would hear stories, like when people say you should forget slavery, you should forget this, you should forget that, kind of hard to forget things when you've had these oral traditions passed down to you. So for say, my grandparents were not necessarily enslaved, but their ancestors were, so I get stories firsthand. My grandfather actually worked on the plantation as a little boy. I don't know if it was in a sharecropper area, but then he was half-Native American half-black. So I have, you know, I had that in my DNA. My grandmother's family have mulattos in them. When I look at my father's family though, I can see like this the people from the field like my great-grandmother. I actually met my great great grandmother and my great-grandmother when I was a kid, so you just kind of see like traditions and history. And then I think about voting now. So back to my grandma and my maternal grandmother were told, you know, she wasn't allowed to vote for the majority of her life. So it's like things that we take for granted. My mom was born in '54, so she was born during the Civil Rights era and Civil Rights Movement. So it's kind of like the stuff that seems like so so far away. It's like man, I'm just a generation or two generations and a half away from what society was a hundred years ago. I was like what I did to survive and function in there, would I have been lynched? Would I have been tarred and feathered? It's like chances are, yes because of my rebellious nature and attitudes, but back to the voting with my grandmother, so when I was a little boy, maybe like 8, 9, or 10, it's Reagan Era. We're talking about politics and she's talking to us about politics, why it's important for us to vote. We're seeing Shirley Chisholm in that era and she's telling us that she wasn't allowed to vote because she was black, then she wouldn't have been allowed to vote because she was a woman, why was it important for us to vote? So me like politics and sometimes for us is like the lesser of two evils in America, but I am going to exercise my right to vote because I really know that people die for their right, for me when black people couldn't vote. And then I'm hearing from my grandmother orally about voting. I'm hearing racial stories from my grandfather about how he was treated. But then I also grew up in an area of town – I grew up on Brookside, at the time in Brookside it was like a racial divide for a lot of things in the city and I experienced a lot of racism myself firsthand even growing up as a child but in the beginning, like until somebody teaches you this, I really didn't know the difference, you know, I mean as far as I'm concerned it's: hey, that's my friend down the street, were they white or Latino or whatever, like we can all play together and there's somebody's parents that had a problem with it. You know what I mean? So yeah, I guess growing up in America we are all inherently affected by racism whether we admit it or not and classism and the whole nine. So as far as us, we lived in a bigger house in the neighborhood and there were only two families in the houses with the big houses that were black. So it was my grandparents and Miss Johnson's house right next to us and you have the other people who sometimes think well, maybe we think we're better than them because we live in a big house or they didn't like us because we were the uppity negro that live in the big house, so, you know, it's just like a lot of stuff. I think that's indoctrinated in society, culturally, (unintelligible) and it's biased, the people really don't even know that it's a bias in times. Like we just think it's just normal, you know, sad but true.

So it sounds like a lot of your activism kind of stems from your family background and your family traditions that you grew up with?

Yeah, I think pretty much. I think I was raised to be a free thinker and I also think that you have to think about others as well as yourself, just because we're doing we're doing good or we're doing okay. If somebody else isn't that doesn't mean that everything is right or necessarily wrong in some instances, but you always have to kind of look out for others, you know, like people who couldn't take care of themselves or help themselves or you know, always anti-bullying. So if you saw somebody weaker being picked on by somebody bigger and at the time I wasn't always a big guy. So I mean, I was a little skinny guy too, but I'll fight the bully myself and I guess that's just part of activism and I think it's just, I don't know, I just feel like it's a moral compass of trying to do the right thing. Like there's been instances in my life where I might not necessarily agree with someone's lifestyle or their choices, but that doesn't mean that I should let somebody just bully them or pick on them or tell them that they can't be somewhere just because they're who they are, you know the (unintelligible). So, yeah, I think it's just basic right and wrong is just how I look at my activism. So I guess in a sense. I didn't really think of it as activism. I just thought of it as just doing right or wrong.

Awesome. Thank you. Let's move into discussing the Indiana Avenue mural. First of all, what do you see as the original vision for what the mural was meant to accomplish?

I think it was basically just a bold statement in America. For me, obviously the thing that I found great about the mural here in Indianapolis is if you look at the history of Indianapolis racially, historically this has been like one of the worst places. Over the time, I believe it's trying to get better or correct a lot of its own mistakes. And we were in the top 10 or 13 cities to even have a Black Lives Matter mural on Indiana Avenue, which was historic in its own right for black culture and it really hasn't been preserved like it should have been preserved and honestly, it's nobody's fault now but historically if all black landmarks were preserved like some of the white ones then we would really know our history, I think a lot of times our history has been trying to dumb down and basically our history black history and still is American history. I mean from the building of the White House, too many wars, and everything. So it's like a lot of stuff just swept under the rug so we don't really get it. And so that's why I think it was important for them to put it on Indiana Avenue at first. I didn't even think of the historical context because you're like: people travel Indiana Avenue, but not to the aspect of how it used to be at one point in time where black people could only be in one of three areas, you know what I mean? So what I'm trying to rebuild and (unintelligible) the area and I think it just highlights the history and the culture that is Indiana Avenue. So I think that's like some beauty in it there as far as the location of it.

So tell me about your role in the mural. You touched on this, but how did you come to be involved in the project?

So how I actually came to be involved. I know initially there were some conversations about the mural and how do some of the artists feel and how are we feeling about doing it and and it was with – Stacia Murphy had contacted me along with some other artists and then I didn't hear anything for a while. There was another email that went out and I think I went and reached out to Malia – Mali – and then Mali had got back with me and then had told me that the spots had been filled but the young lady ended up backing out. She was like, would you like to do it? I was like, sure, and she said I have a few days, maybe a week and I was like I have other stuff going on. I wasn't sure what I was going to do at first, but they told me my letter would be the letter I, so for me I was just instantly like the I on Indiana Avenue, like I'm doing I on Indiana Avenue in Indianapolis. And so it just kept being like I have to do something that's transformative and the first thing that I could think of when I got there was Michael Taylor and the story of Michael Taylor because that happened when I was like 16 and so we are basically the same age and he was killed. They say it's suicide. We also like – he was killed in a police car by police officers. It was just one of the first stories and just did not sit well with me, it's in my lifetime. It's in my city. When I got there, I was just – this feeling of put him on there because I worked out the other mural project on Symphony Center and I didn't include Michael Taylor in there. I didn't include any of the victims. I think except for maybe George Floyd at the time it was George Floyd and then while working on the letter I as well, we also had assistance that day like artistic helpers or assistance. When I got there, the helper that they had for me was Devon Fosco Kimbrough. He's a tattoo artist here locally and he had did a part of a sleeve on my arm. So we hadn't seen each other since then, so I was like cool that he and I were working together. We talked about Michael Taylor and I was like, well, I know he's an artist as well, I really didn't know what I was going to do. So we just had the conversation and going from Michael Taylor to Brianna Taylor and he had Dreasjon Reed and I always forget the other image that he used. So but the bottom triangular section of the mural is Devon's work and we just kind of like collaborated through the middle of coming down there and then like the little girl in the middle was something else in my sketchbook and I was flipping through and I was like use that, use that. For me, it was great too because it was also like women's empowerment, black women don't get a lot of credit for a lot of things that they do like in society and then I know for me, my grandmother. I was close to my grandmother. Basically a grandmother's boy. My mom was the youngest girl. There's 11 kids. She's number 10 - she's the fourth girl, but she was the youngest girl and then I have two sisters that are twins that was under my mom, so my two sisters, so I was always around a lot of women, aunts and cousins. So I really know how supportive black women have been for me and my life, my family during the good times and the bad times. So the little girl just kind of resonated and where I used that one, so that's kind of how they came and that's more reminiscent of my cartoon illustrated style. Overall it was just a fun project and for me to look out and see 17 other – plus the artist helpers. It was like close to 25 or 30 black artist, affluent artist, and I know from the city or surrounding counties of Indiana, so that in itself in Indianapolis was just a great feeling for me because there's been so many times in my life in different art schools or institutions or showings or trying to get in certain doors where I won't see people that look like me or their work won't be reflective of my work or anything representational to what I do usually or there may be one or two of us. So to see over 20 of us out there working collectively the same day and just visually I think it ended up being one of the best murals in the country. It's like, man, to be a part of that is just a surreal feeling, it's just one of those things that is hard to top or compare to anything else.

So both you and Rebecca now have kind of described it as a divine intervention and like a very significant thing for these 18 artists to work together. Can you talk a little bit more of that community and kind of The Eighteen and what that means to you?

Yeah. Well, as you mentioned Rebecca, the thing that's cool – Rebecca and I were actually in two artist collectives together. So where we are in the arts, so we have been around each other because of that and it was based off of an older artist collective called Indy Renaissance here in the city, it was spearheaded by Tony Anthony Radford and Bruce Armstrong, kind of got a lot of us younger artists back together. So Rebecca and I would get to work together a lot and that collective as well and then to be in The Eighteen. Like I said, it just kind of formed organically because none of the artists that did the Black Lives Matter mural initially did it for any compensation. No one did it for, I don't think just to say: hey, I was here. I think everybody did it – it was genuine, like a feeling of – I guess like you said in activism or feeling of community or feeling I had to be here and then everything just kind of started happening organically, like Tamika Catchings was like: Hey, I'm gonna pay all the artists for being here. You had places like The Missing Brick Pizza say we're going to feed all the artists, you had Black Lives Indy 10 who got all the money and got everything started for Indy 10, like get everything started first. You had the security, everybody was out there and then it became – it's not just black artists. You also have whites, Latinos, young, old, straight, gay, upper class, lower class, there was just so many insightful conversations that came from the project in itself. And like I said for it to develop its own legs and wings and kind of start moving in directions to where The Eighteen could become a collective and it wasn't even looking for that. So yeah, like Rebecca said, organically. I think that's just a powerful tool and it just shows that we can work together collectively, I don't know. I'm just looking for a lot of good things that come from it over the course of time because there is a lot of talented artists in there. And I know artists, we can all have our own egos or mindsets but it's like no one seems to be like: I'm trying to outdo anybody else in the collective. Everybody seems to be supportive of each other or each other's styles or genuinely want to know more and more about each other like I said for me fortunately enough, I think I knew maybe close to half of the artists though that were in the project but that I may not necessarily interact or conversating with them on a regular basis, but I was familiar with at least half of the artist. So then it gives us a chance to work together and become more familiar with each other like he or she is cool. I like them as a person and then to see the younger artists, newer artists coming in. It's really been cool as well, becoming familiar with some of them and then it's funny, I've been around doing it longer than some of them, but I'm also older than a lot of so I was like: hey, you want to b e my mentor, talk to me, like you call me about whatever, just to feel like that they have that, and the talent. We have that camaraderie and everybody seems to trust one another – it's just another word I'm going to wear out but it's an honor to me. It's like a privilege. I'm just proud to be a part of it and I just think I was the last one added in and I almost didn't make the cut because someone gave up their spot and several of them – we were talking last Friday. I think an opening was like no, you were supposed to be here like it's divine intervention. So, divine intervention. I think it's a moment in history.

So going along with that, I know you and the other artists have been interviewed. You've been approached for other projects. Can you talk about the future projects that kind of spawned for you and the other artists? I know you did an Indianapolis Arts Center exhibit recently.

Yeah, so we've got the art center exhibit going on recently. I think there's some other projects and plans in development for The Eighteen. So I can't speak on all of them yet because I'm not sure where they're at as far as finalized, but I do know that we talked to Mark at the Art Center doing one of the interviews and he's looking forward to revisiting the show like a year from the mural basically and seeing where everybody's work is at from that time and building like the community aspect of it. Those are the type of projects that I like, the thing that wears me some time is – like some people may try to exploit us just because of the moment or for their own benefit, so I'm kind of selective of what I would do myself like individually, but then say for instance your project here, these are things that I believe add value to the context of the situation culturally, historically and it's an accurate account like it doesn't seem like: hey, let's have an interview just because I need an interview to look like I deal with black people, which could be the same with people that have done that with women's rights movements, gay movements, anything in America. So I'm kind of leery of people who attach themselves or want to attach themselves to us just for the sake of: oh, there's something going on in America right now, but outside of – individually, I think for me, it adds to the layers of my own personal artistic narrative. It validates my work even farther, so it shows not only as an individual artist that I can work with collectives and work collectively with other artists to ensure (unintelligible) on the culture. So for me, those are the things that are of stronger importance. So the central library and I've done some show curated some shows there and they have prints of a lot of the murals from the city around to show so people can educate, the educators are using for like educational tools. So I think all the projects and activities where we're learning or still building culture and trying to redirect a change in society are really highly important to me. So those are the things that I like to be involved with and then there's been a lot of like grassroots interviews. So they're not with major people, for instance, I did one with Ivy Tech, which was my alma mater. I was there at Ivy Tech and then I've actually been offered an adjunct professors job. So I'll go and I'll follow one of my mentors and take his class over there in the Spring and I think that came after I interacted with the school a lot. But that actually came after one of the conversations about the murals around city and like this black art and black artists in general. So I don't know. I think for The Eighteen it is going to be a lot of opportunities that a lot of us weren't even expecting and it's just how we respond and react to it.

So your comments on how people can kind of take advantage of you and the other artists for their own projects reminded me of one of my later questions, which is what are any ways in which people, and especially white people, can be better allies at this time to the black community?

Yeah, some I think just do it naturally just by being themselves. I think the biggest aspect is to listen like stop, look, and listen sometimes. Me for instance, although I grew up in a house full of women, I can have an idea of what a woman may be thinking sometimes but I cannot think like a woman nor can I think for a woman, so I would actually have to ask a woman's opinion or several women's opinions or outlooks on something, you know specifically pertaining to women. So I just think like anybody, no matter who we are, we should just not speak for anybody else like sometimes we can speak in general, maybe a generalized question. But you just have to listen to other people, see what we really want to see, how we're feeling. I mean, you could put 20 black people in the same room and I guarantee you're not going to get the same answer to whatever question you had. So for even for myself as a black man, I can't speak for all black people. We have a generalized consensus of what I think our thought process would be so as far as being allies, I think that's just the most important part is to be an ally is to really be there to support somebody and that's support, sometimes people may see something that we should have and we don't know we should have and enlighten us to that. You know, that's supportive just like we said right or wrong, you see something that you know is not right, no matter who it's from you say: hey, that's not the way to go about that. You know what I mean? So I think that's the real effective way to be an ally, in my opinion.

Awesome, back to the mural. I wanted to ask you about the defacement of the mural. Can you talk me through what happened and your reaction to it?

Well, what is crazy about that part is I was actually downtown on my bike that night and almost road to the mural but something kept me from going over there. So had I rode there that night, I could have been in an altercation, I could have been in jail, I could have been dead. Who knows but at first I was like really annoyed by it and like pissed off and I was really like: I will redo my shit every day if that's what it takes, but as the collective, and what helps me with the collective here is even sometimes you know yourself you might want to charge into something. You got a collective and it's like wait a minute. Let's think about this. How do we all feel? As you went on, the overall consensus became that by leaving the defacement there it will highlight the black lives truly matter. And if they didn't matter, why would someone take the time to deface this? When we also looked at it, like if we would have tried to correct it, say somebody like me comes to fix it or fix somebody else's part every day. The defacement becomes even worse, you know, so then it just becomes a tug of war and it falls on deaf ears like well, I don't know why I keep doing this and it keeps getting messed up anyway, but by leaving it, it kind of highlighted that: see there's a problem in America, you know what I mean? So it's easy for some people to say: well, all lives matter. Okay, I'm not saying that all lives don't matter but if all lives matter, why is it so hard for you to say black lives matter. Because a lot of people have been taught historically that our lives don't matter and we just did a point it is like: Hey, we're tired of this and it matters. So I think the defacement really just added to the context of the conversation.

You kind of touched on this, but what do you think the defacement says about the responses to Black Lives Matter in the broader community?

Well, it's tricky because I've had just as many, if not more white people wanting to fix the defacement than some of the black people and it was like, maybe we should show white people support black lives matter too. So you have some people that are really passionate on both sides.Then you got the people, I mean for one, it's like it defaced it but it's kind of like a cowardice act. You know, I mean, nobody knows you did it, you aren't bold enough to say black lives don't matter on TV, but I mean a lot of that is in this, you know, trumped-up Trump era. We can blame Trump but a lot of this stuff was already here before he came, (unintelligible). It was kind of just a cowardice act but then it was to be expected, like some people said they had already expected something to happen because it happened in other cities as well and if it didn't happen then maybe that meant we weren't doing our job correct. It's a catch-22.

So what were the reactions, or do you know of any of the reactions, to the mural from any local organizations or the state government or even the police department? Things like that?

Now I didn't hear of any flak or feedback from any police officers or officers in uniform, not from government officials because it was actually approved. So I didn't hear of any pushback. Now you have people on online that had little smart comments and like I'm a smart ass at times too. So for instance on The Star interview, there were all these people that were mad that the mural was up. I just basically said if you met one of those angry faces you are a potential suspect, you know what I mean? And some people probably like: I didn't think about it like that. It's like why are you opposed to it? You don't even travel up and down Indiana Avenue, Indiana Avenue was a historic black area. You don't want to move over there. You don't live over there. Why are you opposed to a Black Lives Matter sign on the street that you don't even care about you know, so that's what was funny, but as far as government officials, local officials, state officials, police organizations, police officers, I didn't hear anything negative from any of them like as organizations.

So back to the community of the 18 artists, why do you think it's important to have specifically local artists from Indianapolis contribute to the project rather than kind of people who aren't from here or people who aren't familiar with the community?

Well, I think in this aspect that was the right thing to do to let – we weren't employed, but to let the local artists, the local talent be the voice of our city and I think a lot of times the biggest problem is a lot of stuff is outsourced and they may pay somebody to come from somewhere else a whole, whole lot of money to do something they're going to leave when they could have spent the same amount of money amongst several artists in the city here and then it supports the city, it helps the artistic culture grow, and help stimulate the economy as well. So those are some things that I think that we should think about how it would be different if there were no artist here in the city to actually do this, that would make a difference, that would be a big difference. And then I know there were people at times that were mad like: I know there were some artists of all ethnicities that wanted to participate in the project or work on the project. But then I also know that there were a lot of black artists and like I said, I was an artist and I didn't even know in the city, there was like an issue really being black artists, you know doing this project. So as it worked out that day, I think that was a beautiful thing and the right thing to do at that time because now you can people can see like: hey, there are a lot of black artists or there's some black art or there's some local talent in this city that I was unaware of was like: whoa. I didn't know that the talent level was this high or the bar could be said that high, so I'm thinking that by keeping it homegrown and artists from here doing it, it just made a bigger impact across the board.

So before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you a few questions about Black Lives Matter kind of more generally. Tell me about your experience and your activism living in Indianapolis as Black Lives Matter has unfolded, specifically in the past several months.

It's different I guess. For me, it doesn't seem like it's really – I mean it's changed, like evolved but it just seems like normal everyday life to me like I haven't seen any major changes in the city, but I haven't seen any major setbacks either I would say. Well, I take that back on the changes. I can see that there are some organizations and actually some people that I've seen in person trying to make a conservative effort to include black artists or pay attention to the different narrative or start to understand that we all don't see things the same way. Yeah, but Indiana's also a red state so it's kind of like across the state, it's kind of tricky because the ideologies in my mind are still kind of like way off base to what should be like morally uplifting standard across the board, but the city of Indianapolis itself is more like Democratic, more progressive, it's growing, its evolving. I've seen it change, I feel like we were a small town that kind of outgrew itself real fast, reaching a million people. So at times it's like we're a major metropolitan city or in at other times we're a small town trying to find figure it out. So I think that's the balance there. It's like kind of like a gift and a curse.

I'm actually from Indianapolis and your comment made me think about how it is for these kind of movements to work in a largely conservative area. So how do you think that this kind of community and its political leanings affect the Black Lives Matter community specific to Indianapolis?

Yeah, that's where a lot of gray areas come in. So I actually wonder like how many candidates and how many of these constituents actually care about black people in Indiana or even care about people who are not in the one or two percent of the state standards or whatever. So it's kind of hard because it's my home, you know, Indiana's my home, it's where I come home, even though I've left and been other places. I'm going to come back. I'll call it home. I have a love hate relationship with the city and state but overall, I want to see Indiana grow and be better. I want to see the history really evolve and people eradicate things like the presence of D.C. Stephenson in this city. It's a start with like always try to figure out for years why Indiana has so many Confederate monuments, we weren't a Confederate State but a lot of the Confederate people flocked to here at the time I guess after that, so our history, state history is kind of weird and sorted, but at the same time I think the generation of now wants to see that go away, wants to make improvements across the board. I'm kind of like – so the murals downtown. I wasn't going to get involved in protesting or marching before anything got (unintelligible). Like that's just that's not my scene. So I was talking to a station (unintelligible), we were talking about it and it was – I really didn't consider myself frontline at first. However, like the Monday 2 Mondays or just the thought process of how I speak is actually more frontline. The artwork that I was doing was actually more front line, especially engaging in the murals because it puts you like right into the action. You're vulnerable, you know who's doing this and I'm telling you who's doing this and I'm telling you why.

I think your audio cut out. Sorry.

Can you hear me Gary? I think your audio cut out. Not yet. I can't hear you.

Nope. Can you try again?

Can you try to leave and come back? Maybe that will work?

How about now?

I think it might be working. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I I I I

I I I I I I don't know, I had the bank trying to call me. Probably telling me I owe some money. That's all.

That's okay.

That's the last question?

Yeah, I just have like wrap up questions and then we'll be done. So just as a couple last questions, what are your thoughts on what the long-term effects of the mural might be?

I'm still thinking about what the effects of the long term could be. I always do all my artwork not just mural work but all my artwork specifically is – I like the viewer to look in and interpret something. So I hope that it just like sparks conversation, continues to spark conversation, makes people aware of just how they handle themselves and do things in general in the city or you know, the world at large, especially when it pertains to black people or just to help continue the conversations, just a spark of the next or the new set of conversation, is really what I'm hoping the long-term effects are.

So lastly, what do you envision for the future of the 18 artists? And how do you see your work as an artist changing because of this?

Seeing the future of the 18 artists, I'm thinking that everyone has gotten or should get some kind of career spike from this by showing collectively. It's kind of like it helps you cross over market so say for instance like Rebecca and I – I mean we've been friends forever, but Rebecca has an audience, Gary has an audience, Deonna has an audience, Ashley has audience, Kevin has an audience, Nathaniel has an audience, Rae has an audience, and (unintelligible) has audience, Jarrod has an audience, Kevin has an audience. It's like we all know – (unintelligible) has an audience, you know, Shamira has an audience, but we may not all have the same audiences. You know, it's Harriet's audience or who am I forgetting? I'm trying to include anybody I can think of, but out of the 18 there are 17 other audiences that you may not have and you're introduced to them because you're showing with this person or collectively, someone's familiar with several of the other artists, but they may not be familiar with you or they may just say: hey, it's the 18 artists. I want to go see what's going on here. So I think is great for career growth, like attachment name association or word association, more or less? I think it really helps for me and my artwork series moving forward. It just makes me I think put another serious focus or focal point on there. It gives me a new set of goals and aspirations to strive for and to also know that I'm with the respected and respectable group of artists, it just makes you kind of want to – you're not really in competition with each other but you are. It makes you want to dig deeper into your creativity and your inspiration and sometimes you're actually just inspired by these other artists in the collective around you and not just the artists, so we can also add in Alan, Mali, and Stacia, as well, you know, because they are instrumental in the growth of the collective or how the collective is moved. So it's just really the interaction with each other. The old adage is strength in numbers, you know, with their unity in the community just makes us stronger. So I think that The Eighteen could actually be a valuable force in the art world moving forward.

Awesome. So are there any last thoughts before we finish up?

I don't know. Just thank you Claudia for taking the time to want to talk to me about the murals and put it into a historical context. Like that's really – as an artist, that's the kind of stuff that I love and love to do so, it's not just a visual voice as well. You know, I add to the narration to the context of the conversation and your audience. So for instance, your audience is an audience that I hadn't been exposed to so someone may listen to the conversation and say: hey, I'm going to go check this guy Gary Gee out. So that's truly being an ally and helping to add to the context of the conversation as well. So, I appreciate this.

Of course. Well, thank you so much for doing the interview with me. I'm so excited about your contribution to my project. So, thank you.

Thank you Claudia.

Have a great day. Bye.

Bye. Bye to you too.