#sparkchamber 062121 — Vinnie Bagwell

A few days after being able to celebrate Juneteenth as a Federal holiday for the first time, as the right to vote is under assault in numerous so-called swing states, it feels like one step forward and two steps back. In the profound forward column, #sparkchamber is so honored to welcome sculptor, Vinnie Bagwell.

2/11/2020 YONKERS NY Yonkers woman uses sculpture to chronicle history of black people, via Tiffany Cusaac-Smith, race and justice reporter at USA Today Network.

The words are chiseled into the flowing skirt of a towering statue to abolitionist and suffragist Sojourner Truth. “Truth is powerful and it prevails,” rings out off the sculpture as a reflection of the lifework of the crusader born into slavery in Ulster County in the late 18th century. She escaped to freedom but not before she was sold three times.

With one hand outstretched and the other grasping a cane, the unfinished towering 7-foot sculpture of Truth will tell a fuller story of the nation’s history when it is ultimately installed in the Walkway Over the Hudson State Park this spring in Ulster County. At least that is what its creator, Yonkers-based sculptor Vinnie Bagwell, desires as part of her work to “balance the narrative.”

“The sculpture is amazing,” said Cory McLiechey, a sixth-generation grandson of Truth. “I really can't put it into words.” It tells a story of her legacy, McLiechey added. 

Bagwell, whose pieces include a monument to world-renowned jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, and a life-sized sculpture of music icon Marvin Gaye, is one of a few black artists receiving major commissions in the public art realm. She was recently commissioned to replace a statue of J. Marion Sims along the perimeter of Central Park in East Harlem. Referred to as the 19th-century “father of gynecology,” Sims conducted experimental operations on female slaves. After years of pushback by community members, the city ultimately decided to remove the statue and move it to another location in 2018.

Bagwell’s more recent pieces come at a time when states are debating the removal of Confederate monuments and adding pieces to reflect their rich black history. “Public art is a reflection of the values of a community,” Bagwell said, “so, when a community chooses to put new public art, a lot of thought needs to go into it because the bottom-line question is, ‘What are you trying to say about your community's values?’”

Born in Yonkers, Bagwell exhibited a passion for painting in high school. Although she has had no formal training, she took up the art of sculpture seriously after graduating from Morgan State University in Maryland. She decided that sculpting was her calling, but admits it was an expensive one. “So, you know, at the time, the big question was, how can I afford to keep doing this?” Bagwell said. “The first winter I made five sculptures, and at the end of the winter, I discovered I needed $35,000 to cast and I was not earning $35,000.”

Bagwell would later receive her first commission by Yonkers in 1996, which would become “The First Lady of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald.” Her portfolio would grow to include sculpture on a piano for an off-Broadway production of August Wilson’s “Piano Lesson,” and a monument to abolitionist Frederick Douglass at Hofstra University.  

“For many black people, the reason why they love the work is because they’re just now seeing this kind of work about us,” Bagwell said. “Because we are just now being allowed in the arena, right now there is a push.”

She is also working on the fifth life-sized bronze sculpture for the Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden, an urban-heritage sculpture garden to honor the first enslaved Africans to be freed by law in the United States. That piece will be installed on the shore of the Hudson River in Yonkers.

Longtime friend and fellow sculptor Barbara Segal said that Bagwell’s African American heritage informs her work. “We all as sculptors tell the story of who we are,” said Segal, “so there's no getting away from that if we’re honest and true to ourselves. But then Vinnie just chooses to tell that story in a way of fierce pride. Being fiercely proud.”

For Bagwell, the goal is to raise consciousness, to spark intrigue, to foster dialogue, to make people talk to each other about this concept and make them interested in knowing the truth. This work is done because, as the saying goes, “story can and often is repeated.”

1.] Where do ideas come from?

Ideas come through you in the same way that everything comes through you, like perception comes through you. Ideas have to do what you’re exposed to, your environment, your relationships, how people make you feel — whether it be your parents, or your friends or your lovers or your spouses, or whatever the case may be. It has to do with the things that you are attracted to.

I didn’t intend to become a commercial artist of any kind. I was happy making stuff for myself, for my pure enjoyment and keeping myself out of trouble when I was growing up. I just wanted to be at home. I was perfectly happy taking my sketch pad, and my pencil and eraser out to the porch and that’s where I would be until lunch was called. And then after lunch, I’d be there until my father got home at dinner time.

The ideas that I had came from things that I saw. And then sometimes from things that I didn’t see but wanted to see.

This is kind of like how public art is. When I created the statue of Harriet Tubman, I didn’t want to do something that had already been done. I wanted to create my own look. I have a thing about my own signature, my own identity. That was one of the first things I was trying to figure out, what is an idea that is uniquely mine? I was trying to figure out my style. This is why people need to leave home, so they can experience some life and broaden their exposure.

2.] What is the itch you are scratching?

Stability. Stability is important because I don’t expect anybody to take care of me. I certainly don’t want to burden my child with that responsibility, and I don’t have a spouse. So more than anything, it’s important to me to be self-sustaining. I have fallen down — I know what that’s like, it’s horrific — and I don’t intend to do it again in this lifetime. So my attitude is to try to be well, to take care of myself, and be mindful when I’m not. The challenge is, when you live in the future, you externalize because you’re projecting yourself out of where you are and into another place.

I live in the future. That means I’m not scared of the dark. Because where I go, it’s called vision. I know things — I can’t explain to you how — I just know that I know. Clients will often project their fears onto me, but I have to remind them that those are their fears, those are things that they are concerned about because they are afraid of the dark, because they afraid of the beginning. The beginning of the project is the hardest part because they often come to me with the kernel of an idea, but they lack clarity. I have clarity. I have crystal clarity. When you spend a lot of time in the future like I do, sometimes you neglect the present because you’re not present and that’s no good either. So in order to create stability, you have to create a balance. I spend almost no time in the past. I don’t lament anything. Once I can resolve something, once I’m over it, I’m over it. I’m projecting forward.

I know the importance of taking care of my body and mind. This is part of my joy curriculum — you give yourself proper time off. It’s all about stability. I am trying to cultivate stability daily. Trying to be well centered, not allowing people to drain me. We have to be careful with what we allow into our lives.

3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?

Trapeze artist is a metaphor for my life: I am dangling without a safety net, and I have to work with people who may or may not be trustworthy, but we’re committed to the craft, and we can put our concerns aside because we’re performing artists. I have to perform. There’s a little bit of Malcom X — by any means necessary. When I started off, my goal was not to be a working artist, but once I decided on that path, the challenge was not having a template, I didn’t really have anybody who was doing exactly what I wanted to do. But I was able to identify some people who were doing fractions of what I wanted to do, and I figured out how to read their information and create my own thing.

I have to be totally un-distracted by anything. I don’t like dust and I don’t like clutter. I love plants. Seriously, my plants are flawless. Part of it is the art of maintenance. I love cleaning my house, I like touching my stuff, I love polishing the silver and the brass. I love these objects, this is why I got them for my house. I can’t work on my art if my house isn’t clean and in order.

I go with how I feel. I like the fluidity of being self-employed because I can change my mind on a whim. I might say that I am going to sculpt today because I have a deadline looming. And depending on how I feel about what I’m going to do, this will determine whether or not I allow myself any detours. Like if a friend were to call and ask if I wanted to go have lunch, I might go and do that, or I might forgo the outing to finish my sculpting. A lot has to do with how strongly I feel about what I’m doing. If I feel excited and comfortable about what I’m doing, I keep on doing it. If I’m undecided about it, that’s problematic, because that means I don’t see it, I don’t know. I need to know first. Once I know what I’m doing, it’s easy, it’s like breathing. I need to get to the point of knowing. It’s about being obsessive compulsive, like, I need to know right now! Sometimes I know that I am not totally focused, so going out to lunch and sitting in the fresh air is relaxing and restorative, and allows me to go to warp speed or God Speed as I call it, when I get back to my studio. God Speed is a real thing. I’ve noticed that time has the ability to speed up as well as slow down. And time can also stop. This is because perception is reality. When I am totally in the flow, time doesn’t matter. That is the beauty of flow. When you are fully in flow, you can go to God Speed and bang something out in a few hours that you thought was going to take you three weeks.

4.] How do you know when you are done?

When the piece doesn’t call you anymore. Sometimes, I will take my pieces to the foundry because light allows me to see things differently. The foundry has much different light from my house. I get to their place and will think, “Oh my god, don’t touch this. I’ll be back tomorrow or maybe a week from now.” They can’t mold my pieces or do anything to them until I am satisfied with it in their light. Their light is much more unforgiving than mine and no matter how good something looks at my house, when I get to the foundry, because they got serious fluorescent lighting, I can easily spot flaws. So, I’ll spend some time perfecting my work and at some point, I feel resolved with the piece. I won’t sign my work until I feel like that. The signature is the last thing I do and when I am finally adding my signature, I know there’s nothing else calling me to this piece — I am done!