{"id":10487,"date":"2021-10-20T19:59:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T19:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=10487"},"modified":"2021-12-30T14:05:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T14:05:32","slug":"choosing-art-the-artistic-resurrection-of-james-wellington-taylor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=10487","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Art: The Artistic Resurrection of James Wellington Taylor"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Choosing\u00a0 Art:<\/h2>\r\n

The Artistic Resurrection of James Wellington Taylor<\/h3>\r\n
By D. Amari Jackson<\/pre>\r\n

In life, particularly in challenging times, whether we consciously acknowledge it or not, we are presented with a choice. We can wallow in our predicament and misery, blaming the world and others for the serious situation in which we find ourselves and, in doing so, spiral deeper into a toxic, hopeless abyss where healing or reconciliation\u2014be it physical, mental, spiritual\u2014cannot take place.<\/p>\r\n

Or, despite our grave circumstances, we can choose to live the best we can for as long as we can. We can choose a perspective more conducive to healing ourselves and, by doing so, further impact the world around us from our clarified vantage point and transmit our unique energies in a way that transforms all it touches. Perhaps, renowned author and speaker, Wayne Dyer, put it best. \u201cIf you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

James Wellington Taylor chose art.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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“At the Window” by James Taylor<\/p><\/div>\r\n

In 1992, after years of bouncing from job to job, the Air Force veteran was diagnosed with a terminal illness. \u201cHe had terrible bouts with cancer, but he managed to be beat them all until the end,\u201d says Taylor\u2019s son, James Taylor III, of the disease that finally took his father\u2019s life in 2016. Upon being confined to the veterans\u2019 hospital in Atlanta \u201cseveral times because of the terminal illness, he began to draw and paint as an outlet,\u201d explains Taylor III. \u201cHe would use it as therapy, and he became really good at it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Others agreed. By the time of his death, Taylor had established a vibrant legacy in paint both locally and nationally. A master of watercolor, Taylor\u2019s inspired art earned him recognition and awards from the likes of the Atlanta Artists Center, Fulton and Dekalb County Public Art Programs, Morris Brown College, The High Museum of Art, and the Atlanta-based African Americans for the Arts. His works have been exhibited at such locations as the Hampton University Museum in Hampton, Virginia; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia; and the Hammonds House Gallery and Resource Center in Atlanta. Taylor instructed and mentored countless young artists in Life Drawing classes at the South Dekalb Arts Center and Atlanta Metropolitan College, and he was the first Black president of the Georgia Watercolor Society. To this day, his work graces more than a dozen private and public collections across the country.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI believe James Taylor is one of the preeminent watercolorists of American history, especially given that so few have gotten the recognition they deserve in the African-American community, and the way he documented the African-American community,\u201d says Kevin Sipp, a fine artist, scholar, and arts administrator who worked at Hammonds House for 15 years and as curator from 2003 to 2012. Sipp, who\u2019d been wholly impressed by the work Taylor had displayed at Hammonds House art auctions for several years, was eager to exhibit his watercolors once he became curator. Further characterizing Taylor as \u201cone of the most important artists of the current era,\u201d Sipp points to how people often promote \u201cwhat they think are more innovative styles in abstraction, mixed media, or multimedia work, but the skill in which he used watercolor to capture the human spirit and the human portrait, I think, will never go out of style. And the fact that he captured the African-American community in this medium stands head and shoulders above many.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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“Fellas” by James Taylor – 11 x 15 inches watercolor– unframed | ShopBAIA.com<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n

\u201cMy dad really loved to draw for the passion of it,\u201d says Taylor III, describing his father as a community-oriented, \u201cextremely laid back people-person.\u201d Also an Atlanta-based artist, Taylor III depicts how his father struggled to find purpose in non-artistic industries where \u201che just wasn\u2019t able to find a good fit. He told me, \u2018Son, you can work for people your whole life and lose the skill that you have innately in you, and you can look back over your life and realize that there\u2019s nothing to show from it.\u2019 So he really urged and exhorted me to develop my skills as an artist as much as I could,\u201d continues Taylor III. \u201cAnd he honestly believed that, if I focused on becoming a better artist, my skills would develop and everything that I needed would come, versus going out and getting a 9 to 5 and suffering the drudgery of waking up every morning and going to work for people that don\u2019t really appreciate you and can fire you at any time.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Such drudgery was a particularly hard pill to swallow for a young man raised in a stable Gary, Indiana community where Black residents appreciated one another. Given the World War II revival of the steel industry, Gary became an economic magnet for thousands of Black workers seeking good-paying jobs and strong residential communities. Born in the city in 1951 to two prominent educators\u2014his father, James Taylor Sr. was a Tuskegee airman, teacher, and police chief; his mother a 30-year public school teacher and college professor\u2014Taylor came of age in an era where Black folks were asserting themselves, demanding their rights, and establishing their own prosperous communities. \u201cGary had a great impact on my father,\u201d acknowledges Taylor III, noting the social and economic vibrance of the steel city in the 1960s. \u201cMy father actually played basketball with some of the older Jackson boys,\u201d he reveals of Gary\u2019s most celebrated product apart from steel, The Jackson 5. \u201cHe remembered them vividly and would tell me stories about how stern their father was. He knew them personally.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

After graduating high school, Taylor spent several years in the Air Force as a language specialist and studied chemistry at Grinnell College in Iowa. Upon spending time in Atlanta after college, Taylor met Thomasine Jordan in the early 1970s and relocated to the city where they\u2019d subsequently marry and give birth to Taylor III.<\/p>\r\n

Though his artistic skill had been apparent from an early age, Taylor merely dabbled in art for years. However, his 1992 illness, for all its disabling pain and trauma, brought with it a new sense of purpose and clarity as he devoted himself fully to his craft, subsequently studying under master illustrator, Carl Owens, taking classes, and doing residencies. In an artistic statement, Taylor reflected on the plight of those, like him, whose purpose was forged by fire. \u201cDuring my convalescence, I began to see the humanity and spirit of the people I encountered, along with colors, smells, and the play of sunlight on things and scenes that were around me,\u201d he once offered. \u201cI discovered a very strong character in people, which is revealed through their challenges, disappointments, and rewards of holding things together through relative obscurity. It is this strength of spirit that I am compelled to express in my paintings. My goal is to involve the viewer in the insightfulness and humanity that art has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Consistently, Taylor\u2019s art had a lot to offer, particularly given his intentional contribution to the intricate medium of watercolor. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t understand that watercolor is a very technical field, and it doesn\u2019t always come out right,\u201d explains Taylor III, noting \u201cit\u2019s probably the most unforgiving of the artistic mediums. When you lay that watercolor on the paper, there is no pulling back. You have to go in knowing what you\u2019re doing and how you\u2019re going to get out.\u201d Stressing the rarity of prominent Black watercolor artists and subjects, Taylor III drives home his father\u2019s unique gift to the field, his \u201cexploration of the multitude of skin tones of our people through watercolor\u201d and how he \u201cprobably had a hundred plus different recipes for what colors to use to give different skin tones for the different shades of our people.\u201d Unfortunately, laments Taylor III, \u201cI wish they were written down. I wish they were saved and documented, but he was living his life and I was living my life at the time, so it\u2019s something that is just lost. You can only capture it in his artwork.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Taylor, who also exhibited superior talent with charcoal and pastel, is commonly believed to have started the first African American Life Drawing group in the city at Atlanta Metropolitan College in 2008. The class ran for over a decade and his son helped facilitate it for six years. \u201cIt was the only life drawing class in the city where you could go and practice drawing Black models,\u201d reports Taylor III, revealing that \u201cwe had a lot of celebrated artists that actually came and made cameo appearances.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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“Debra” by James Taylor – 16 x 22 inches watercolor on paper — unframed | ShopBAIA.com<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n

For Taylor, his own appearances within the Atlanta arts scene often masked his failing health. \u201cEarly on, he never really spoke about his illness,\u201d says Sipp, acknowledging he eventually \u201cbegan to let me know why he wasn\u2019t even more productive, as he was struggling with the illness on and off. But he carried it with such dignity that it never was really a major part of the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

In 2013, Taylor III left for Seattle to visit a friend. He ended up getting married and staying there for two years until his father\u2014who, by then, had been divorced for decades\u2014called him back to Atlanta. \u201cMy father told me that he had one year left and I came back to take care of him and to give him a great homegoing service,\u201d recounts Taylor III. \u201cWhen I came back, I had so much of his artwork it was like I was revisiting who I was when I was a child, while he was in the latter moments of his life. He really was a community person, and a lot of his artwork was of friends, family, and neighbors. So he didn\u2019t really celebrate celebrities, but he took great pride in the depictions of our people.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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“Harold” by James Taylor<\/p><\/div>\r\n

Taylor III takes great pride in knowing his talented father ultimately chose<\/em> to live life on his own terms. \u201cHe really lived the life of an artist,\u201d he acknowledges, contentment in his voice. \u201cHe loved women, and when he would go to Florida or travel a lot, he would always have a muse with him\u201d as he and his mentor, Owens, were \u201cconstantly surrounded by a coterie of beautiful models that loved them dearly.\u201d Taylor also loved horror flicks, laughs Taylor III, depicting how his dad \u201chad a large DVD collection of nothing but scary movies. He would invite women over, they would get comfortable, and he would play them. I think he liked for them to grab on to him when the scary parts happened.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cHe really lived the life that he wanted,\u201d reiterates Taylor III. \u201cWhen he passed away, I knew he was content because, for a long time, he had tried to do what society wanted, the status quo for all of us Americans, and that\u2019s just to get up, go to a 9 to 5, and just get the money and leave,\u201d he says, noting his father \u201cdidn\u2019t find any satisfaction or joy in that. But he loved to just paint and draw and not have a care as to where his next dollar was coming from.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cHe knew,\u201d adds Taylor III, \u201cthat if his skills reached a certain height, he\u2019d be okay.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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\u00a0AMARI JACKSON <\/b>is a creator, author, TV\/web\/film producer, and award-winning journalist. He is author of the 2011 novel,\u00a0The Savion Sequence<\/i>; creator\/writer\/coproducer of the 2012-2014 web series\u00a0The Book Look<\/i>; writer\/coproducer of the 2016 film\u00a0Edge of the Pier<\/i>; and current writer\/coproducer of\u00a0Listen Up!<\/i>\u00a0on HBCU GO\/Roku TV. He is a former Chief of Staff for a NJ State Senator; a former VP of Communications & Development for the Jamestown Project at Harvard University; and a recipient of several writing fellowships including the George Washington Williams Fellowship from the Independent Press Association. An active ghost writer, song writer, martial artist, and journalist, his writings have appeared in a wide variety of national and regional publications.<\/p>\r\n

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