#Since I’m a cartoonist and mostly draw people my teacher is focusing on that for me

[lemonynuggets]

Having a good art class for the first time in my life is such an insane feeling, all the other classes were just my teachers being incredibly mean, not actually teaching anything and making us do nonsensical assignments and now I have a teacher that actually takes note of the kind of art I’m into and gives me assignments based on things I enjoy and can improve? I made an oil painting of my current blorbo because this way I’d be drawing something I like and still trying a new medium and learning things? My first homework was making concept designs for my OC? My next assignment will be making a scrapbook-esque research about Julia Lepetit from drawfee? Is this even real

[blackcreativestalk-blog]

Meet Samuel Fleming

 Between being a fulltime student at Macalester College, creating a clothing brand, working as a political cartoonist for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (a black newspaper based in North Minneapolis), and doing graphic design for a friend’s start-up, Samuel Fleming’s cup runneth over. This Minneapolis born-and-bred artist, student, and multi-tasker is one to watch.

DTK: You’re from the Twin Cities.

SF: Yeah, I’m from Minneapolis.

DTK: Has growing up in Minneapolis affected your focus, in terms of what you like to draw?

SF: I think my focus has been affected by the people I’ve met more so than my environment. I grew up on the south side of Minneapolis, near the Richfield border and that’s a mostly white area. And so in terms of the people I met growing up, not so much. But I would go to museums. And I had teachers at school who would always introduce me to artists of colour and things my grade school would not have exposed me to. Most of my inspiration comes from books, from teachers I’ve had, and artists I admire. The two artists who have had the greatest influence on me are Pablo Picasso and Kehinde Wiley. Those are my two.

DTK: What were some of your earliest experiences with art? How did you get started?

SF: I’ve been drawing since I was two. Have you seen Toy Story? Well, according to my mother, I wanted to colour in a picture of Buzz Lightyear and we didn’t have any in the house. So I’d ask my parents to draw pictures for me. They got tired of it and told me to draw them myself, to see if I could it. So I tried it a few times and finally got one that I liked. I would colour it in and from there I just started drawing a whole bunch of other things.

DTK: What’s your main medium when you’re creating?

SF: It used to be graphite pencils from when I was two until I was sixteen. And then at sixteen, I went to an art camp. One of the camp leaders introduced me to ink, cross-hatching, and making these images that were quick, but that looked cool to me.  At first I would do them really fast. Then I started taking a longer time with them and going for a more realistic angle. And then ink just became my favourite. Then I ran into colour pencils. I watched a YouTube video of somebody doing a time lapse drawing and I tried my best to copy it, and figured out how to use those. I would say that right now my favourites are ink and colour pencil.

DTK: What does your process look like? Do you work from memory or from images?

SF: It depends on what I am trying to create. If I am doing a portrait of any kind, it’s typically from a photograph or someone in front of me. Mostly photographs, actually. But if I am doing a cartoon, or something grotesque or abstract, it’s just right from memory.

DTK: You’re a political cartoonist for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. I follow your work on Instagram and it’s really cool. It seems to have a narrative quality to it, always relevant to conversations happening in the world. What motivates you to pick up on certain themes?

SF: Black Lives Matter has to be the biggest by far. When I was age 15 through 18, I just completely dived head first into black history, black artwork, black culture. I watched documentaries, read all kinds of books. Malcolm X became probably the biggest influence on me in all spectra of my life, to date. His teachings helped me view what’s going on in a way that I feel comfortable expressing in my work.

DTK: Do you consider yourself an artist or an activist? Perhaps both?

SF: I think to call myself an activist would be a disservice to people who are out there, dedicating their lives to the cause. And while some or my art is in reference to that, a lot of it is not. So I am more comfortable with “artist” than “activist”, only because I have respect for true activists who are out doing what they do, all the time.

DTK: I hear that. Do you have a specific audience in mind when you’re creating?

SF: [Laughs] It changed really drastically after Trump got elected. After the third debate, actually. When I started [college], I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my art. I was just doing gallery-type-stuff, trying to get my work noticed. Asha Long [an organizer with Minnesota Public Interest Research Group] saw my work and said, “You’ve gotta be a cartoonist! Get your work out there!” She just turned me onto the world of cartoons, and political cartoons in particular. I did a lot of research and found that I could actually influence people with my art work. I could make people see things in a new light, hopefully change somebody’s mind or reinforce their opinions, in a good way. Or in way I thought was good [laughs]. And that was all fuelled by Trump’s rise. I thought in a perfect world, people’s art could show the truth. Then he got elected. And I just lost all steam for the truth. Because despite the truth, he got elected. After that, I pretty much focused completely on my clothing brand and gallery work.  I haven’t drawn a political cartoon in maybe a month. I’m gonna pick that up sooner or later. I know I will.

DTK: It’s rough. We are living in strange times.

SF: Oh yeah!

DTK: Is there a particular piece that has flowed easily, from the image in your mind and onto paper?

SF: The very first cartoon I made after I got the job at the Spokesman-Recorder. I did a lot of research on old World War I propaganda that the United States used to get people riled up and eager to help in any way they could. One image they had was of a big gorilla with a German helmet on, holding a woman who was supposed to represent the Statue of Liberty. I took the Trump head and put it on the gorilla and made the woman the actual Statue of Liberty. 

DTK: That is incredibly creative! Do you have certain hopes and dreams for where you would like to see your artistic journey go?

SF: I am working to spread the word about my clothing brand, Phillip Park. I am also trying to build up a portfolio so I can submit to galleries, both local and in the greater Midwest region, to see if I can get more work out there. There is gallery that contacted me a month ago called Citywide Arts. They expressed interest in working with me in the near future, so I am waiting to hear from them. I’ll continue my work as political cartoonist for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. The website is currently under maintenance, so they haven’t posted any cartoons for a while. But once it’s up and running, I’ll be back in rotation. A friend I haven’t spoken to in a year hit me up about a month ago. And he and I are going to build some apps together. He does custom app building and I will do the graphic design for his orders. That should hopefully start up within the next month or so. Those are my plans.

DTK: That’s exciting! What would you like people to take away from your work?

SF: I hope that people stop seeing the white perception of the world, in America in particular, as the norm. I hope people stop seeing black people as “black people”, and just start seeing them as people. There was an old slip-up by an LAPD head during a speech where he differentiated between “black and Latino people” and “normal people”. He really messed that one up! [Laughs] And that’s really indicative of what a lot of people are thinking, even if they don’t say it out loud. But if, culturally blackness and any culture that’s not white can be become the norm, we would have a lot more synchronicity in the country, I think. That would be my hope.

DTK: Where can we find your work?

SF: On Instagram and my website.