Guiding Light: Jeremy Fiebig

Jeremy Fiebig is the Master of Play/Founding Artistic Director of Sweet Tea Shakespeare and Professor of Theater at Fayetteville State University. He also serves on the Cumberland County Library Board of Trustees. He holds an MFA from Mary Baldwin University and an MALS from UNC-Wilmington. He regularly works with other theater companies and performing artists across the region and writes and lectures on Shakespeare for schools across the country.

What does success mean to you?

This is an answer that has changed for me over time. I think it’s happening for everybody: COVID forced us into a different set of priorities, and we’re going to come out changed.

I’m an ambition-oriented guy, or that’s been my story. I like little achievements. I like badges. I like awards. I like degrees. I like collecting things like rank and status. And the sort of gamification of life has been the language I have understood and been successful at to this point in my life.

But I think where that’s changing is the artist in me actually has always wanted to push against that. To disrupt it, to use the language all the young people use these days. What does it mean to make art that actually doesn’t try to get to the next level, but is perfectly fine and happy where it is? I think the framework that runs counter against achievement-oriented success is meditative and reflective space. So how do you do that? I mean, theater does that naturally but, how do you, say, run a theater company where the goal is not to grow? That’s what the business world does: the pressure of work, capitalism generally, is to keep achieving and to keep growing. There’s a personal health version that’s necessary, but the economic version of that is not particularly healthy.

So it’s just more and more and more, and if you chase that rabbit too far, it goes to the opposite of Wonderland. So for me, what is the space that pushes against that? What are the hedges we build to create that space? What does success look like in that world, which is sort of quiet, maybe methodical or repetitive or, to use another word from another part of my life, liturgical. What does that work look like? I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately and it’s drawn me to some early conclusions about how success is quiet. Success is being able to get up in the morning and have two hours with a cup of coffee and my mind. I’m not getting up, looking at my planner and trying to think about the nine things I have to knock off my to-do list.

In my recent history, the last five years, I’ve had to really re-examine what success looks like. It used to be how many tickets can I sell and will my theater company survive? Will I get the kind of attention I got into this business for? But is that space as healthy as it can be? Is it as sustainable as it can be? That’s been a real shift in terms of success personally, artistically.

I also think success is about how am I empowering others to do what they need to do. I just turned 40 this past year and I’m working with folks in the Sweet Tea world who are younger and I’m remembering, oh yeah, I was basically exactly like that. What did I need that I didn’t get that I can provide to others? I worked in that sort of mode for a long, long time. I no longer have to prove anything to anyone. I can just live my life. And there’s a calm that can come with that.

I think this is true for all kinds of artists, but I know it is true for theater people: it’s like an addiction. And I mean that in the most direct and literal sense. It takes you to dangerous places if you let it. And it requires a kind of constant state of recovery–in all of the senses that that means–to be ongoing. And so success is a little bit like what success would look like in AA, which is did you make it through today? Do you have support? Did you make responsible choices today? And if you didn’t, are you cool to reset and keep moving on? So much of the talk about artistic life is really positive. I mean, there’s the negative side of it, nobody makes any money at it, for example. But if the positive side is oh, you’re this leader, you do eccentric stuff, you do things that nobody else does, you have talents nobody else has. And all of that is true, but I think for a lot of artists, if they’re in it, they’re doing that expression because there’s so much pressure and a lack of conformity in the other parts of their lives and it’s super stressful, incredibly exhausting, and risks being pretty dark. That is the addiction part of it, too. Everybody wants to talk about the high, they don’t want to talk about the withdrawals. They don’t teach about that in directing school. And so success is am I doing this in a way that is making an ideal life, just today?

What change do you seek to make with your art?

The change that I still have the fire for is a change in belonging, how we think about belonging. I had a lot of theater experience before I started Sweet Tea. That’s essentially why I founded a theater company because I think it was very rare to get right the idea of belonging. We use ideas like “community” and “common experience” and how we’re getting everybody in a room and we’re breathing the same air, how all the heartbeats in the room sync together.

But then we have professional structures where everything is temporary. And this is true, not just in the professional world, but also in community theater, educational theater. At the same time that we champion safety and care for actors but don’t provide that economically. Yes, there are lots of people who do this just because they love it, and the pay is bonus, but there is no security even in unpaid theater contexts because you never know the next play you’re going to do. You’re sort of artistically homeless the whole time. And that was something I felt like we mostly get wrong. And a lot of that, I sort of lay at the feet of bad tax policy and non-profit policy.

The theater world is such that you go contract to contract four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks at a time, if you’re really lucky, it’s much longer than that. But then you’re homeless and you’re jumping from spot to spot. But there are things that people like me can do, that theaters and arts organizations can and should do within that context. What does it look like to play around with the idea of a continuing community ensemble where actors and other artists have a stake and a say in the direction of the place? And that’s the experiment: the art is the company structure. The way of making plays in this regard has been the thing behind things.

And I say that on the educational side, too. There are days I feel like I’m good at teaching. For me, it exists on two extreme poles: I can work some magic because of my actor background, in a room full of 80 people who need the fire of a great sermon about whatever that thing is that day. And then the other side is one person at a time. But so much of the expectation of being a professor is nonstop measurement of what you’re doing rather than doing what you’re doing. And that’s just built for discouragement. Despite theater being a collaborative art form, if you’re in higher ed, you’re a silo, doesn’t matter what you do, you’re a silo because that tenure race is yours to run by yourself. There’s no one to hand the baton to. So we’re not good about creating spaces for belonging in that world. That’s the kind of change overall that I think I’m after.

How have you constructed the bridges of your career?

The bridges I’ve built have to do with two things. One is miracle: I have a mix of great privilege as who I am constructed in the universe. There are people who are constructed like I am, who don’t do what I do. The simplest way to describe it–although it seems a little woo-woo and new agey–is that I can manifest some shit. I can have a dream, whether it’s career-based or artistic-based, work or life oriented, and I think about that and it basically becomes true.

And the other piece that is a different kind of miraculous is I have just incredible resistance and grit, although I pay for it dearly. Like, I can keep going many times more than others who will quit earlier. And I have learned enough over my life to know that–I’ve had to go to therapy for some of this–but there’s a magical mix of questionable self-worth that I am built with that would cause other people to quit because they have too much self-respect or their time becomes too important to them. There have been long stretches of my life where that just hasn’t been true. I’m trying to prove something because I feel inadequate or whatever, and that kind of drive doesn’t happen in everyone. And the fact that I keep going, I think makes the manifestation thing more likely to happen.

And so, in terms of building bridges, there are lots of things that people who might otherwise be in my shoes would have said no to, and I haven’t, I said how can we make that work? My first two jobs in higher ed I got because I was a sort of jack-of-all-trades who could do theater tech work in addition to directing plays. I wouldn’t have gotten those jobs had I not said yes to the tech and design stuff. There are examples like that all over the place. There’s a version of that with Sweet Tea and founding the company: is this the way I would have done it had I the budget I wanted and the way I wanted? And the answer is no, I’m going with a path of at least less resistance. And that’s been part of the puzzle too.

I am happy and glad that Sweet Tea is able to expand to Raleigh, but I don’t think we expand there and then think, Hey, we’ve achieved the end. I’m honestly not sure what the other end is except more adventure. And, frankly, a little bit more financial predictability.

Who do you consider your present artistic cohort?

A handful of folks. Individuals and groups at Sweet Tea: two assistant artistic directors Claire Martin and Tracy Zapata, and music directors Jake French and Aaron Alderman. Dena Vassey, who does our costumes and Sana Moulder, who wears several hats from box office to costumes and other things: they’re part of that mix. And it includes this funky company that’s built on a medieval guild structure. So all the folks involved in that: it’s structured for us to develop those people and for them to weigh in on the company. That is a really, really difficult thing to manage and smarter people would probably choose not to do it, but it’s part of the soul of the place.

Outside the company, in terms of people that have and continue to influence me, I would include the American Shakespeare Center as a cultural institution.

My dad has been a big piece of this. He and I kind of follow each other: I got into Shakespeare grad school and then he took an interest, then I started a Shakespeare company and then he started a Shakespeare company, and we directed for each other, things like that. And he’s a college professor. So we sort of lead the other person now and again. And my mom is a jane-of-all-trades sort; the music piece is definitely tied to my mom, who plays piano.

Then there are a couple of other people: Rob Gibbs, with whom I’ve done a podcast off and on for years. We went to grad school together and we just fit. He’s a Hollywood screenwriter now. He landed in a different spot than I did, but we work together really well. And Rick Blunt, who’s another grad school friend. He’s just a good friend who cuts to the actual truth, whether we’re talking about art or whatever else. And that’s great.

Guiding Light: Brian Adam Kline

Brian Adam Kline is a director of film and theater, Artistic Director of Chameleon Children’s Theatre, and, perhaps most importantly, the theater teacher at The Capitol Encore Academy, where he brings his passion for enlightenment to his lucky students.

What does success mean to you?

Success to me is how I feel as a person, where I am as a human being. Success is measured on how you help other people, how you encourage young people who are going through the same things that you did. I don’t think that success is necessarily measured in awards or in money or what other people think. I think that to a degree that has something to do with it, but I myself measure success as Am I where I should be at this moment?

When you feel there is a disconnect, “no, I don’t feel like I’m being particularly successful,” What then? How do you look ahead and go, “well, what do I need to do to change that?“

Well, I’m all about the journey. I’m all about the process and not the product. I say that all the time to my students: it’s the process, not the product. If you look at the product, you get in a lot of danger; no one knows what’s going to happen. So I try to embrace the process more if I’m working on a children’s show, right. And things are not right. I don’t dare think about opening night right now. I’m thinking about where we are right now, how we improve ourselves, are the kids having fun? Am I having fun? Are we learning? Are they being artistically expressive? Am I being artistically expressive with them?

I think we’ve all seen that image of the iceberg: the bottom of the iceberg, it’s really deep and you see all of the things underwater that an artist goes through like rejection. Then you see the top of the iceberg: awards, money, applause. Those things everyone sees, but they don’t actually see what’s really below. Art is not instant. I like to give a Renaissance example: Michelangelo worked on the Sistine chapel for years. I’m just amazed by that, by the fact that somebody worked on and off for that many years to complete a project.

What changes do you seek to make with your art?

I want to educate everybody. It’s just that the level of that education is different. For instance, if I’m teaching a theater class to first graders, that’s going to be a lot different if I’m working in New York City with a group of actors trained at conservatory. Even if I’m on a set with adult actors, or experienced kids, I still want them to learn something.

I want people to be enlightened as much as I am. Enlightenment is key. Not just the people I work with, but the audience, too, I want to enlighten them. Even if I’m doing a piece that might not seem too much of an enlightenment piece, I think that there’s always something that we can find in there. In everything that I do, whether a children’s show or a film with adult actors, I want the people I’m working with to feel enlightened and to learn something and take something from the project.

Everything’s a stepping stone, it just keeps going up and up and up. I didn’t see it before, but I see it now that I’ve worked with some of these students for 10 years. I get to see how far they go. I have a student who I’ve known since she was maybe 11 or 12 years old and she just graduated with BFA in acting, which is the same degree I have. It’s so cool to see her take that journey. I didn’t see that as a young acting teacher in the beginning. I didn’t see the importance of that and the evolution of that.

I feel like I’m making a change through education primarily because whenever a student wants to come back, or is excited, or they talk about your class, or they talk about a play that we’ve done. I’ve gotten messages on Instagram from students who moved because of the military and then I’ll get random message thanking me for “Peter Pan” that we did four years ago. That’s proof that I’m making some type of change. I want students to feel that no matter what race, what gender, what sexual preference, what nationality they have, I want them all to feel they are worthy and they can do anything. They really can do anything. And theater and film is such a great vehicle for that.

Kline (kneeling front left) and Houck (front right) with the cast and crew of “Love and Coffee”

How have you construct the bridges of your career?

As a kid, as a teenager, I used to think about “how am I going to become the next Steven Spielberg?” And the thing is, you cannot do that. You just can’t. You can’t be sitting around and waiting for it to happen either: you have to find a balance. And so I started discovering that balance. I’m finding that if I work really hard on each project, then more things come. People will hear about your work.

I’m from a very small town and film making was very expensive back then. I actually had an opportunity in high school. The librarian received a grant and she bought a camera that you had to use a cord that went to the back of the computer with it and you would have to press play and then press record on the computer. And she stopped me in the hallway one day and asked, “Aren’t you the kid that makes movies with your parents’ RCA camera?” So the librarian offered to let me use this equipment. And I just went crazy casting high school friends. We were making sci-fi films. We were making horror films. We were doing exactly what I wanted to do as an adult.

When I went to college, a similar thing happened: they had camera equipment which I would use. So I got to practice. I went to school for theater because at West Virginia University they had a theater program, but not a film program. So I sort of did my own independent studies through filmmaking. And then everything I learned in theater class–acting or lighting or makeup or sound–I took advantage of that and took those elements of theater and used them in my filmmaking.

I worked at The Cameo and Lynn Prior, the founder of the Gilbert Theatre, heard about me. He met me, he introduced me to Robyne Parrish, then the new Artistic Director. She puts me into education there at the theater. I start directing plays. And then I started directing bigger plays. And then, CFRT asked me to do work for them. I’m now working with Sweet Tea Shakespeare. So if you focus really hard on what you’re currently doing, others see it, and then things will– as they say– blow up.

Now, Michael [Houck] heard about me through the Gilbert and actually we ended up producing and I directed a film called “Love and Coffee”, which was based on one of his plays at Gilbert. So that is kind of how those things happen now. You should just work really hard where you are, and then things start coming to you. Sometimes you just start your own set. The Chameleon Children’s Theatre I started because I had a space at school, all these resources, I had kids that wanted to do theater. So you start your own thing.

Has there ever been an idea pitched or an opportunity that you were like this is too scary, I can’t do this right now. Or I’m scared out of my wits, but I’m going to try this.

I usually say yes unless I feel that it will not allow me to grow. I mean, it’s not the size of the project; I have said yes to really small projects. But if it’s something that I cannot grow in, then it’s not something that I should do now. There are some things that I could have grown in and then I made the decision not to do it. And it was a mistake that I didn’t say yes. One example is an opportunity to be in a film that was being shot in Atlanta. I was gonna have this really small role. I was much younger and said no to it, because I would have to drive to Atlanta, I’d have to take off of work and all this stuff. And that was something I regretted.

But I’ve also said yes to things like that. A few years ago, I got the opportunity to work on a movie called “She’s Out of My League” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s on Netflix now and it’s so cool to see something like that. It opened up a lot of doors for me. Sometimes you make mistakes by not thinking the right things. And then sometimes you take a chance. I don’t necessarily use the word regret often. I think that every mistake you make is actually sort of a step. It makes you stronger, you know?

Who do you consider your present artistic cohort?

Well, I want to first start out by saying that Gustavo is a writing partner and love of my life. Then, professionally, Robyne Parrish is my fairy godmother. She is wonderful. She basically was the head of the transition from me being a student, not making any money, doing everything free to actually feeling that I had professional potential. She still does that for me, makes me feel that way. My second one: Mikey is so amazing to work with. I love how we produce things together. He helps me with projects. I help him with projects. He’s a wonderful writer and he knows how to make a screenplay just perfect enough to where it can be handed to me. Our working relationship is just fantastic. And he’s a great friend too. Third, is Gerard Falls, the director of The Capitol Encore Academy. He’s just a huge pusher for me to keep me going. He’s a big supporter of the theater company. Fourthly, Nicki Hart, she’s an actress and we’ve worked on I think, six projects now, and we just have this really great director-actor chemistry. She’s sort of like Tom Hanks to my Steven Spielberg or Uma to Quentin. And then the other artistic directors in town, Jeremy Fiebig and Mary Kate Burke; they’ve just been so wonderful on keeping me involved. I really do appreciate what they’ve done for me. And then just the other artists in Fayetteville, there’s so many, from the six year olds to the 60 year olds. There’s so many people that I’ve worked with in town and then there’s so many people that I haven’t quite got the chance to that I really would like to.

Guiding Light: Yolanda “Yogii with 2 i’s” Barnes

I first heard Yolanda “Yogii with 2 i’s” Barnes do an extemporaneous motivational speech at El’Ja Bowen’s 3:10 book reading at the Arts Council downtown. Her stories trilled, dipped, pushed, and pulled. She was mesmerizing. So it was no surprise to find out her background with Toastmasters and she was obviously ingrained into the local slam poetry scene. But the more you talk to Yogii, the more expansive you realize her artwork is. And her community. And her heart.

El’Ja was kind enough to provide her intro: Yolanda A. Barnes aka Yogii With 2 I’s is an award winning Spoken Word artist, painter, and workshop facilitator. She is credited for being the first Fayetteville poet to compete in a major regional slam competition that in turn brought the city of Fayetteville visible to the Poetry Slam world. She is also the author of the book, “Y Aren’t U Listening” and the owner of Inspired Ink Creative Consulting.

What does success mean to you?

Success to me is definitely being able to not only grow myself, but to have the ones around me grow as well. So if there’s no growth in me and there’s no growth for the people around me, I’m not successful. I love being able to walk around and see all the seeds that have been planted–whether they were intentional or unintentional–and everything they have produced in the harvest; it’s been amazing. Success to me is just being able to not only do well for me, but to do well for the people around me and my community: as big as slam coming to Fayetteville on a national scene and to as small as my daughter passing her EOGs, and everything in between.

Success is definitely not just a singular thing for me. It’s a group effort. I can’t tell you how many babies –I call all the poets, babies–how many poets I have named, or how many poets I have given counsel to, or how many poets have just come to just sit near me at a show just because, they didn’t want anything, they just wanted to sit there. Then they grow out and branch off into these trees, these teams, they leave the state, they go do other things, but that stem is still rooted, what they learned. And those are things that are beautiful to me.

Becoming a mother with a preemie baby– now a vibrant creative tween– changed how Yogii thought of success and her own artistic practice.

I was no longer Yogii the poet that I had been prior. My complete and utter life flipped on its head. I felt the death of me. I felt like my voice was no longer the same as it was before. I honestly was grappling with how do I become this mother? And how do I continue to live in the shell of what I was? And there’s no real way to do that. The butterfly doesn’t have a choice of staying kind of in. And so I had no choice but to become that butterfly. It’s still every day deciding to be that butterfly and not go back to the Caterpillar.

But I got a chance to see myself and to deal with me in a way that helps me grow and become more successful in the process. It was different; my poetry was different. I was everything from angry to sad to hopeful and yet melancholy at the same time. It was just a mix of things that I hadn’t felt all at one time. Some days are better than others, but I’m better for that process everyday.

What changes in your audience do you seek to make with your art?

I love being the person that teaches without people knowing I’m teaching them. I don’t want to be the person that’s like, “Hey, you gotta do this and you gotta do that” because people don’t learn that way. But if I can get you to laugh and we can talk and have a conversation, and then I can hit you with a question every now and again, and then I can give you a long pregnant pause for you to think about some things, and then we come back and talk about it again later. If my art does that, in a poem or on canvas or my mannequins or different avenues, various techniques and skill sets, to make you look, and then look again and then make you wonder. I think if my art doesn’t make you wonder, if my art doesn’t make you sit quietly and reflect, then I’m not doing something right, because I need you to go within yourself and say, “how do I feel about that?” Or even just want to think about that. Cause a lot of people don’t have time and don’t make time. And that is one of those things that I want for my art to do, if it’s singing, if it’s rapping, if it’s painting, if it’s drawing, whatever it is that I’m doing, if I can get you just to say, “how does that relate to me?” That’s when I’m hitting on something.

How have you constructed the bridges of your career?

Honestly, I was doing a certain thing by accident back in the day: categorizing people. So if you know me from poetry, then I’m not going to put you in my art realm or I’m not going to put you in my music route. But I didn’t realize the six degrees of separation is real. And because it is so real, when I would put people in those different categories and people would know each other from those different categories, they’d be like, “well you mean Yogii the poet?”

And they’d be like, no, I mean, the artist,

no, you mean the singer,

but like, no you mean the girl that works at Belk.”

Somebody told me “you wrote a book, I don’t even know why you didn’t tell me.” Well, you’re not in that box, you know? But that’s how that works and now people want to know more about my work.

Another thing I did was I wanted to prove things to myself. When I went to Southern Fried Poetry, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know it was the second largest national poetry festival. I had no idea. I just put my money up and decided to go. I didn’t tell anybody. Finally, I told El’Ja, “You need to see this.” It was like the last two days of competition, the day before the final stage, and he knew a lot of the people there. I didn’t hardly know anybody, but I wanted it that way. I was trying to prove to myself that I was not wasting my time by writing poetry, by being just who I was. I was proving to myself that it wasn’t a waste of time. And I think for me, a lot of things that I have done and still do to this day are just to prove a point to myself.

A lot of times, too, for me, it takes a contest. When I wrote my first book, I put it up for a contest. So Fried, that was a contest. The wire dress was for a contest. Sometimes that extra push of a contest makes it even more exciting: just being able to know that it can be done, even if I don’t know anything about it, makes it even more amazing.

And I pivot myself into positions that have always been able to bridge me into the next thing. People don’t believe it, but sometimes you just gotta go, you gotta do. Because if you’re in that space, they will see you and they will wonder about you and they will make room for your talents. I continue to put myself in places that most people wouldn’t even dare, just because they thought they wouldn’t make it in that space. I’m in that space and you’re going to see me.

Who do you consider your present artistic cohort?

I have been going to writing workshops during this whole pandemic: Cultivating Content, Craft, and Conversation by Christine-Jean Blain and Kimberley Gaubault. It’s open with donation for anybody to come to the workshop. They are amazing: they push and they question and they give the best prompts. When I’m there in that virtual space, I feel free. I can write, I can really just put pen to pad: whatever comes out comes out. I give them a lot of credit for creating that space. There’s other workshops I’ve gone to and I have my own artists’ retreats where I work with people. But for me, for that release, yeah, that does it.

Right now I’m focused on writing, but when summer hits, I go back into painting because I can be outside. I can’t wait to get on canvas cause I want to practice more with watercolors. I have lots of visions in my mind, so I want to get those down. Usually I cycle a year creatively, so when I can get outside, that’s usually the time I paint and when it’s cold outside is when I’m inside, working on next year’s plans or writing and doing things.

Guiding Light: Leslie Pearson

artist Leslie Pearson. photo by Shane Booth

The official short bio of Leslie Pearson reads: a multimedia artist who utilizes many fiber based materials, processes and techniques to create sculptures, installations, encaustic paintings, and handmade books in which she explores themes of memory and identity. She pursues art as a studio artist, community arts advocate and educator. She has taught at various colleges and Universities and currently serves on the Board of Trustees at the Arts Council of Fayetteville, and is a member of the Surface Design Association. Pearson exhibits her work nationally and internationally. But that doesn’t scratch the surface of the long and varied path her artwork has taken her on, how she’s become a fixture in Fayetteville, or even touch on Fayetteville Pie Company or her forthcoming establishment, Curate Essentials. Pearson has traveled the world and embodies the idea that you can improve and be improved by your local community.

A portion of installation “Tell Me Your Secrets I’ll Tell You Mine” and her cat, Friday Noir.

What does success mean to you?

When I was younger, I used to dream of being an artist. I thought, “Well, how can I make money as an artist? How would that look as a success?” So I thought I would teach art; that was my limited knowledge of what I could do as a profession in the arts.

I pursued that and then switched from arts education to studio practice because I knew I needed to hone my skills as an artist. Then, I wanted to work at the arts council in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, when I was taking my studio classes. That opened my knowledge of arts administration and being able to work in a gallery space, which led to pursuing a master’s degree in museum studies, in the hopes of working in an established museum. But when I got back to the States, that was when 9/11 happened and people were really holding onto their jobs. I realized, if I want to work in a museum, I need a PhD or I need to at least learn a foreign language, but it was really hard to even get a foot in the door in museums.

So there I was with debt, student loans, things like that. I was having meetings with professionals in the art world; I moved to Kansas City for a little while because I thought I would have a better connections. And I ended up working at Sonic and selling my plasma three times a week. That’s how hard up I was. I worked at a donut shop before Dawn and I was substitute teaching. I was like trying to do whatever I could to earn some money. I met this kid who said, “I’m going to join the army because I’ll use my GI bill. They’ll pay for my education after that.” And it just kind of clicked in my mind; I’d never thought about joining the army. And she said, “well, why don’t you just talk to my recruiter?” one thing led to another, and then I’m in the army as a photo journalist. That was the most creative thing I could think of to do for the army. From there, I started writing articles for the local newspaper in Augusta covering arts and entertainment. I realized after I got out of the army that I could get a master’s degree, which would then allow me to circle back and teach art at the college level.

After arriving back in Fayetteville with her husband, Pearson opened the Fayetteville Pie Company, which she credits to a childhood spent learning from her grandmother how to garden, can food, and bake pies for a crowd. Another childhood dream was to open a studio/coffeeshop-type place with her sister, who now also resides in Fayetteville and works closely with Pearson. They are currently renovating a Haymount building to achieve this dream.

To go from being artist-, writer-, teacher-brain to business owner was a big change for me. Through that, I’ve really learned a lot about running a business, which is now helping me as I’m developing Curate Essentials, which I think brings me full circle because with it, I’m able to take everything I learned from the pie shop and develop this store. All that I learned about teaching: I’m going to be able to teach workshops here. Everything I need in terms of travel to exhibit my work, this place is going to allow me the flexibility of that. I’m going to be able to use part of this space as a studio space to continue making work. I’m going to be able to show work. I’m going to be able to bring visiting artists. And so I’m going to be able to cultivate all of that interest in teaching and being with other artists.

So to answer your original question when I was younger, I used to think that being a famous artist was being someone featured in an art book. For me now, it’s just being able to constantly live in my natural, creative, passionate self, but also earn a living doing that because what I’m doing has a monetary value as well.

detail from “Canoe”, a commissioned piece co-created with Australian artist Kerrie Bedson, 2018

What changes in your audience do you seek to make with your art?

I am interested in autobiographical work and the idea of family and being in a community. At first it was very literal: my thesis work was called “Vignettes of a Family”, and I broke down each person who had a big impact on my life and started exploring their story. Then branching out to think about the people who had touched my life in some way, even if it was indirectly. Because embroidery pieces are extremely time-consuming, I’m still working on a series called “Trace Evidence”, which is a fingerprint embroidered over, in an abstract way, old family photos. I love to learn. I’m a lifelong learner. So I was taking some classes on forensic science at Methodist University, where we were learning about fingerprints, how to take fingerprints and about trace evidence and how every single person has trace evidence that they leave. There’s a part of you that you leave at a scene and you also pick up things and you take them with you. So you always are touching your environment and being touched by it. I was thinking about life and how we touch other people’s lives and how one person can be influenced by this person. And they’re influencing you as well.

Pearson’s visual work is complex, usually made up of smaller pieces that represent community, and they are enhanced with text of some kind, giving more depth and intricacy to draw in the viewer.

They just, they like it for the simple shapes, the forms, the colors, and possibly the materials. And then when asked deeper questions, I have answers for them, because people approach artwork differently: everybody who approaches art comes with their own perceived notion, their own background and how they think about things. But I think that idea of family is a very universal thing.

Now how I’m going to use that to change the world in some way. As an artist, I absorb all of my surroundings, all of my interactions with people, everything that comes my way. And then I translate that into my work as a way to get it out and then invite people to just experience it. They have been able to connect with it and maybe see their situation a little bit differently.

How have you constructed the bridges of your artistic career?

There’s a great book called Hinds Feet on High Places that always made me think when I’m going through hard times, God’s got a plan. This little character, she’s trusting that she’s going to the high places and to get there, she thinks she’s going to go straight up, but she has to be led down lower and lower into valleys and in dark times, she realizes that she’s learning to trust more in her guide and in herself and the pain that she goes through makes her stronger. So she actually is able to live in the place where she’s meant to be on the mountain top. There’s been times in my life where I’m just like, ah, I just really want to get to this place where I have this huge exhibit and but I’m still here with these little small exhibits and stuff like that. Well, now I understand that when I do get an opportunity to have a big exhibit, I needed to show in those smaller places. I needed to define my work. I needed to grow as an artist. I needed to know those things. I needed to go through grad school to learn more technique and how to be a professional. I needed to teach at a community college before I could teach at a university. So it has been very, very, very small steps along the way.

One of my biggest problems is I never have enough time to actually get to all the things I have or want to do. I keep a journal with sketches; sometimes, I’ll say, okay, I’m going to do a little sample piece, which I’ll set in my studio. It will remind me, even if it’s a year or two later: Oh yeah, that’s what I was going to do with that.

from Pearson’s latest show “eco prints”, 2021

Who do you consider your artistic cohort?

Firstly, my sister, Leigh, who is my studio assistant. She has been a big help to me. My husband, Justin, who never complains about the ongoing projects I’m involved in. My friends Jennifer and Ellen, who are always game to do something creative and both challenge me to be the best version of myself. Everyone who works at the Pie Shop: they work so hard and are so creative. I wouldn’t be able to do it without them. And all of my Facebook friends who are always encouraging me. I also look to the other women business owners in Fayetteville who are in the trenches every day making their own dreams come true.

For me, also, is going to places and doing workshops. For instance, I’m going to be teaching at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, Tennessee soon. I’ll be surrounded by other artists who are teaching classes, and also exhibiting their work, and all the students. Those are the times when I get pushed; there’s a synergy that happens. So I rely on those times.

I have another friend, MJ, she’s about 80 years old and she’s my best bestie: she’s an artist. When I’m around her, we just push each other and we’re constantly being creative and things like that. I always say, I want to be like her when I grow up. We used to be together at Acme Art Studios in Wilmington. There were 22 working artists there. That was such a highlight of my life to be there every day with people who were working as practicing artists for their living and teaching and doing commissioned work and things like that. That was a really sharpening time for me.

Guiding Light: Dwight Smith

Smith with portrait done by Angela Stout, 2019.

Sometimes you meet someone in one context and then rediscover them in a different one and it’s almost as if the Heaven’s part and light shines down on them. I met Dwight Smith through his impeccable volunteer work with the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, which goes to show how deeply he cares about his chosen community of Fayetteville, since his hometown is Detroit. But in researching and talking with him about his painting, teaching at Fayetteville State University, and curation for Ellington-White Contemporary Art Gallery, it became much clearer why Smith is such a Guiding Light for his students, his audience, and all of us lucky enough to be blessed by his art and his wisdom.

What does success mean to you? “I’m the kind of person that always makes a plan. I always tell my students that you’ll never be successful if you don’t have a plan and then you implement those plans. And once complete that plan, that’s success. Then I make another plan for myself. I think that in making those plans, I’m moderately successful because I simply have enjoyed all the things that have happened to me in this creative journey.” Smith has traveled the world thanks to his art–trips to France, Senegal, Surinam, and China are especially memorable–and been able to meet and work with many of the artists he admires.

“I think I have a relatively successful career in life and I think it will just get even better. You never, never stop. You just keep working. You keep planning, you keep setting goals and you keep implementing and trying to make things happen that you want to see happen. Sometimes you have to do it for yourself. And sometimes there are other people who will see that you’re moving in a positive direction and they will help you do the kinds of things that you want to do.”

How have you constructed the bridges of your career? A successful career in Detroit, a myriad of solo or group shows, a well-respected gallery, an assistant professor-ship, even being a guest at a White House reception to honor ten Black American Art Masters: are some of the high points of Smith’s career. He jokes, “I never thought that my artworks would be in some of the collections that they’re in, so I’m very humbled about that, and I’m just very surprised. I’ll be honest: I’m surprised. Wait, how did I get here?”

“When you make a plan, you have to also say, okay, what do I need to accomplish to get to this goal, achieve the success. Sometimes those successes come to you because you’ve already done the preparation and you can then handle whatever comes. I belong to an organization called the National Conference of Artists, which is a national African-American art organization that I’m trying to get a chapter started here in North Carolina, and working with them and doing conferences and projects and planning, I have met so many artists, the people that I read about in books: David Driscoll, Elizabeth Catlett, Richmond Barthe, Samella Lewis, all these artists that we all look up to, I’ve met them all, sat down and had conversations with them. So it’s being prepared and being the kind of person that you understand your craft or learning about your craft, developing your craft, and you’re open to experiencing and receiving the information from those artists you look up to.”

“*Homage to Al Loving*“, watercolor collage

Who is in your artistic cohort?
Smith looked up to and learned from several mentors, other artists who “when they see you in a crowd, they point to you and say, hey, how are you doing, what’s going on and catching up. Sometimes you may not see them for a year, and then you’ve not lost the beat when you see them again.” Black art history legend Shirley Woodson Reid who was just named the 2021 Kresge Eminent Artist. Jon Onye Lockard, who Smith said was “the kind of mentor that would tell you “That’s really good. Or Dwight don’t tell that to anybody else anymore.” Jon was very special to me.” Willis Bing Davis in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. David Driscoll, who passed away in 2020. Then there are artists he still wants to meet, like Mark Bradford, “who is just phenomenal in his abstraction and the work that he’s doing. So I have those people that I really like and have those people that I’d like to meet. Hopefully the universe will take me in that direction.”

Smith curated an exhibition currently at the Arts Council and at Ellington-White Contemporary Art Gallery called Roots of Change, featuring 60 works by twenty-nine artists from a group he’s a member of called the National Alliance of Artists from HBCUs. “My ability to be able to create this exhibition with all of those wonderful artists is about being involved in these organizations. Becoming an associate professor at Fayetteville State University opened up avenues to these other historically black colleges and universities to continue to build my career and to help them build their careers. I am the kind of person where I will build you up while I’m building me up too. I never liked to do anything by myself. I like to take a group.”

“*My Soul Captures the Night Light and ignites the trail”*, mixed media on canvas

What change do you seek to make with your art, and how has that changed over time, if it has? “Well, when I started out, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I just had the desire to make art. While I was at Wayne State University, it was steeped in German Abstract Expressionism, very popular at that time period. I really liked the abstract, because that’s a broad term that allows me to do a lot of different things, spread my wings a lot of different ways and use a lot of different materials.” Besides painting, Smith does drawings, collage, and has even worked in bronze casting. “Over the years, my work has developed into being work that deals with families, celebrations of artists, the whole sense of being a black male in America, a black artist in America.”

As a teacher, both at University and in summer camps and classes, Smith carries specific principles he imparts to his students. “Your voice is what’s important. You need to be the new voice that we hear, that has something to say. You have the artist statements that you will write and those will evolve over time because your work will evolve over time. You may stay in the same lane, but the work becomes mature because you’ve worked out a lot of the technical aspects in it, the ideology, all the information that goes with it. So, I’m always evaluating my work and trying to improve my work and see what’s missing in my work, what holes do I need to fill to keep me being excited about making art. Although there are times that as an artist, that sometime you just have to make art, your brain will go: If I don’t get into the studio, I’m going to explode. You have to get to that studio and you have to work. It’s just who you are.”

Guiding Light: Neil Donnell Ray

At Paddy’s Pub, 2017. photo credit: Tony Murnahan

In planning for 2021, I had an idea to (for now metaphorically) sit at the knee of our local artistic wise ones and learn from their processes and experiences. They are truly Guiding Lights for our community.

You can’t be in the Fayetteville art scene for very long and not hear the name “Neil Ray.” I wasn’t in town two weeks before witnessing his brilliance at Java Expressions, the open mic night he created and has hosted for 22 years at The Coffee Scene on Morganton Road. He serves as MC, recites poetry both pre-written and improvised, and jumps on the cajon to accompany many of the singer-songwriters. Somehow, he both exudes warmth to his audience and artists and is the epitome of cool at the exact same time.

What does success look like for you? “Accomplishing a particular purpose,” he said, which in Ray’s case is not only pursuing his art of poetry and music, but also encouraging the artists around him to “see they’re stars in their own right.” He’s candid about the ups and downs he’s witnessed or experienced, which builds trust with his audiences and artists.

What change do you seek to make with your art? “I want to inspire others in the community.” Ray shares a story about a young person who attended a Java Expressions one night, then came back the next week and braved the mic to share a poem that started as a suicide note but then wound up being a life-saving piece of art. There is literal truth in his catchphrase: “If no one else will listen–the page will.”

How have you constructed the bridges of your practice? “I find every day life inspirational: the people and the action around me.” Ray became smitten with writing poetry in elementary school. He wrote while serving in the military, created custom pieces while working as a flower salesman, helped students as a teaching artist, and all the while works to make a community more inclusive using his art. “Practicing gives you a better understanding of your craft.” Getting up on stage or getting away to an artists’ retreat to write and record music both contribute to Ray’s continued longevity and growth.

Who is in your artistic cohort? “I look at [my community] like a buffet: my eyes get wide and I take all I can now.” Ray is not one to shy away from naming names. He pulls dozens of people into his art network: from early mentors Lt. Colonel Bill Bailey and poet Glen Carter to musicians Erik Smallwood (with whom he toured all over the Southeastern USA) and Puncho Forrest to next generation hyphenates like poet/performer/coach El’Ja Bowens, author/musician/teacher Shane Wilson, and poet/coach/designer Yolanda “Yogii with 2 iis” Barnes. He talks about theaters, poetry groups, the Writers Ink Guild, drum circles, jazz bands, Southeastern Regional NC Poetry Festival, and more.

It is one thing to watch Ray give away more ideas and inspiration than he keeps, encouraging poets, songwriters, musicians, and authors to work through creative concepts and build new shows, albums, books, or organizations. But the real blessing is to watch the love come pouring back. Over and over I’ve watched and listened to artists give credit, give adoration, even give money to help cover medical costs after Ray had a stroke in 2019. Ray’s generosity in both word and deed is truly an act of wisdom. May we all continue to be blessed by this elder.