Micah BlackLight: ‘It will be an especially delightful event for me’
By Debora Gordon for Ashland.news
The Ashland artist behind notable public art exhibits such as the Say Their Names memorial plaque and the planned Crystallizing Our Call will have a new exhibit at the upcoming November First Friday event in Ashland.
Micah BlackLight’s exhibit, “Archetypes and Essences” will be on display from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, in the WhiteRabbit Creator Clubhouse at 5 N. Main St., Suite 2, Ashland.
BlackLight is looking forward to the opening of the exhibition.
“It will be an especially delightful event for me, artistically and professionally speaking, because it will be the first solo exhibition where I am showing originals as well as prints, and people will be able to see how much detail actually goes into some of the larger ballpoint pen pieces in particular,” BlackLight said. “I’m also mixing a new body of work that incorporates paint marker line drawings atop painted canvases in a really stripped-down style that enables viewers to take in the line work by itself.”
BlackLight, a self-described “inspiration engine,” believes people almost have an obligation to pursue their artistic passions. Also a writer and dancer, he has adopted that belief into a driving principle he says permeates his own artistic works.
“One of my mentors gave me a really good piece of advice that I’ll never forget,” BlackLight says. “She said one of the things that her students ask her all the time is, ‘What happens when you set a goal and you don’t reach it, if you fail?’ And she asks them, ‘Are you dead? Then you haven’t failed yet. Just keep going, because if we quit, we do not reach that particular deadline.’”
“The next level isn’t a place to get to,” he adds. “It’s a place to be from.”
An artistic journey
BlackLight’s artistic journey began when he started drawing at age 3, followed up by his first story at age 6. He discovered fantasy and became completely enthralled with the endless potential to inspire visual and written media.
He auditioned and won admittance to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., where he said a combination of “luck, talent and hard work” landed him several scholarships and the opportunity to attend Pratt Institute of Art and Design in Brooklyn, New York.
Prior to attending Pratt, where he would graduate with a bachelor of fine arts degree in illustration and fine arts, he was one of a select few chosen for the Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) Animal Farm project which was exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum.
The program selected the students through a competitive district wide portfolio review, choosing those who displayed talent for caricature and portraiture. The goal of the intensive workshop sessions was to collectively create a large-scale painting based on George Orwell’s cautionary fable “Animal Farm,” depicting approximately 100 world leaders as barnyard animals. The painting is in the centerpiece of the Hirshhorn’s exhibition.
“It was a really big deal at the time,” BlackLight said.
After working for about 18 years as a graphic designer in the fashion industry, he finally chose to make the leap and become a full-time self-employed artist in 2010. He taught himself to sew and started fashioning couture ensembles and accessories. His fashion creations have adorned a host of “performers, activists, influencers and ordinary people.”
As a visual artist, BlackLight has designed album covers, illustrated children’s books and coloring books, and has also been commissioned for numerous tattoo designs, custom fantasy portraits, custom illustrations, concept art, live art, costume design, comic, novel, and graphic novel illustration and more. As a vocalist, emcee, performance poet and dancer, he has performed in venues ranging from New York City to San Francisco, Philadelphia to Ashland, Oregon, among other locales.
Though no longer a professional dancer, he was part of a dance troupe for about 14 years for four different companies, the longest being with the Ase Dance Theater Collective, a professional, neo-folkloric performance ensemble that specializes in Dance Theater from the African Diaspora.
“Myself and one other were also the only male dancers. That was a huge part of my life,” he said.
Fatherhood and smiling
In addition to his artistic history and ongoing works, BlackLight states, most importantly, he is dedicated to being the best father and partner to his family.
He is keenly aware of racial stereotypes in this country and delights in turning them upside down, citing his own being.
“My smile is a disarmament technique. I smile all the time,” he says. “When people see a tall, big black male, there are a bunch of preconceptions that can come with that. And my smile, my energy, my greeting…all are chops to all that. The way I am in the world constantly chops all of that. It’s intentional and involuntary at the same time. I love smiling.”
Debora Gordon is a writer, artist, educator and non-violence activist who recently moved to Ashland from Oakland, California. Email her at [email protected].
