My childhood home was the first gallery I came to know intimately.
My parents were not art enthusiasts, per se, but they were immigrants and ambitious dreamers who wanted my sister and I to see ourselves, as the author bell hooks wrote, “in our glory.” Our family photographs depicted us in beauty, power and wholeness, rejecting every image that attempted to relegate us to a stereotype.
This ordinary act would ring in my ears for years to come. A reminder that being Black and an immigrant’s child is an extraordinary thing. It was there, in my own home, that I first heard the whispers of art’s power: What we exalt on our walls, we also honor in our minds. And we, just like anyone else, could and should be seen in our glory.
From there, it wasn’t hard to see the impact of this principle on a larger scale: the ideas we exalt in our museums and galleries, we also honor and protect in our culture and laws.
This is what spurred me to become a culture writer: to shed light on the indispensable value of art in our individual lives and our collective trajectory.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s new arts and culture reporter, that’s exactly what I hope to do.
From legal aspirations to a life of art
As a girl, I was fascinated by color, texture and creative expressions. Exhibitions, no matter their theme, always had a way of mystifying me. I would spend long stretches with artwork, gazing at them from benches in galleries.
At the time, though, I thought I would become a lawyer and an engineer. As a lawyer, I could use persuasive language to hold power to account. And as an engineer, I could work with my hands to create something meaningful.
But in my early adolescence, I read Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin and Ntozake Shange, and I was stirred by their ability to humanize political and cultural crises. In the tradition of these writers, I started writing poetry and creative nonfiction to address social issues with depth and human impact.
Then in my first art history course, I learned to explain more clearly why art was about more than just aesthetic enjoyment.
I developed the belief that art allows us to encounter vulnerability, in addition to glory, within the artist, ourselves and our neighbors.
Be it the deferred dream of Steven Yazzie’s “Orchestrating a Blooming Desert”(2003), the agonizing grief of Mark Bradford’s “150 Portrait Tone” (2017) and Howardena Pindell’s “Four Little Girls” (2020), or the despondent eyes and protective embrace of John Wilson’s “Mother and Child” (1952). Depictions of such raw humanity have the capacity to shape us into more compassionate community members, more thoughtful voters and more indignant seekers of justice.
I was unable to peel myself from museum benches, gallery walls, books of poetry and works of creative nonfiction. So I decided to pursue journalism as an amalgamation of my passions. I figured I could write somewhere at the intersection of Ida B. Wells and James Baldwin.
Throughout college at Harvard, while writing for my school’s magazine, I created an organization called the Black Arts Collective along with three visionary artists. The name was not merely a representation of our audience; it was an homage to our enslaved ancestors who relied upon art to overcome indescribable suffering, find strength amid brutality and remember their glory despite dehumanization.
We all believed that art had the power to do this, and we sought to cultivate that belief in the artists around us. We curated explosive and intimate galleries, exhibiting bold works that addressed beauty and identity, history and politics, violence and repair – often all at the same time. We put together workshops, educating our community on the relationship between art, culture and power. We published artist profiles, sharing the meaning of their work with a wide audience.
At the time, I never thought I would be offered a job that would allow me to take bits and pieces of that work and bring it somewhere else. Nor did I think I would find a job that would allow me to think so preciously about works of art, to engage so critically with creativity, and yet remain connected to a wide audience. Yet here I am, awestruck to be sitting in that very position.
Though my work here at the Journal Sentinel will span a range of subject matter and media, I intend it all to draw from this principle: to report on art that helps people think more critically about the world and their place in it. To report on art that moves people, giving them a sense of hope and strength, and pointing them to deeper truths. And this means art from people of every color, every creed and every discipline. Though the art that first spoke to me was honest and honorable depictions of Black life, I have since been inspired, gutted and changed by artists from all walks of life.
From the brief introduction I have had to the Milwaukee arts scene, I imagine there will be no shortage of this. I’ve found that the artists here are proud of this place, maybe especially so of the communities within it who have historically suffered misrepresentation. There are pillar institutions, major players, self-taught artists and emerging talents. There are those who desire to make a name for themselves outside of this city, and there are those for whom art will always be a side hustle. There are expectations and experiments.
I am here to report on it all. I want to be your eyes and ears on the ground of Milwaukee’s artistic landscape, interacting with and reporting on people in every part of this city and beyond. To do that well, I will have to do far more than write. I’ll host events with artists to strengthen the arts community and this newsroom’s relationship to it. I’ll use video, audio and photos to capture everything from gallery openings and poetry slams to fashion shows and dance performances.
My stories are not for me; they are for you. So tell me what I don’t know, send me feedback of all kinds, the story ideas you find valuable, and the ways you feel my coverage can improve. Whether you’re an aficionado, a casual fan, an artist yourself, or someone who has been dying to find their place in the art world, my work is for you.
Anya Sesay covers arts and culture for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Send her story ideas, things to see and people to meet at asesay@usatodayco.com. Follow her on Instagram @anyanic0lette.
Anya’s reporting is supported by the Herzfeld Foundation, the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, and reader contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
The JS Community-Funded Journalism Project is administered by Local Media Foundation, tax ID #36-4427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Meet our new arts reporter, whose first gallery was her childhood home
Reporting by Anya Sesay, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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