Arts so white? Lexington artists say LexArts must do more for minority artists

Lexington must work to make the local arts scene more inclusive of people from diverse backgrounds, visual and performing artists, writers and other members of the city’s arts community said at a Tuesday meeting.

“There is a history of exclusion of minority artists,” said Soreyda Begley, a fashion designer and one of the forum’s organizers.

She said there’s a lack of accessibility to spaces, money, networks and other resources.

The issue of lack of diversity in the arts and recognition of minority artists came to a head last weekend after a Facebook post by LexArts, the city’s community arts organization, announcing the selection of 13 artists by Commerce Lexington for art purchases. All the artists were white.

LexArts did not select the artists, but the promotion of the artists selected prompted an outcry from many in the artist community and the resignation of two LexArts board members.

But questions about LexArts and its ability to attract and promote diverse artists has been simmering for years, artists said Tuesday.

“The idea was to speak up on the issue,” Begley said of the forum hosted at Base110 Tuesday night.

She said Lexington has many artists who are “doing incredible work, but they’re not being recognized.”

Ame Sweetall, president and CEO of LexArts, stood up near the close of the forum, which was standing room only, and told the crowd: “I have listened, I promise.”

“We need to start talking about all of these issues,” she said. “We need to hear about where we are failing.”

“The intentionality of LexArts is to do better, and we want to engage,” Sweetall said.

Tuesday night’s meeting was attended by multiple arts groups and eight members of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council.

“I very much value the arts,” said Vice Mayor Dan Wu, a former LexArts board member, who was at the meeting.

“They have obviously not done a good job of reaching artists of color based on what we heard last night. We need to do better, and we need to do a deep look on how we are serving the arts community in Lexington.”

In an apparent reference to the social media post about the Chamber of Commerce’s art selection, Sweetall said, “We weren’t sensitive to what was happening when a private purchaser picks all white artists for their purchases.”

In response to any notion that LexArts has no control over what private purchasers choose to buy, Begley said that’s problematic, since LexArts should be filling the role of advisers on arts matters.

Oquaye said, “somebody could have spoke up. Silence is a choice.”

“Presumptuous art?”

Artists spoke Tuesday about how the culture in the Lexington arts community has affected them and what they think could help.

“Living here as an artist of color has had its challenges,” said Denise Estelle Brown, a poet and painter.

She recalled an experience she had with one professor in particular while studying in Transylvania University’s art department. She said she’d been working on a series of paintings.

“He told other students that my work was presumptuous,” she said.

She said a group of students came into the room where she was working to have a look at the “presumptuous” art.

“What was presumptuous about it?” Brown said. “It had Black faces in it.”

Brown said she has been able to get commissions through LexArts in the past, but “those things have been far and few between,” while she said she sees other artists being granted projects that are “very vanilla.”

She said she wanted to be a part of the forum because of “the frustration that I know so many other artists are feeling, feeling left out, feeling not seen, not heard,” she said.

“You sense that there’s one clearing house for all the funds that are available to the art community, yet feeling that you exist on the fringe of that community,” Brown said.

Tony Wavy, a visual and performing artist, said growing up in Michigan, he saw the impact public murals had on kids in the community as they saw themselves represented and realized, “Oh, I could create. ...There’s a space for me to be creative.”

“It changed the landscape of what Monroe, Mich., was,” he said.

When he moved to Lexington, Wavy said he found accessibility to be a problem.

“I couldn’t even find other artists,” he said. “Young people have no idea what LexArts is. ...It’s not just about the money, but the accessibility to money.”

“I want to be seen. I want to be heard,” said Ian Dali Castillo, a first-generation Mexican-American artist who was born in Lexington. “This is an issue that is real.”

He said he’s tired of feeling “forced into a box.”

“Lexington celebrates the arts, so celebrate the artists,” said Bryce Oquaye, an artist with a studio at the Lexington Art League and one of the organizers of the event.

Oquaye said in an interview after the forum he and another LexArts board member Lakshmi Sriraman resigned from their positions on the LexArts board after the social media post promoting the white artists selected by Commerce Lexington. But the social media post was the tipping point, Oquaye said.

Sriraman was head of the board’s diversity, equity and inclusion subcommittee.

“I was already on my way out,” Oquaye said.

Oquaye said he was among the people who called out the organization in the comments on the Facebook post, but he said LexArts deleted his comments.

In response to any notion that LexArts has no control over what private purchasers choose to buy, Begley said that’s problematic, since LexArts should be filling the role of advisers on arts matters.

Oquaye added: “Somebody could have spoke up. Silence is a choice.”

At the same time, Oquaye said board members had been encouraged to help LexArts draw in donors as part of its Fundraiser for the Arts Campaign, something he wasn’t motivated to do because of how the funds are distributed.

“I wasn’t going to do this fundraising thing,” he said.

Oquaye said some of the rules around accessing LexArts funding make things harder than they need to be for people.

“It could be so much easier and so much more fair,” he said.

When he joined the LexArts board, “That was an opportunity, I felt, to initiate change. What I found was, it was a lot of lip service,” he said.

Oquaye said there are plenty of people doing public arts service work in the community who are not receiving fair compensation for it. He’d like to see LexArts do more to actively reach out to them, to say to the community, “we need artists of color.”

“Most of us do this with no resources, no excuses,” he said. “We work multiple jobs. We know that it needs to be done.”

After the forum Tuesday night, Oquaye said he felt attendees had been able to identify allies and make connections that will allow them to work together to affect change.

And, he said, it helps to know “you’re not alone in your frustrations.”

“I think what will come of this is a bit of empowerment mixed with accountability,” he said.

Oquaye said the forum was the first step: “people confronting the issue vs. everybody knowing the issues and not saying anything out loud.”

“The work that needs to be done is very clear,” he said. “The way that we need to be mobilizing is very clear.”

“I hope people left this empowered, fired up, ready to make some accessible change.”