LaKela Brown didn’t set out to become an artist.
In school, the Native Detroiter enjoyed taking art classes and drawing pictures, but it wasn’t until Brown’s junior year at Cody High School that she began thinking of what her future might look like.
The source of the reality check? Brown’s piano teacher.
“My piano teacher asked me one day, I think I was in 11th grade, ‘You know, this is the time where people start applying to schools and thinking about college. What are you going to do?,'” Brown recalled. “Nobody had asked me that before. My mother’s requirement was that I had to graduate high school. I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I could go to nursing school.’ She was like, ‘Nursing school? You’re an artist, go to art school.'”
And that’s what Brown did. With the help of Sabrina Nelson, an admissions counselor at the College for Creative Studies, Brown put together a portfolio and submitted her application. She went on to study at the college, graduating in 2005.
Brown recently held a lecture at her alma mater, coinciding with her first solo exhibit, “From Scratch: Seeding Adornment” at the Museum of Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). The display celebrates the nature in which Black ancestral and cultural legacies have permeated across generations despite incredible odds, including food. “From Scratch” features plaster art works of food popular in the Black community, like collard greens, okra and corn. The “adornment” part of the exhibit features door knocker earrings and necklaces.
“They’re meant to coexist because they’re different aspects of cultural expression,” Brown said. “One is more about like bodily adornment and the other one is more literal nourishment. But this idea of nourishing the body from the inside and the adornment being more of a mental, spiritual nourishment.
“When you adorn yourself, it’s decoration and it can seem frivolous, but there’s something about the fact that you get up, you take care of your hair, you wash your face, you might put on some earrings. It says something,” she said.
Brown, who now lives in Brooklyn, New York, talked to me about the exhibit. The show is on display until Oct. 20.
Editor’s note: This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
BridgeDetroit: How did you connect with MOCAD to put on this exhibit?
Brown: I have weirdly been involved with MOCAD since the beginning. When MOCAD opened they were looking for art students to attach ceiling tiles to Nari Ward’s Japanese tea house. Nari Ward was in the inaugural show here at MOCAD. I was 19 or 20 when when MOCAD opened, and I was very excited because it was cool that Detroit was going to get a museum specifically dedicated to contemporary art. I’ve continued to follow MOCAD and I’ve always known people who worked here. I’m always here, if not for some artistic business reason, then doing family stuff. It was always important for me to maintain relationships with Detroit’s creative community. And I’ve always wanted to have a show here, so it’s literally a dream come true.
BridgeDetroit: How did you get the idea for “From Scratch?”
Brown: We have this two-part title “From Scratch.” It comes from this idea of thinking about Black Americans rebuilding culture and that resilience to rebuild culture after having it stripped. People were brought over from the continent and were stripped of their languages and religions and all kinds of cultural things, and then kind of regrouped and formed a new culture. They built that culture from scratch and that’s the reference for me. It’s kind of like this alchemy of taking the scraps and rebuilding. And then “seeding adornment” is (MOCAD co-director/artistic director) Jova Lynne’s part and, as a curator, she’s really good with language.
You’ll see that the show is in two parts. The first part is kind of based around ethnobotany. It has to do with traditional understandings and uses of plants, the way plants become culturally significant. There’s a lot of small compositions all over the gallery and they’re mostly made of collard greens. And when you look closer, in some of the works, you’ll see corn. I used corn because when I eat collard greens, I eat it with cornbread. But also thinking about how Native people cultivated corn to be what it is over centuries before their land was stolen and colonized. In terms of history, okra is important because it’s a plant that people actually brought over from Africa, so it’s this through line back to the continent.
BridgeDetroit: Why do you prefer plaster as the medium for your artwork?
Brown: First it was an accessibility thing. Plaster is cheap, you can get it from the hardware store. But then, I think about the historic relevance of plaster as a casting material and as a stone. And then it references Roman, Greek, classical art. I grew up in Detroit in the 80s and 90s, but I also am a person who went to art school and studied Western art, so it’s also kind of a reference to that.
313 Scene
- Musician Patrick Prouty is Detroit’s first composer laureate. In the two-year appointment he will advocate for and represent the city’s diverse musical heritage, community and spirit. Prouty is responsible for writing music that represents or celebrates the city’s history and outreach to young musicians.
- Event company Uncle and Me LLC is facing backlash from attendees and the threat of legal action over a Bridgerton-inspired ball held earlier last month. Guests formed a “Bridgerton Ball Scam-Detroit” Facebook group, which has more than 900 members. Some are discussing the prospect of a class-action lawsuit.
- Guests will be able to “come on down” to “The Price Is Right” stage when the popular game show visits Detroit Feb. 12. Held at the Fox Theatre, “The Price Is Right Live” will give randomly selected contestants a chance to play Plinko, Cliffhangers, The Big Wheel and Showcase. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at 313Presents.com and Ticketmaster.
- Rock ’n’ roll photographer Leni Sinclair is set to autograph the beams of Detroit’s Scarab Club, signing an exclusive guestbook of sorts that includes artists like LeRoy Foster, Diego Rivera, Marcel Duchamp, and Isamu Noguchi, among others. Sinclair will sign the beams during the opening reception for “Detroit Leni: a Leni Sinclair Retrospective” from 1-5 p.m. Oct. 13. (Detroit Metro Times)
- Detroit’s Huntington Place will once again become a hotspot for Japanese anime, gaming, and pop-culture enthusiasts as Youmacon returns for its 19th annual convention. The four-day event kicks off Oct. 31 and runs through Nov. 3. (Detroit Metro Times)
As always, hope you enjoy the rest of your week!
Cheers,
Micah
What’s Going on in the D?
- The Tony-winning play “Some Like It Hot” opens today at the Fisher Theatre. Set in Chicago during the Prohibition, the musical tells the story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. With gangsters hot on their heels, they catch a cross-country train for the life-chasing, life-changing trip of a lifetime. The show runs through Oct. 13. Tickets start at $45.
- The Detroit Harvest Fest and Food Truck Rally returns Saturday and Sunday to the Dequindre Cut. Offerings include more than 50 food trucks, four music stages and family-friendly activities like two trick-or-treating alleys, crafting stations and a pumpkin patch. Tickets are $5 online and $8 at the gate. The festival is free for children under three years old, seniors ages 65 and older, and active/retired military personnel.
- Nonprofit Brightmoor Artisans Collective is hosting its annual Brightmoor Harvest Festival 12-5 p.m. Saturday at its headquarters, 22735 Fenkell Avenue. The free event will feature food, vendors and a hayride through the neighborhood, with stops at the Neighbors Building Brightmoor greenhouse and the Cross Pollination Corridor Project.
- Hatch Art Gallery in Hamtramck is hosting an opening reception for metro Detroit artist Luzhen Qiu at 6 p.m. Saturday, 3456 Evaline Street. Her exhibit,” Searching the Innerland,” juxtaposes fragments of memories from her childhood, Chinese traditional fabric textiles, old Chinese legends and fragments from Chinese vases. The show runs through Nov. 3.
- The Detroit Park Coalition is hosting the Rouge Park Buffalo Soldiers and Blues Freedom Festival 1-5 p.m. Saturday, 8886 Lahser Road. The event will highlight the history of the all-Black U.S. Army units that distinguished themselves during westward expansion in the 19th Century.
