Dismantling Racism, One Brushstroke at a Time

News Article

View full size image of Artist Arvie Smith and two assistant painters stand in front of a vibrant mural showing young people looking to the future.

With vivid colors and striking images, Portland artist Arvie Smith challenges us to look beyond the surface and see the strength, resistance, and resilience of the oppressed.

Defiant, she peers out from the frame, rising serene above the forces that would shackle her to the earth, gazing to the hope of a new dawn.

Last fall, city workers installed 100 commemorative street sign toppers along Rosa Parks Way. The laser-cut, powder-coated toppers honor the legacy of Rosa Parks, the civil-rights icon who refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

The toppers were a joint project of Office of Arts & Culture, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and the Piedmont Neighborhood Association. But they would never have been brought to life without the work of another icon - Portland artist, painter, and educator Arvie Smith.

Arvie Smith has been a defining presence in Portland's artistic community for several decades.

A defining presence in Portland's artistic community, Smith grew up in rural Texas during the era of segregation, where he learned to draw by sketching images from a book. Long shut out of the insular world of academic art, he fought his way back in, becoming one of the first black students to graduate from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and one of its first black professors. A working artist for more than 40 years, Smith's practice is grounded in research and influenced by thinkers like James Baldwin, Angela Davis, W.E.B Du Bois, Michelle Alexander, and Isabel Wilkerson

Look around and you'll see Smith's work all over town. Still We Rise, located at the corner of NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Alberta Street, tells the story of the upward struggle of the Albina neighborhood. Albina, My Albina adorns the wall of the Garlington Center at the intersection of NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Morris Street. He worked with more than 110 detained youth at the Donald E. Long Home to design and paint a series of murals, including I am Somebody, on display at the Multnomah County Courthouse. His work has been shown all over the world and he has won too many honors and awards to name.

Following a neighborhood selection process, community members chose Smith-now in his eighties-to design a topper for Rosa Parks. The end result depicts her in the foreground, framed by the window of a bus-the same one she rode along Cleveland Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama.

To honor Rosa Parks Day and Black History Month, we recently caught up with Smith in his home studio in the Piedmont neighborhood to find out more about his work as an artist.

How did you get involved with this project?

Brian Borello, a public artist facilitator, approached me about doing those toppers along Rosa Parks Way. I think recognizing Rosa Parks is very important. She is a civil rights icon. You know, that street was originally named Portland Boulevard -- we were living here when they changed it to Rosa Parks. So when they asked me about the toppers, I said, Yeah, man! A chance to be a part of that? That's what my work is all about. She is a civil rights icon and my work is about civil rights and justice equality.

How do you approach a project like this?

I like to go to the community and ask folks what they want, introduce my ideas, and have a conversation. Someone took an iconic photograph of Rosa Parks sitting on the bus and I used that as my starting point.

Why that photo in particular?

Well, I'm from the South. Riding in the back of the bus was a big thing. Black people, we endured slavery for 246 years, and Jim Crow for another hundred. You know what happened when we protested. They beat us with water hoses - and worse. So for her to take that on, there were great risks for her. That photo captured her defiance. And she looked a little like my mother in that photo.

So you start with that photo. Then what?

Arvie Smith designed the iconic sign toppers honoring civil-rights hero Rosa Parks.

This project had some interesting requirements. It's a cut out. So I have to maintain the image through a line drawing. It's flat. It can only be one color. And every stroke has got to be connected, or it'll fall off. That's another requirement. I wanted to evoke that famous photo, so I manipulated the scale of the bus to make it smaller and reversed the positioning so she's in front of it - after all she's the one who matters, not the bus! I kept the sign on the bus, which says Cleveland. Cleveland Avenue - that was her destination. I do a lot of research for these projects.

Where'd you grow up?

I spent the first ten years of my life in in Roganville, Texas. A couple hundred miles east of Houston. My grandparents were both schoolteachers. They started the only school where black children could go. My grandfather had the only car in the community. There were no buses. So he would drive around and pick the kids up for school. Like an early version of Uber! We lived in the country. We didn't go into town. And when we did go into town, my grandfather kept us real close. He disallowed us from going to the movies or drinking from the water fountains. He warned us, "Don't go over there. Stick with me." We didn't understand why back then. But now I do. My grandfather was my hero.

How did you learn your craft as an artist?

I always thought of myself as an artist. When I was eight or nine, my granddad gave me a book of Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel. I went through that whole book and copied every one of those paintings. For my great grandmother's birthday, I did a copper tooling of my horse and gave it to her. She made a big fuss over it.

So I always considered myself an artist, but getting that formal education - that was a problem! No one takes you seriously without that degree. I went to high school in South Central LA. After graduating, I approached a near-by art school, the Otis Art Institute. This was back in the 50s. I wanted to find out what I needed to do to apply. I had no idea what a portfolio was. I got as far as the receptionist. She said to me, "We don't need your kind here." It floored me. Just floored me.

So instead I worked with kids in mental health and with at-risk kids. I would do art projects with them. Art is a powerful way to reach young people.

I kept drawing and painting. And then twenty-plus years later, I got up the nerve to apply to Pacific NW College of Art here in Portland. The admission director looked at my work and said, 'This is the best portfolio I have ever seen.' I was one of the first black students to graduate from that school, and later I became one of the first black professors there.

What is your mission as an artist?

First, draw them in. Get them to look. I use color for that. And then they will explore the painting. That's where the drawing and the draftsmanship comes in. A painting can survive poor color and poor composition. But it can't survive poor drawing or poor draftsmanship.

Then I want people to bring themselves, their frame of reference into the piece. I try not to explain it too much. I think it's kind of insulting if you tell people what this painting is about. I want them to start looking, and explore it for themselves, and make connections. There's got to be something there they connect with.

Ultimately, my art is my voice. My mission is to use my freedom to bring attention to injustice and racial and gender bias in our country while revealing strength, resistance, and resilience of the oppressed using a light of color, beauty, and hope.

Learn more about Arvie Smith.