THE FOCUS View all posts from The Focus

Hanna Seggerman: How have your childhood memories and experiences, like spending time in your aunt’s salon, influenced your artmaking practice?

Ashanté Kindle: When I think about my childhood memories in relation to hair, there are so many experiences that have allowed me to develop a true love for the important role hair plays in my identity. Hair has always been a way of connecting with those I love. I also always saw hair as a form of expression and creativity as a child. Hair is a major part of the Black identity and making art about it has been my way of shedding light on its importance to me.

HS: Do you work from sketches? How much planning vs. improv do you do in your creative process?

AK: I’ve never been big on sketching. My whole process is pretty much improv. I sometimes have an idea of what I want to do but I just go through the process and tend to respond to the piece as it develops.

HS: You have been exploring the ways that various colors come together to create the color black. Can you elaborate on why this has become part of your process?

AK: Blackness as an identity is so vast and I like to think of the color black as an accumulation of all colors. This exploration has allowed me to continue to expand my formal understandings of color theory while also continuing to relate it back to identity. There is no one way to exist within Blackness and that’s what makes Black people so beautiful.

HS: I see so much light within each of your works. How does the element of light function in your efforts towards personal healing in the celebration of the history and beauty of Blackness?

AK: The act of personal healing usually occurs during my creative process. Because I create a lot of repeated marks and motions, I often find myself in a meditative state while working. However, thinking about light in relationship to celebration tends to go hand in hand when I think about my work in that way. There is so much beauty and light in Black history. When thinking about the way light functions in my work, it often forces the viewer to view the work from different positions and really move around the work to fully take it in. I think about the history and beauty of Blackness in the same way.

HS: Labor plays a significant role in the creation of your works both through process and concept. Could you elaborate on the relationship between labor and repetition in relation to your work?

AK: I think about labor and repetition in so many ways in relation to my work. When thinking about hair, I think about the labor of the stylist or barber and what that labor does to their body. Eventually, this repeated labor will take a toll on their body and it's like they give a little bit of themselves to every person that sits in their chair. I then often relate that labor and repetition to my own creative process and the way I work. Labor often comes in as I move my body while working and repetition often comes when I am repeating marks to create my waveforms. These movements and repetitions sometimes allow me to place myself mentally in a place to become a beautician and my work becomes the client. Giving a bit of myself knowing that in the end what I give will result in something beautiful.

HS: What are you working on now and what is next?

AK: Currently, I’ve been taking time to really meditate on what is next for me. When I feel a change coming in my practice, I often find myself focusing on certain words, and lately, my word has been ‘Press.’ This word takes on a number of meanings for me so next I will be focusing on the different forms this word will take in my practice. I plan on moving more into sculpture and printmaking as I continue to meditate on this word and I am excited to see where it leads me.

Ashanté Kindle began her introduction into art through her love of photography as a child in Clarksville, TN. During her time at Austin Peay State University, where she received her BFA, she expanded her practice in search of new ways to materialize her artistic visions. As a multi-disciplinary artist, her practice functions as a form of personal healing as she creates with a desire to celebrate the history and beauty of Blackness. She finds inspiration in the textures of Black hair and creates abstracted waveforms through durational mark-making with a focus on process and labor. She currently resides in Mansfield, Connecticut as a current MFA candidate at The University of Connecticut.

Hanna Seggerman is a current MFA Candidate at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. She completed a BFA in Sculpture and a BA in K-12 Art Education at the University of Northern Iowa in 2019. Hanna was the Spring 2021 Lead Intern for Tri-Star Arts.

* images courtesy of the artist