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Rob Lee: Welcome to the Truth in the Arts. Your source of conversations connecting art, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Except no substitutes. Today I am thrilled to welcome my next guest on to the program, an Afro-Caribbean collagenist and educator based in Silver Spring, Maryland, and their work blends hand cut paper and digital collage to explore Afrofuturistic themes and surrealism, creating immersive visual narratives that celebrate the humanity, intersectionality, and otherworldliness of the African diaspora. So joining me today is Khadija Jahmila. Welcome to the Truth in his art.

Khadija Jahmila: Thanks for having me. This is exciting.

Rob Lee: Yes. It's always a a pleasure to kind of like connect with someone offline, like sort of uh like I I I'm trying to think like where I became aware, because I I know it was like I'm I spend time in Eton. I'm in this sort of Baltimore DC back and forth, and it was something that struck me about about your work, about your your background, so I'm glad we're able to have this time.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah, I was curious too how you came across me, but I uh I move around, so it could be anywhere. I'm excited that we're crossing paths again for this.

Rob Lee: Absolutely. So as we we start off as is the custom, um, I'd like to have the guests introduce themselves in their own words. I think it's really something important and powerful about like someone describing who they are, what they do, and something about their background. So if you will, could you tell us a bit about you, introduce yourself in your own words?

Khadija Jahmila: Oh yeah. Um so I am an analog and digital mixed media collagenist. I'm also a mama. I have a two-year-old named Marley. Um I'm a teaching artist, um, and I'm based in Silver Spring, Maryland. Um I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Forensic Biology back in 2015. I always like to say that it was from a very hippie Quaker liberal art school that you probably have never heard of. It's called Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Rob Lee: Oh, that one? Okay. kidding.

Khadija Jahmila: Um Yeah, I think forensics for me, um science and art they go together, right? They people think that they're opposites, but I think that I rely on both of them deeply. Um, in terms of my like observation and piecing together these kinds of narratives of somewhat scattered but related elements. Um So I think the the marriage of the two is really how I found my lane in collage. Um and just like an overall love of the tactile process and play um of using secondhand materials.

Rob Lee: That that's it's interesting to to hear that sort of that background. I I didn't fire from me initially, so hearing like sort of forensics is is like sort of that's where the the education in the in the in the training area is at. So how did art come along and and what prompted like since we're in that territory, what prompted collage work like in like making collages and sort of working in digital and analog, which I have a whole litany of questions that can just focus on that, like the I was thinking about the Austin Cleon stuff, the digital analog loop, but talk about how you got into art.

Khadija Jahmila: Um I so I have always loved art. I love color, I love storytelling. Um, but I think I first came to know myself as uh as an artist on my twenty-first birthday. I was at Guilford and I decided I would take like a little stroll down memory lane. It's super small college, but I walked to the dorm where I stayed freshman year.

It's called Binford Hall. There were only two freshman dorms, and I wrote two poems on the sidewalk, just sitting on the sidewalk, people watching, observing, um, reflecting, and I read them back to myself and was like, this is good. This is really good, and I should write more of these. Um and I could kind of continued writing after college and found that it seemed like a collage, right? Like there's so many ways that we live collage, right? Like making a soup, putting on an outfit, you know, like I got these pants from a vintage store in Arizona, and this shirt is from my grandmother, and these shoes are, you know. Um, and it was kind of just like patchwork love for me. Um I think at one point writing kind of became a little stale based on just like that stage of my life, and I um started kind of picking up art supplies that I had around the house and other things that I hoarded that would at some time be useful and started making art with them. Um I randomly had a uh Rolling Stone magazine subscription that I definitely did not sign up for, nor was I paying for, but I was just reading about some really random things.

Um, and in one of those magazines was a picture of I forget his actual name, but the character is Dexter Morgan from a show called Dexter, it's like a serial killer. Oh, Michael C. Hall. But he had uh Michael C. Hall, but he has a code of ethics of some sort, right?

Like he he doesn't kill people maliciously, they've all done wrong in some way. Um, but he had a forensic background, and so I was kind of uh piecing my life together with him as the focal point. Um, because at the time I was working as a federal employee, kind of tangentially related to forensics, more on the legal side than biological. Uh, but with my two brain cells left after work, I would make art. Um and so this kind of became a way of me like processing what it's like to have this passion side hobby thing while also needing to make money and being a child of immigrants who wouldn't have been afforded these kind of benefits that I had, right? Like I I'm a salaried federal worker, I've got health insurance and a cushy apartment, and m trading that into struggle as an artist felt very unattainable. Um And so I think within all of that time, I was like, well, I'm gonna just keep making art and building up income and seeing where this goes.

Um at some point, COVID hit. At that point, I was maybe four years into working at this agency, but I had sh transitioned to a different role. Um the role was very much um it was it was stressful, I'm gonna be honest.

It wasn't it wasn't crime scene investigation, but it was a lot of FBI reporting, fingerprint analysis, interviewing people, asking them about criminal history, new and old, and them giving me some level of explanation so that they could acquire a position at the agency or with programs funded by the agency. Um of course, poverty leads folks to do things that may not be legal. Um, and the way that these individuals were spoken about and discussed was so out of alignment for me, right?

Because I understand many of the reasons why they would do, you know, if you don't have the means, you're gonna get it by any means. Um, and so being in that position to call the shots around whether or not someone is afforded an opportunity, it felt so disconnected from me. But COVID hit, and we're now working remotely, and I have all the time in the world and more brain cells to create impactful work. Um and at this point I'm cranking collages out.

I'm creating prompts for myself. I have all this source material that I've been collecting, and you know, we we want to connect with others, so I'm having Zoom and FaceTime meetups with other folks, and they're doing their own creative passion projects, and I think one day I just told myself the next time that uh an assignment rolls around that is due, I don't actually want to be working here. So I put in my two weeks' notice. I think at the time I like Googled how to quit a job professionally, and um Google said an email would suffice, and so I wrote this email. I I I um went back and forth about how much of me to pour into it, like you've done me wrong, and blah blah blah. And I decided to just scale that back and to reclaim that energy and to focus on myself and the things that I enjoyed.

Of course, my parents were like, This is the worst idea ever. You want to quit of a good job to make art with magazines you found on the side of the road. This is absolutely insane.

The world's on fire. We can't even see each other regularly. But sometimes it's worth making those pivots and shifts. Um and that was back in twenty twenty. And now it's twenty twenty six and I am making a living using my art. So I feel like that was uh the right choice.

Rob Lee: Yeah, no no, thank you for for giving us that sort of trajectory that that that recent but also extensive sort of like history as to like how you arrived here and I want to go back real quick on one thing 'cause I thought it was very interesting. You

you had mentioned sort of the character Dexter, right? And uh I've realized this early on in doing the podcast, right, and doing this, and I'm getting closer and closer to a thousand episodes in the seven years I've been doing this, right? And uh I did an interview with Rebecca Hofberger, who's like the founder of the American Visionary Arts Museum, and um we had a really cool interview, it's one of those like sort of breakthrough moments of legitimacy, it's like how do I get this how did I get this person? Then we had a fun conversation, it was an interesting conversation. And you know, after, you know, we we talked, uh we were talking about like this comic I wanted to do, and one of the things in the comic has something to do with cats. I want to do a cat comic, and I was working on the second sort of installment of it. I'd already did like a number of maybe eight web comics for it, and I was like, I want to go to this sort of next arc and uh want to do this, and I was watching a lot of Hannibal at the time, Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lands for the T V show and I was in this deep dive. So,

you know, we we talked about maybe a a character in it that is really a pastiche on Hannibal Lecter, because what I learned during that time is that Hannibal Lecter, the the the character and I have the same birthday. Oh. And I was just like, I also don't like rude people. I

don't want to eat them. However So you you mentioned sort of uh you know, a person with the forensic background and they have a code. I was just like, Oh uh fiction, you know, the serial killers, fictional serial killers. I see the alignment.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah, this it uh it pulls on the perversions of all of like why are we watching the Ed Gean story? Look, I mean Why yeah, it's it's uh it's an interesting space we find ourselves in in the middle of the night.

Rob Lee: Oh, for sure. And and one of the other things that that that you touched on that really stuck out me uh everything stuck out, but what really pops top of mind because I revisit it all the time and I I was talking with a friend um yesterday actually who was just like asking me how are things and I didn't really want to revisit all those sort of like last four months of like sort of personal stuff that's been happening because I kept it to the the sort of podcast stuff and she was like so what's the the whole like art thing been like? She's

in Amsterdam. And you know, I was just sharing like just hey, what I'm seeing and you know, I'm just like I like my background, again, you know, I have a like a IT adjacent job, so a lot of a lot of AI and I'm like, mm, it's elements of it that I don't like. They're things that I'm seeing, and I see it you know the AI piece, the work piece, that feels like a certain way. Things aren't quite good. It's

almost like a reprise of that twenty twenty that you referenced, right? And then seeing sort of like folks losing their jobs or maybe folks having to shift how they're going about things because there's no funding or there's limited funding or there's a a shift and I see it affecting maybe just people enjoying their work or what they're pursuing because funders are maybe going after something that's safe or you know, 'cause she was touching on how the market in in Amsterdam is is down like a lot. Um and I've been hearing just different pieces of it. I'm on the more journalistic side of it, but just seeing like, hey, it doesn't pay to be in this sort of um this like vulnerable class, like you know, you're making sort of certain choices, um because their scarcity, frankly. So and I think of just that alignment thing of seeing people who have to make some of those choices because of scarcity, it's like I relate to that in a certain way and I find myself like, no, no, no, take all of it, take everything, whatever you gotta do, like, you know, because it's really hard and we've all in some way, shape or form have kinda gotten sort of bill of goods and it's like you know, the bill is coming coming right now. It's right right there in full effect. Yeah. And

I think like being you here in this area too, we we see different points of it and and so on, and if I as I go back a little bit, um I want to talk about, if you will, sort of early life, like, you know, was there any images or or anything that sticks out earlier in your life that you look back now with sort of this reflection, right? At this sort of age, at this sort of level of experience, at this sort of point of being an artist and like really identifying with that. Are there any images or pieces of art that you think about from your youth that you're like, oh yeah, I think about that a lot, or this is a really fire image, and I wish I could find a magazine that had that, or wish I could recreate this sort of collage of of my youth, if you will.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah, it's interesting because I do primarily work with found objects and images, but um just recently I completed a an artist in residence with Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. It was

seven weeks of creation and one week of exhibition, and I knew that in some way I wanted to include relics of childhood. Um so my family, as I mentioned, is from the Caribbean. My dad was um he joined the the Navy on a green card um when he was eighteen, so um they moved around quite a bit before I was was on this earth. Um and they landed in Virginia. Um so I was born in Virginia two weeks earlier than my due date. Um so I was supposed to be born in Maryland at Bethesda Naval, but I didn't quite uh make it and uh the first place that we moved in Maryland is called Summit Hills, it's right on uh east-west um if you're coming off of 16th Street, it's like that first apartment building. Um and so that became the catalyst for this entire residence, residency, um, was situating life around these kind of early childhood um memories in that physical space, that apartment kind of community where so many of my early memories were formed. Um so I actually printed out a picture of the specific apartment building where we lived. Um and that kind of became what I like to call the spark image for one of my larger works. So the

residency was intended to be a material shift. So I a lot of my work is or my early works are paper collage on paper. Um specifically people's climate march posters, because as I say, I'm a scrappy girl. I'm finding all of the materials. So after the People's Climate March, I collected a number of posters that were discarded and started kind of building out this social commentary kind of um series. And um,

so with this residency, it was a material shift. How can I scale my work and experiment with different substrates? So I was making art on wood and also in reclaimed metal street signs. Um And for the first time I was printing things out. So I printed pictures of my daughter of my grandmother, um, and was using these images to kind of paint a story in a different way than I have before. Um I use the woodworks as somewhat of an I spy kind of challenge. I really, really love um the where is Waldo, I spy um nostalgic kind of books from our youth. And so I created these very maximalistic um collages that require some some pretty close observation. Um from far away you can appreciate certain things, but up close it really gets you to thinking, like, where is E.T. on a

flying bike ride? Um and um and so those those wooden pieces paired with the metal street signs, which I love because I've been collecting them over a number of years, but for me the street signs are just like very rigid authoritative warning signs, and I used them to create um these cultural icons um called mocojumbis. So they are um they're these stilt walkers, they're performers, they are spirits. Um over

15 feet tall, they can see well over communities, well over villages, and if there's any sort of danger or warning that's needing to be shared among community members, they are able to communicate that because they are so towering. Um so I use the street signs to create these Joombies. and it's kind of like a double warning, right? They themselves warn community members and then the street signs themselves command attention and also tell people what to do, where to go. Um but not only are they protectors of community, they're also protectors of imagination. I like

to think that my imagination was never zapped because I enjoy that that tactile play, that fantasy, and that's what I enjoy creating within my work. I remember you asking about um early images. They're in the process of um of collecting and and looking through photos for the exhibition, I came across a photo of my mom wearing this like Kente Cloth bandana um on her head, which is it was so funny to me because I've I I physically have the bandana still um but I have never seen the photo and there is a photo of me wearing that same bandana, but as a tube top. And so uh going back to your question about images, I would I would love to play with you know her own representation of style, heritage, you know, cultural roots with you know, paired with with me, you know, this like figurative and and literal, right? Passing down of identity and memory, um which is kind of exactly what I want to capture when I layer materials in my art. Um but seeing this that image, I was like, oh my gosh, like all after all these years I've never seen this photo, but I have the bandana and I have this other image of me as a child, maybe six years old, that it created a tube top from it before the Instagram trend of making clothing from you know accessories. Um so I don't know, I think my work definitely features like I said, that that hidden object style quite a bit. Um and

I think my background is just a bit like that too, right? It's full of a lot of different layers that connect across time. And sometimes you don't know how they connect until years later, which is a part of the magic of discovery, you know. Um creating and and and reinvigorating memory and meaning. That makes sense.

Rob Lee: Like, you know, especially going back and sort of again with the reflection, right? Of spending time and going back and it's like, oh, that clicks in a different way, or oh, I'm seeing this, even if you're involved, even if you were there, even if you've seen a piece or familiar with iconography from from a certain period, it's like I've seen this so many times, but perhaps with maybe time with experience, which is like working and you you kind of gain something gain something. It's I think of the video game piece, it's like I got this XP up, like my health bar is a lot bigger now, and my sort of contention or uh ability to perhaps receive at a certain time is a bit more heightened. Um and

I get it when I'm supposed to get it. Um and I think I came to that a little bit when I you know, as I touched on earlier, I'm like in the mid-nine hundreds of episodes and last year I intentionally went back and it was like, hey, I'm gonna do maybe 40 of my interviews um from from last season. Um well, forty of the interviews I didn't last season I'm gonna do with guests who'd been on before. So kind

of follow-up interviews. And I was just like, I wonder how how this is gonna work. I wonder how this is gonna go. And um, and and it ended up working out pretty well. Um, but seeing like, is it the same interview? Is it

the same type of interview? Um where have we progressed? Have I gotten better? And I think seeing sort of that growth and that trajectory, it's just like I'm still me, I'm curious about the things that I'm curious about, and that doesn't really change, but sort of the maybe the approach or the depth and the level of the questions have their night and day. And I know that some of the guests who would come on, they were saying, Man, I listened to my first interview to make sure I'll make an ass out of myself, and now I'm coming back on. So I

think it's that that time that's there. Um so you so w you're talking earlier, you mentioned poetry, you mentioned writing, right? So there were other areas of creativity early on, but what are some of the limitations that you know what are what were some what are some of the limits and the things that you find more interesting perhaps in collage that you've you stuck with that and maybe explored more with that as you were touching on sort of different materials, you know, found objects, street signs and such, um, compared to perhaps, you know, diving back into writing, or Habi, what are some of the limitations or some of the things that interest you about collage that others just didn't? Yeah.

Khadija Jahmila: Um I think what I found most interesting about collage is that I can play with time, right? Like I can play with memory, I can play with ephemera. I'm reminded

of my childhood and youth. That's the center of my work I would say. I love the hunt, right? Like that second hand print material, vintage magazines, uh like it all is so fascinating to me. I live a very fun lifestyle in that way. Like I I I physically hunt for these things. Like I go to a number of different sites looking for people who have an excess of these calendars or baseball cards or whatever and and I go collect them. And they tell me stories about how they acquired them and why they're giving them away, you know sometimes I'll find little love notes etched in the margins or parking tickets or boarding passes from trips they you know it's it's really cool. I can

smell the pages some of the pages just rip immediately when you flip them because it's that old um it's it's cool. It's fun to me. Um I think that that is probably the most interesting thing is just remixing these materials um it makes me slow down right it makes me slow down and look closely. Um I I mentioned hidden object I cannot get enough of that in my youth I used to be on Yahoo games and King dot com like it was nobody's business. I love a simulation game you know creating new worlds or looking for you know these little Easter eggs like Agatha Christie games I was pretty big on um but as far as limits I think um you're working with the physical reality of your materials you know like in an analog collage scale is restrictive right you're you are entirely dependent on the size of the image in the magazine you found right like if I find a figure I want to use and it's two inches tall on the page, I cannot stretch that to fit a massive panel. You know you have to respect the fragility of the paper, right? If I'm

using a vintage ebony magazine from the 50s I have to be respectful of that particular magazine, right? The physics of these materials. But honestly those limitations are really kind of just what forces me to get creative and find an unexpected solution. I have an older brother which means that I'm not always gentle right we we watch wrestling right so I'm practicing that sumo plex. So when I'm uh when I'm collaging I think it sometimes serves as a reminder of like I do need to be a little bit more gentle. Right? I

can flip the page with some more care and how does that translate to the way I speak to myself or care for myself or critique myself. I think it all goes back to um like self-preservation um so I feel like that is probably the limit is is not being able to shift things in the way that you would a digital collage but that also helps right like we need constraints you know um the world is your oyster but sometimes you need to have some guardrails in place so that you don't just have an infinite amount of options and you can create more of a boundary to complete something

Rob Lee: it that's that's good and it's a here's the thing that's really good about that last response. It definitely answers the next question just sort of like working across analog and digital um I'm I'm getting I'm picking up a bit of that. I I I'll say even the the thinking on the consideration that's there and how that plays so like you know as I I was touching on I think um earlier maybe even before we got on sort of the Austin queon of it all like you know I remember in I think e it was either steel like an artist or or something like that but he he was just talking about sort of he he's working in something that's really digital and having to go to analog, like having a a table on the side just with crayons or or pens or something just to kind of like break it up and go back and forth to kind of help serve each other to reinvigorate each other. And this is digital. This is a digital medium. Um but I've been trying my best to spend more time with the conversation in person because I think the conversation is the thing that makes sense. I can

easily do it online, I could do it multiple ways with us out without us being in the same room, but it's something about that conversation and being in the same room, being in the the sort of same space with a person that has I guess show me that there is a bit more weight to it than purely just a conversation or just a podcast. So you working across both digital and and analog, how does moving between the two change your relationship to to the work or to sort of where you you see that work going because there is time, there is memory, there is, I guess, legacy if you will. So talk a bit about that.

Khadija Jahmila: Um yeah, I think it definitely feels like you're shifting between entirely different mindsets. When you work analog, you so I I have a lot of I have a lot of print material. So I think when I set up to make an analog collage, I will try to limit what I'm working with. Because if

I go down into the basement with additional options, you know, that things can get a little more chaotic in terms of the the the organization and the process. But um I think when I'm working digitally, there's a sense of, like I said, that ultimate freedom, right? I can manipulate scale instantly, I can duplicate elements, I can infinitely layer things, I can make the moon green, you know, without risk. There isn't

really that same thing in an analog fashion. Um but it is helpful for plotting out those kind of complex layouts or scaling up a concept if I choose to. Um I think an important distinction for me is that I make I I am at my core an analog creator and I work digitally because people want a piece of my creation for themselves, and that also often includes a piece of them, which is easier to manipulate digitally. So I primarily use uh Photoshop and Procreate to make art for people or institutions. The art that I make for my heart is is analog. Um so when I'm working with hand cut pieces, it's pulling me back into that tactile meditative head space, right? Like there is no undo button when I'm making that kind of collage. So every time I'm cutting something, it requires me to be precise. It requires me to commit. So I'm

gonna glue down this thing onto a surface, I am fully present for that. Um I have to, like I said, respect that history of those physical objects that I'm handling because there is likely not a duplicate yet. I have uh come across a magazine that I do have already with a clipping that I just love and it would be so great to have two sometimes, but not all the time. Um And so when I'm working with digital, it just gives me the space to to dream up with without the boundaries, but they do feed into each other well.

Rob Lee: I'd say it it feels in in some ways the what uh what I'm gathering for what you're describing, it's almost like a it it's being and I I don't like the word intentional so much because it's it's overused to sound more artsy. Um and but but I there is some intention, it's just like the literally with the the hand cut nature of it. It's like you measure twice, cut once, that sort of thing. And it's being just as you said, you know, being more like like locked in, being more like there's I got one of these. This is

a tightrope. And you know, with that digital, it's just like being able to I could do whatever, I can you know make everything and I I've used this be before the the notion of sort of like oatmeal or what have you, it's just like oh you got so much variety, but it's like everyone just kinda wants that that apple sentiment or what have you. That's that's kinda how it goes. Or that brown sugar. I don't know if you're an oatmeal person, but it's sort of you have this you know, really like when you make something, let's say if you're making the oatmeal, right? You can, you know, do whatever you want, but you're very exact about what you're putting in there. You know,

you're very exact about how much cinnamon, how much nutmeg, butter, whatever. But if you have like the variety pack, it's like, oh well I got more than one of these. So if I like this one is too watery, I can manipulate and add to it and still make it something that's perfect. But if you're doing it with really involvement, it can still be perfect. As you're just you're describing it's like I'm very on point with how I'm cutting this piece. But it's

like there's inherent imperfection, there's inherent aging to those sort of tactile materials where there's a I guess a smoothness, a polishness not to say that any any of the stuff isn't polished at all is but sort of the digital piece is almost like so perfect that you're looking for those imperfections. Yeah.

Khadija Jahmila: Like can I just crumple this digitally?

Rob Lee: digital crumpling is that's the name of the new podcast I'm gonna come out with starting in uh the spring. Next break So when I look at the you know, so I was going through um your your website um and I think I like the fact that the first image that I see um because I like that you mentioned it earlier the the Doomy. I I love that um and I and I not having the story with it is almost that director's commentary sort of piece. It's like oh okay yeah yeah yeah that makes more sense now. Thank you. I I

understand that thank you for directly giving me that information. But um I want to talk about this one piece that really struck me. Um I don't want to grow up from uh 2000 twenty six oh recent twenty twenty six it it's evoking youth I I see like Wonder Breath he's Spider Man. I see

like middle school for me in some ways. W what is at the center of of this piece, sort of the thinking or like just talk a bit about that piece. It really really struck me and it's not because it's the the one of the first things on there. It's just like Y Spider Man I gotta ask this question.

Khadija Jahmila: Okay, so um visually for all the listeners um I guess running right down the center of the piece is Wonderbred there's some popcorn um it's like flanked by an octopus there's like notions of this carnival because there's a carousel ride so there's a giant corn dog hands embracing each other um it's just visual noise is is really kind of what it is and conceptually um it's a it's um it's a look at childhood consumerism really um for me um the the spark image in creating this was um at the top left there's a little tiny piece of a toys are

Rob Lee: us sign

Khadija Jahmila: which was my place okay besides KB toys Toys are us, we go together real bad. Okay. Um but I think when we're young we don't really realize how much we're being consumed and sold to um and our earliest memories are like mine anyway are completely saturated with like corporate branding. You know like we've got mascots and characters from food we should we even call it food, you know, like MM's characters and happy meals and y entertainment icons. There's Kermit

the frog on there, Spider Man. Um but at the same time it's like a a fun hidden object piece, right? It's like deeply nostalgic and fun and imaginative um and I really like I mentioned I want to invoke that childhood feeling of playing an I spy game or a computer game where you are hunting for treasures. Um so like down at the bottom for instance there is a little black girl sitting on a swing and she's a rocket ship.

Rob Lee: Um and it's not the first time I've depicted a black woman or girl as a rocket ship. Um but it's just it's a it's a lot of fun. Um you're just laying these elements in this kind of challenge but also inviting the viewer to like slow down and actively think about how our innocence at such an early stage of wonder is also deeply entangled with like corporate bullshit and branding. you know?

Um so it's it's I I say it and I laugh because like I forget the the number but like by the time a child is however years old they can already identify the faces or logos of all of these different corporations or or mascots from these different brands before they can call out the names of actual people. Um so that's kind of like the irony sometimes with my work is is um it has these like ephemeral bits but also these like huh we really are being sold to at every stage.

Rob Lee: This is this is that the the thing that well well two things real quick. One, it does it invite you to look at it as the as you t you touched on what the I spy near sort of nature of it because I'm even you know just looking at I'm seeing all types of just different things. I was

like even the freaking happy mail box has like the eyes crossed out like 'cause it's not food. And um and and even in it like there is this sort of notion and I've touched on this um just as a somewhat I'm phasing out my social media usage but you know as I've seen this thing of like w we gave it up, you know, you know, sort of this the stakes is high, the de la soul of it and and I've been thinking like whatever the it is, let's say culture, let's say sort of our attention spans, whatever it is, whatever we have value in, right? Um we gave it away. And and that's the thing that I I feel at times. But I think in in in connecting to this particular piece and then hearing sort of your your your perspective on like what was the thinking here and and really breaking that down it's been designed, it's been coded for us for a long time because you know like there's a bit of an age it's like age gap between you and I, but you know it's the correlation is is there. Like I see all of these things and I see it being sold back to us in different ways because you know for millennials and you are millennial like I am but um you know the sort of um being sold this nostalgia under the guise of novelty. So like when I see you know the the different mascots when I see the branded mascot I immediately think of Funko Pops. You know, it's like how can I get these and how can I collect these and I just want these 'cause they're so new but it's just like they sold us toys under the guise of like cartoons back in the day. And all the things were like, oh yeah here's you know Transformers, we're gonna get rid of the original class not because the story dictated that these characters should die, it's that we got a new toy line coming out in nineteen eighty seven so get ready.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah.

Rob Lee: And then we knew each one that was coming out like y'all need to get Magnus Prime like that's not even a name of a transformer you

Khadija Jahmila: noob So yeah it's it's seeing it like right here. And then it again it's such a you know the the the chaotic nature is there and it it just works so well it hit. This is this is a really good piece.

Khadija Jahmila: Thank you. Yeah it is um I think I mentioned it's a part of a series now building out these sort of I spy style collages on wood um and this one I actually made live at Eton Wow

Rob Lee: Wow that's that is that is crazy. Eaton DC shout out to them um and shout out to you blessing them I'm like I'm making this live I'm here. I'm doing it. Um

so one of the one of the questions I want to I'm gonna move also to is sort of sort of themes and I think a bit of that is embedded in this particular piece but also just it's there, you know, there's the these themes of otherworldliness of the African diaspora or surrealism, intersectionality and humanity if you will like appear in your work. How did you land on these themes? What are like the conversations or questions that you want to evoke within your within your work um specifically maybe the work that that you're moving towards now.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah I think I um I land on these themes 'cause they just reflect my own lived experience and the way that I look at the world, right? Like I think that's what our art is the way we view the world. Um I don't always think about it but I do I do believe that my background in forensics taught me to analyze layers in a deeper way than maybe I would have otherwise um my heritage, my identities um just forcing me to look at history and folklore and how these kind of memories intersect, right? When you look at the

African diaspora, there's always been an element of otherworldliness or finding ways to dream up new realities to survive, right? To pres preserve our stories, our legacies, our traditions you know um I think surrealism for me feels like the perfect tool to do that, right? It allows me to kind of take those everyday images and ephemera and come completely um subvert its original meaning, right? Sometimes to build something entirely new, right? Like we are building the world we want to see. Sometimes people are like this is science fiction or you know Afrofuturism you can come up with any number of different phrases to make it make sense for you right like art is all about our own experiences and how we perceive things right so I definitely like to spark those conversations about how do we preserve our memories who gets to control that narrative if I don't make this kind of art you know um I want people to look at a piece and ask themselves right like what what are what are my own layers of history and branding that are hidden right now you know in front of my very face right like that was kind of the um the spark of my last solo shows in is called in plain sight so when things are hidden right in front of us how do we how do we navigate that how do our childhood memories shape our adulthood and our identities you know um yeah I I I love the curiosity and the play of that all um yeah I think our innocence and our wonder are so deeply entangled in consumerism um and how do these pieces all connect to our shared stories our shared humanities it's it's to me it's very fascinating.

Rob Lee: So here's the last sort of two questions I think it goes to sort of projects that I've seen that you've you've worked with or organizations that have names that I have connections with. So the first one you were season artist for the Baltimore Center stage is full season this was uh what 2024 2025 I believe um collaborating with directors playwrights across six productions what was that experience

Khadija Jahmila: like um I'm smiling ear to ear that that was one of the coolest projects I've ever had I think the closest thing to it before that is creating a visual for someone's album artwork I've done I love music so I love creating visuals for you know EPs and full um albums as well I I was so jazzed by it but I was also a little intimidated of course right they're handing me six scripts that I need to read and I need to create one visual from a 200 page you know draft to encompass the entirety of this two hour production you know um so that was a little intimidating so um I guess the setup of that was to read all the scripts I made a mood board for each of them which was really just like when I read these scripts these are the images that came to mind that would evoke some level of excitement or enthusiasm for someone who is looking at the program or the building with this advertisement on it right what will attract people to want to watch this play that's the mood board and then I created two drafts of each play um and then I had a meeting on Zoom with each of the director playwright teams for the six plays and we narrowed down from one of the two drafts the direction that I would go in and then I probably had three rounds of edits for each and then I submitted them all um so it was a pretty a pretty tall order but very very rewarding to be able to bring to life um these you know these these visuals and then even cooler once those visuals were brought to life I got to see it on the grand stage um and not only the the opening night performances but also community night so it's kind of like being invited into the kitchen the test kitchen you know with somebody's like still working out the kinks of the recipe before the Thanksgiving meal you know and it's a beautiful thing to be a part of that kind of dress rehearsal and see some of those kinks worked out before opening night just the energy and the enthusiasm that each actor brings to the work um is pure magic um and some of them I saw more than twice like I took family members to go see it because it was that moving you know I'm in full tears and then laughing the next second like it's it's it's so enjoyable right like think about watching a movie but you're watching actors live on a stage doing this right and they are doing this Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sometimes twice in one day. You know, so you really

have to to feed them with some energy too, and you can see and experience the way that the lines are delivered differently based on that audience engagement. So honestly incredible. Would love to have more key art opportunities like that where I'm translating these plays into visuals. That was really awesome.

Rob Lee: That's amazing. Thank you for sharing the experience. Um Yeah. I I love working with the the different playhouses. Uh I have a little little project I'm you know discussing with uh BCF uh later in the year so we'll we'll see what happens. That maybe I may bring that up you know it's like the name drop on it's all about connections like, hey remember this person Hint, hint, reach out. um so this is the sort of the last question I want and this is sort of the retrospective as well. Um back in twenty twenty five you were part of the residency cohort at Eaton House where you developed art programming for the hotel and um and the DC metro area. So how was that experience and what is it meant to your your growth as an artist or growth creatively because I think having those opportunities um with like organizations, institutions is sort of this thing like people need art but also collaborations and I think can't take these things for granted but I wanted to get sort of your take on what that Eaton House experience was like.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah um I think for me it's really interesting because when I started making art it was just for me right like we artists can be really empathetic. And so sometimes we get

in these head spaces where we just need to let it out in some kind of a way. And for me that was with art and I wouldn't place any particular value on it. I would just get it out of my head and have like a depression stack of art on the ground and one day one of my friends partners was in my space and said how much is your art it didn't even occur to me that there was a value outside of just like getting out of my head um and that for me was like huh people see themselves in this at least this person did so somebody else might as well and so it um it invigorated within me this idea that I should showcase art. And so the next year I challenged myself to perform poetry at a pop up event and also sell print reproductions of artwork that I made. And that's kind of how I built a following is just going to different pop-up markets across the DC and Maryland area. Yeah and one day I was at a pop-up and met um Pete Dunelski the program director at Eton and he fell in love with one of my collages it's a digital collage and was like I love this art so we had um kept in contact and he eventually asked if I would be interested in having an exhibition at Eton and said hey are you working on anything I'd I I would love to talk about an exhibition. We have rotating exhibitions of

you know local artists in the space and it would be great to feature you. And at the time I was um deeply bothered and upset and depressed honestly because my basement had flooded and um so much of what I worked hard on had been completely destroyed. Um and of that set of art um materials and projects was a piece called hindsight is 2020. It's a three by four foot collage and um it was almost completely submerged in in the flood and um I was able to salvage some of the materials most of the materials I would say um the wear of you know water damage is is evident on some of the pieces it's in Eton um at this moment but I was able to salvage it and it that conversation took me out of that space of of griping into um maybe a more principled problem solving space of thinking okay well I'm already working with some kind of grungy you know decrepit material. What it what is one more crumpled thing. So I brought that wood out of you know its space. I brought it up to

the attic knocked on wood and said if it doesn't the house isn't catch on fire, I think we are good in this place. So I reinvigorated that work. I completed that artwork at Eton. And I had my first

solo show. It's called Hindsight is 2020. At the time I was super pregnant and so they kept the work with intention to rehouse it in another space in the hotel. And so they've had it

since then they have had it since then. I finished the hindsight piece in 2023 um and to close out my solo show there I had a workshop which is called Cut It Out, a dangerously absurd paper collage making session. I supply folks with wacky and absurd prompts and provide materials and show how I get out of my own creative blockage and create surreal and unusual competitions. Ninety people came to that workshop um I was like wow y'all really uh mess with the kid that showed up yeah I was not expecting it I'm like you might have to share that uh Topo Chico with him you might have to swap blue sticks with your neighbor um I was expecting you know closer to 40 people so it was a really beautiful turnout and um I continued my partnership with them and I I began hosting every other month summer collage workshops and I think the attendance every time just spoke to how much we are all clamoring for that sort of tactile uninhibited play um that I've been speaking about so um I was already in the space so often and they shared with me that they have a residency program. So they asked if I'd be on board to join them in you know creating some programming and I was and in that residency I became familiar with a man named Michael Bowie. He is a jazz musician um and an educator and we teamed up to create a visual and music exhibition. We called it free music the illusion of liberation we put out a call to musicians and and visual artists we had over fifty different folks submit including from Germany we were just like blown away by the response we ended up selecting 13 visual artists and 18 musicians created a mixtape and a an exhibition experience with an immersive like sound cone so there was um music associated with what they were were viewing um it was it was just a beautiful merger um and collaboration and um so we we ended up having a multi-month exhibition featuring these works and just highlighting this AI culture and the gross of you know financial inequality and just all of these different things constraints and um beautiful beautiful pieces came out of that uh experience the the exhibition ended up closing in March of this year um and our residency concluded with that exhibition um but we remain friends of Eaton um and have since teamed up to produce additional events there um which is we just had our second um and it's called the creator's jam live session um so it involves a live band and an open mic styled offering so people can just get on the mic accompanied by a live band and spit that or sing that or wrap that you know and um there's also a competition element so local producers will provide um instrumentals for three different musicians to listen to and select um one of the tracks and then they go elsewhere in the hotel for about 75 minutes to write original music to the track they'll come back after that time while the open mic is happening and then when they return they perform and the audience votes on the winner and while that all is happening we have live art creation um so I've been making art live uh in addition to um another f um artist named August Lee. He's one of the artists that we selected for the free music exhibition and he's all around good people, so we've had him come and perform it is somewhat of a performance to create live, right? Um and uh it's been a great time. We I I really enjoy

what comes out of these spaces. You never really know who you will encounter. Um and so many people have so much to offer, even outside of what they directly introduce themselves as doing. So I like to keep my um communication key with with with with everyone that's in the room, you know. Like if I'm at a pop-up market, even I'm gonna speak to every vendor, you know. I just want to know

who's in the room. I wanna connect and and grow and build. So these these spaces have allowed for that to kind of take form in a way that is really beautiful.

Rob Lee: That's that's great to hear. And I I love when those those collaborations, those partnerships, those relationships. I find relationships is more of an apt term here. Um just are equally yoked,

mutually beneficial. Um I've had different types, some that have gone really well, others that they didn't really see the value, but Eaton has been a friend um uh for for a number of years at this point, and that's where a lot of my DC centric interviews happen, and we've discussed a few different pieces of programming potentially, so it's great to hear that your experience was with fire there. That's that's amazing. And um it sounds robust. We should be talking a little bit more afterwards. I'm gonna nip some ideas about some ideas. Yeah. So there's two pieces

of business I want to wrap up here after we got like just pretty much the whole story from you. We got everything. Um so I got three rapid fire questions and then I got the sage like advice, and then we'll have shameless plugs and we'll be done for the day. So rapid fire. The way that this works is whatever your quickest response is, you don't want to overthink these, is that's sort of the point of it, right? It's almost like a an

icebreaker, but it's at the end before we go into the really deep question of the save it sage advice. Um and I have changed them, as I was saying, that's why I didn't send them to you. I have changed them because you said a few things that I thought were interesting that I want to dive into a bit further. So here's the first one. What is a meal that you make most often? Your food.

Khadija Jahmila: Ooh, uh, a meal that I make most often. I um huh. So I'm vegan to start off and um I love legumes and beans. So I'm often making um like chickpeas or lentils or black beans. Um and I would say a meal, ooh, it's hard because now it's summer and we don't really want to cook. But a meal that I really really enjoy would be like a coconut curry chickpea, um, maybe paired with like a sweet potato or quinoa or rice, um maybe some falafel with it, nice little like tahini dressing or something, and maybe like a little salad. Okay.

Rob Lee: That sounds good. You sort of take it with coconut, I mean, right there.

Khadija Jahmila: Coconut curry, like look I Yeah, I like coconut. Um that works. Um here's the second one. So this is almost all around the realm of like self-care, because I care about the artist. Um so rest is important to life, obviously, and creative work. So how many hours of

sleep on average do you get? Ooh. Um uh ooh, this is so hilarious. I have a two-year-old. So I um am running around a lot. I do try to get my eight hours in, but when she is seeing me in action, she wants to add her spin on my work, which is very cute sometimes. Um so I do find myself like waking up at odd hours and just working without a two-year-old climbing on me or scribbling on my artwork. So I try to get

eight hours, but sometimes it looks more like five. Um, but not because she's not a good sleeper. She's a great sleeper. She just has major FOMO and wants to collaborate with me with making art.

Rob Lee: I guess there's a new heat I'm trying to get across. I'm trying to get my I'm trying to get my shit off mom.

Khadija Jahmila: Like what's the one? It's just exactly. And sometimes after I've already framed a piece, I'll see one of her little uh her little additions in the work.

Rob Lee: It's just it's just the the virtual agglow of it all. It's like, yeah, I moved it a little bit to the left and it's like now it's like kind of my piece more than it's your piece. It's like, no, this is my piece.

Khadija Jahmila: Shared authorship.

Rob Lee: Look, that's the thing. I mean, when it comes to credit credit, it's like, look, I'm gonna I'm gonna need that. You know, you sell us, I'm gonna need a piece.

Khadija Jahmila: Right.

Rob Lee: Um so this is the last one. Last last um uh rapid fire question I got for you. So music person, you mentioned that as well. So what is the album? This is a little bit

of a l very specific here, because you know I'm an aquarius, I get real specific sometimes. What's the album you've listened to the most? It has to be like the full album. It can't be like I listened to three songs and that counts. It's like what's the album that you've listened to the most?

Khadija Jahmila: Ever or right now? I'll say both. Um right now I am heavily okay, so there's an artist called Yamenko. Okay. And I'm actively working on the visual for his EP called Glimmers. It absolutely breaks me in two that I cannot share this music with anyone until it's released. But it is so incredibly fire. Like it just blows my mind the level of artistry that this human is producing, and I can't even like share it, right? So like if you just happen to be in my car, don't tell nobody, because I'm not supposed to have um so right now glimmers.

Rob Lee: Okay. Heavy rotation. Um but I think overall, like uh 2015 ish time, I feel like I was really like coming into my own. I graduated from college and the no name album Telephone through and through is so good. Maybe there's like one song on there that I skip. Everything else is a banger. Um and I hear she's gonna be in DC next month. So I might have to like pop out and get a ticket.

Rob Lee: I like it. I like it. That works to see you see you see, even the despite the 'cause sometimes I have these artists on, right? And it was like, well, let me change the rules a little bit. I think your your response there worked really well. You gave sort of the the

sort of past version, you gave the current version. So you you you were g very giving there. I like that. I like that answer. Some are just like, hey, I

know you said album, but I want to talk about the movie I watched the most. It's like that's not the question. That's not a question at all. Um thank you for that. And

um which brings us to our last piece of business here. The the sage like advice question. And you know, we want to frame this as something that that folks can carry on using sort of your experience, your POV, and maybe maybe it'll be some some knowledge that's imparted upon someone who's interested in collage, who's interested in in making work. Um so the question goes, writers spend ten minutes a day just writing. I've heard about Stephen King doing his writing exercise. It's not just ten minutes, but

it's a regular practice. I know painters who have a sketching practice to just keep at keep at something creative. Artists are often making um more and more work that we'll never see the light of day. It's just like this isn't for p public consumption. This is it's isn't for appreciation,

this isn't for critique, this is for me. Do you work do you do do you make work that's a draft or or purely for practice, like like stuff that's just for you? And if so, you know, talking about like currently, and if so, w why would you say that's beneficial for folks to engage in, especially in this sort of overly media and social media saturated. You're not making work unless someone sees you doing it.

Khadija Jahmila: Yeah. I think it's super important to have um work that's just for you. I I don't think it's for me always private practice. Um because I teach, I'm always using my hands and the primary audience is like five to ten year olds. So their attention span is the size of a raisin, you know. So like I I I relate

to that. So I want to create projects that they will love. And I want to keep fresh on my techniques and different things that I can do with them. So I do think it's very important to have like an entirely tactile process, you know. Like I I mentioned I rarely work digitally unless it's for a specific client commission, but my personal creative practice is tactile. I I function best when I'm able to do that, right? I'm giving myself like this low

stakes space to just experiment and keep my instincts sharp. Um one of my earlier um some of my earlier works that people know and love are from um an Instagram challenge. So every day for the month of October, there is a list or there's a word. There's a list for the month of October and every day you create based on the one word. It's a drawing challenge but I did collage for it. And so I create some some uh prompts like that for myself just to keep me sharp right like you have 30 minutes you you can only use one magazine or things like that just to to play around right like I have a box of paper scraps like ribbon pom poms just like left over materials that maybe didn't make the cut from a larger piece or that I thought I would use and just spend 20 minutes you know five minutes just arranging and gluing things down without a plan without a narrative without any sort of strategy um and I find it pretty v beneficial right like I I don't want to be worried about failing you know like you're just creating work it's not for an exhibition or public critique or a commission or any sort of like underlying pressure right there's no like push for it to be perfect or cohesive right um I think that that weight removal makes for sometimes the best work um I haven't felt that level of inhibition in a while so when I get that space that I can create for myself even if I feel like it looks terrible I don't think it matters right because nobody is ever going to see this or I was so uninhibited that this is like the piece everybody's in love with um and then I think also like it reframes my brain right because I said I'm I moved my hobby into a a career so like I can separate productivity from creativity in a way that feels like okay every minute that I spend here is for enjoyment. I'm not worried about the finished

product right I'm just making art. It's not necessarily for consumption just a reminder that I'm valuable and I create fun things right outside of like capitalism or like a career goal or you know anything like that. Um and like I said some of my best work has come from these challenges where you have to post by the end of the day this creation based on one word and some of the best accidents can you know Bob Ross like happy little accidents just glue it down and you never know what you can how you can make a spin on it like with my students I'll say okay I'm gonna pass out the materials and I will not be passing out erasers. So we need to get creative about how we approach this piece right let your guard down explore right like these like messy little moments turn into something really cool. How do we transform what we

perceive to be an accident um so yeah you need that play and you don't need an audience but sometimes you do have an audience and it's five to ten year olds and they are feeling like their creative battery is being recharged to and then it's just a bonus for everybody involved.

Rob Lee: That's great. That's a that's a great piece to carry on I think that's something that's transferable and I I relate to it so much. And that's kind of that's kind of it for real questions for all of the questions actually so thank you for indulging and being so so transparent and and sharing just sort of your insights that's been just great and um what I would like to do as we close out here is it's two things. One I want to thank you for coming on spending some time with me. This has truly been a treat

highlight of my day and two I want to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners where they can follow you where they can check out your work your website social media all that good stuff. The floor is yours.

Khadija Jahmila: Excellent my name is Khadija Jamila again K-H A D I J A Jamila J A H M I L A. My email is Khadija Jamila at gmail dot com my Instagram is Khadija.jamila my website is Khadija Jamila dot com. I have two or three I have work exhibited in three different locations at this moment um a show called Thresholds at Tech Me Fine Art. It's in Rockville, Maryland it's on View until August 22nd. That show opened May 16th so definitely want to check that out it's centered on the theme of one artist one piece one story um just highlighting a single meaningful work from each participating artist and there's a story about how each piece was created um it is a super cool space it is actually my dentist has purchased a new dental practice to accommodate his love of art. He himself is an artist and has a gallery in the space. And so some of the pieces

um include like grills that are made um based off of one artist's mouth. So super cool definitely worth checking out closing August 22nd Techni Fine Art. And the other um is superimposed it's a juried collage collage uh exhibition and that's on view in the Helen C. Frederick Gallery at Pyramid Atlantic this

one just opened on June 26th and that's going to be closing on August 9th. I also have one piece in that show. Definitely worth checking out will completely rock your world and change your perspective on what collaging is if you think it's just paper on paper you are not correct. So it's definitely worth checking out there are so many incredible works in the show um and worth checking out and then I have four artworks on display at Eton Hotel that you are able to view and purchase as well.

Rob Lee: And there you have it folks I want to again thank Khadija Tamila for coming on to the truth of famous art. And for Kadija I am Rob Lee standard there's art, culture and community. And then well your neck of the woods you just have to look for it.