Only, only a couple months now, now, now, now. I think I recognize her. I'm excited to feature a conversation with a Detroit based interdisciplinary artist celebrated for her impactful assemblages and immersive installations. Her latest exhibition, Ancient Future, is a journey through Afrofuturism, black mythologies, time, so many different themes that are there. And the themes are presented through dynamic paintings, film explorations, and engaging installations.
Rob Lee:Please join me in welcoming the incredibly talented Jamea Richmond Edwards, the real JRE. We have these moments that are touch points, maybe super early, maybe, you know, a little bit later, what have you, that have a significant impact on what we do creatively. So Yeah. What is a moment or an experience for you? Because it'd be it could be a sum of moments, but what's an experience for you that influenced you on your path as an artist, as a stewardess, as a creative?
Naomi Winston:So I'm gonna actually touch on 3. Okay. The first one was when I was about 16 16 years old. I was taking a gifted and talented, class, for car design here in Detroit, and it was at Wayne State University, which is a university based here in the city. And the teacher, you know, kinda stood in front of the class and said, hey.
Naomi Winston:It's an exhibition in the local gallery here. And he walked us he took us on a little mini field trip, you know, which was right down the hall from the class. And in that exhibition, that's when I first saw, Renee Cox's work, and it was the painting called the liberation of aunt Jemima and uncle Ben. That was the first time I believe I just going back that I saw work made by a black person, let alone a black woman and, like, really, like, contemporary artwork.
Rob Lee:Yeah.
Naomi Winston:And from that you know, at that point in my life, I would go to the Detroit Institute of Arts, which is our, you know, fine art institute here. And I would I went often, but I never seen work that reflected me. So that was like that I was just really overwhelmed. Like, oh my gosh. This is art?
Naomi Winston:And I remember the teacher saying, yeah, and that's the artist in the photograph. And I was just overwhelmed, like, oh, shit. This is fly. You know what I'm saying? And in terms of, like, you have to just think how impactful that was for me.
Naomi Winston:My understanding of, quote, unquote, fine art was, Van Gogh and, you know, kind of renaissance art. And, again, I'm I'm come growing up in the nineties, you know, listening to Pac, Bad Boy. So, you know, all those things. Seeing Renee Cox works is just like, oh, that's this is what fine art could be. So that kinda gave me that permission.
Naomi Winston:The second impactful moment was me when I entered into graduate school, which was, 2010 at Howard University. And that's when my beautiful dark twisted fantasy dropped with Kanye West. Oh my god.
Naomi Winston:Mhmm. I was just oh, like, what do y'all real I
Naomi Winston:you know? For me, that was very paradigm shifting, and I also feel like it was very paradigm shifting for the culture. That was equivalent to, you know, a modern times thriller. I just was like, oh, shit. The music, the art direction, just the it was it was so good.
Naomi Winston:So that had a major impact on me. And lastly, was the Beyonce concert. I have never I wasn't a be I've I've you know, I respect Beyonce, but I'm not a fan. You know, she's she I had a couple of songs on my playlist of Beyonce. But, last year, I went to the concert, Renaissance, and oh my gosh.
Naomi Winston:I didn't go as a fan. I went as a spectator. Like, you know, I'm I'm about to really take this in, and it just was very paradigm shifting for me. And so these moments that I just named, to me, were art, by black folks at the highest fucking caliber. You know what I'm saying?
Naomi Winston:Like, high caliber, very embarguard, very unapologetic, very, thought provoking. And so those three moments really, were life changing for me.
Rob Lee:I wanna I wanna go a little bit deeper on, you know, sort of thinking of influence and and inspiration, you know, whether it be from painting, whether it be from fashion, film, music, diverse people. We have diverse interests. Where do you look for for for inspiration and sort of what are the themes that that come up that are truly, like, you know, interesting to you and why?
Naomi Winston:Well, so well, I have two answers to that. The first one is so I moved back to Detroit in, what, 21 2021 after being away for 22 years. You know? So I left high school in, 2000 and I returned. So that's 21 years.
Naomi Winston:Excuse me. And, being away and then coming back, I'm like, oh shit, Detroit is so fly. Like this is a this is a very unique city, and, I realized that it's a lot of swag. It's a lot of cool. It's a lot of beauty in where I come from.
Naomi Winston:And so I I just became really inspired by that. One of the things that's emerged in my work over the past couple of years is, dragons and a lot of mythos, so, you know, what people call them mythos. But I didn't start doing dragons until I moved back to Detroit, and I would walk downtown. And I'm just like, well, I've never been interested in dragons and shit ever in my life. And as I began, like, just immersing myself in the city, I started noticing that the architecture here had dragons in them.
Naomi Winston:It's a lot of fucking dragons and unicorns. So that perked up 2 things. Okay? One is why I've been studying art my whole life. Why we wanna talk about this?
Naomi Winston:Who who what? What? What? 1, what is this? Who designed this?
Naomi Winston:Why is this a secret? And more importantly, when I look at myself in relationship to the world and how the sort of energy that I vibrate on, I'm like, this is dragon energy. And from a very from a very lame artistic perspective, when we think in terms of dragons, we think of, like, the Chinese dragon. You know? Like, that's how we're well, let me stop saying weird.
Naomi Winston:That's how I've been programmed. And as I began noticing that, I'm like, oh, shit. This is a whole other, like, paradigm of the Detroit dragon. So what does that mean? So I've been in that space of like, yo.
Naomi Winston:I'm I'm a I'm a Detroit dragon. I'm about to explore this. This mythos, I can't find in a book, so I need to create it myself. So, so I've been really inspired by the city. And when you just look at, like, the swag and culture energy of the city, it's been kind of reverberating in my artwork.
Naomi Winston:The other thing that I'm very inspired by, since really the past 6, 7 years has been genealogy. So I started doing genealogy in when that was 2017 2016 right before I went to, to West Africa. And before I went, I was just like, you know, I'm about to hire a genealogist, because I'm a find my tribe. You know, I just had to this spirit just came up in, you know, And I remember I was up in Ghana, and I received a call from my genealogist. And he was like and this is a guy from PG.
Naomi Winston:This well, I was teaching at the time. A PG, a like a old school PG dude. He and his wife just did genealogy for fun, and he called me. He said, I need you to call me as soon as possible. And I'm like, oh, shit.
Naomi Winston:I'm in Africa. He about to tell me I'm adopted or some crazy shit. So long story short, I get home, and he tells me like yo This is the craziest shit ever. I started, you know, I started doing your genealogy and I'm up in like the 1600s And what's interesting is your family was a never enslaved 2, they were in the south. 3, what's going on?
Naomi Winston:Like, this is interesting. So right then and there, that was very it was it was like that that changed everything because I was on this hunt to understand. He didn't have answers. Yeah. It was a quote unquote friend that I had at the time who was a history major.
Naomi Winston:You know, she didn't have answers, so I had to go on this journey myself. So, you know, I've been, you know, since 2017 on this journey of just uncovering this genealogy, which essentially is uncovering who I am. And what I discovered was as I began reading those names and those genealogical records, I began unlocking things within myself. Just even saying my ancestors' name, understanding the lands that they, you know, they occupied, and it really shifted a lot of things in me because I became a lot more, like, patriotic.
Rob Lee:Yeah.
Naomi Winston:And I couldn't would never thought, you know, like me, I've always been along the kind of, you know like a lot of black people, like, we kinda like, we tired. We are tired. But as I began understanding my genealogy, how deep it is in this country, all of you know, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Detroit, St. Louis
Rob Lee:Yeah.
Naomi Winston:And, you know, my family fought in civil wars, the war of 18/12 and so forth and so on. I'm just like, you know, there's a lot of, I have a lot of equity tied into this particular place.
Rob Lee:Yeah.
Naomi Winston:So my work, as I began understanding that, it's it's began to reflect in my work. And I see the transition of me, you know, going on this journey of understanding who and more importantly what I am.
Rob Lee:Today, it is my pleasure to welcome my next guest who strives to create a more just and humane society through her company, the Creative Representation Empire, by illustrating and publishing coloring books and conducting workshops to promote creative representation for Black and Brown children. Please welcome Naomi Winston. Talk a bit about some of those those challenges and some of those, like, early triumphs, like, you know, being a publisher, having your first book, having multiple books at this point. But talk about that a bit.
Naomi Winston:Yeah. You know, I think that as I've gotten older, I actually started working on my own memoir, which is crazy because I'm, like, so young. But one of the things that I really wanted to write about or talking about is for a long time, I've had this, like, pre composed, predisposed thought about what success was supposed to be. And I'm, like, nowhere where I thought I was gonna be when I started college. And for a while, I think I started publishing books because that's what people expected from me.
Naomi Winston:Like, my parents always said I was gonna be a writer. So I was like, okay. This, I'm gonna be a writer. I'm gonna be a writer. And I think that breathing that type of life into a child does a lot of good.
Naomi Winston:But I think it also made me think about everything in my life just as a checkpoint. And one of the things that I've really been saying to a lot of the youth that I've been mentoring or my peers that I talk to is we all have, like, guiding principles in life. And I think that starting that publishing company was one of my first guiding principles, which is, as a black person, we shouldn't have to pick if we're gonna be black or a woman or gay this day. I used to say that I'm black first, a woman second, and gay last. Because, like, I can change my perception of how I'm perceived in the world based off of how I dress, based off of how I act.
Naomi Winston:Like, I can hide. I can mask. And I'm just, like, how that's feeding into white supremacy and homophobia to just try to mask who I am as a person. And so for me, I think a lot of those early triumphs were giving black women the permission to tell their stories in a safe space. 1 of the book I I actually ended up publishing 3 books for other people.
Naomi Winston:2 of them were for my classmates. 1 of them, I started the process of helping my mother publish her book. I helped one of my classmates illustrate a children's book. And, 1, it taught me a lot about my own self discipline. You can ask her.
Naomi Winston:She's amazing. The book is selling well. She's a teacher. She uses her own book in her own classes. But it took us so long to finish that book because I was just like, I don't like this style.
Naomi Winston:I don't like this. I don't like this. I'm not where I wanna be in order to create this book for you. And we eventually did it, and it's amazing, and it's cool. But I think for me, like, it made me come face to face with my own limitations, and my own limitation was myself.
Naomi Winston:It was my lack of ability to allocate time. It was my inability to, like, stand by my word. And I think that those were really hard things for me to do. And I'm still obviously learning now because I'm so young in my career. I'm so young in my business.
Naomi Winston:And I think that was the hardest part. But I think I think the best part for me was helping one of the girl the my peers in college publish her book. And I read it. And I think that's one of the things I really missed when I had my first publisher was because she didn't even read my book. She didn't even know what I was was talking about in the book.
Naomi Winston:She just, like, basically threw it into the system and left it where it was. Like, she forgot about my book for, like, 3 or 4 months. I was constantly emailing her, hitting her up, and I'm like, hey. Is there any progress or anything like that? And I think it's one of those things where it's like, I got discounted because of my age.
Naomi Winston:Like, oh, you're 16. Like, you really don't care about publishing this book. I'm, like, no. I do care. And being able to tell her, like, yeah, I read your book.
Naomi Winston:Like, I think your story is so powerful. Thank you for sharing it. Like, that's so beautiful if you've been able to do that. And being able to, like, hand her her first copy of her book was a feeling that I think about a lot. And I hope that that's when my work continues to be in the future is the opportunity to give people to tell their stories without having to sacrifice themselves to do so.
Rob Lee:Talk about how the environmental component has had an impact on how you approach, you know, the the creative side, but also the entrepreneurial side.
Naomi Winston:Yeah. You know, I always like to say it was never a question of if I was gonna start a business. It was purely just when and what it was gonna be. My dad does real estate. My mom was a business teacher at a high school.
Naomi Winston:My sibling has several companies. Every my grandfather who raised 10 children in the in the middle of the civil rights movement, in Louisiana had his own company that enabled him to be, I think, maybe a millionaire by the time he died or by the time, like, his his estate was passed down to my dad and his siblings. And I was like, that is so beautiful. And I think for me, I'm very original in what you would say, what it was like to grow up in in a predominantly white town in the South. It was just so community oriented.
Naomi Winston:It was like, it didn't matter what they look like up and down the street. My my first book was actually dedicated to one of my English teachers in high school who was a white woman. And she, like, just poured so much into me, and I think, like, that was just a very beautiful experience. But I think one of the stories I always like to tell is how transformational my HBCU was for me. Because I don't know if you've heard, but Xavier is one of the hardest universities in the country to graduate from.
Naomi Winston:And I got my degree a year early, and Xavier made me fight for it. But there's a story I like to call as my a story. So have you ever read The Scarlet Letter?
Rob Lee:Yes.
Naomi Winston:In high school,
Naomi Winston:we read The Scarlet Letter, and we all of our English departments were so cool, and we got to do a bunch of different projects. And one of the projects was you had to pick what you thought your biggest personality flaw was and where the symbol of it around school. And all of your teachers and friends will have to guess what your letter meant. And I put a for anger issues because who isn't angry at 16? I mean, like, everyone's angry at 16.
Naomi Winston:And no every single one of my teachers and my friends put aggressive. And it was just mind boggling to me because I was just, like, I was literally such a sweet, easygoing person. And I I was just genuinely confused and I got angry about the fact everyone was calling me aggressive because I just didn't understand it. And then when you're a history major at Xavier, your last paper that you write to exit as your exit exam is how does Xavier transform you as a person. And I'll never forget that my last line in my paper was, I realized that I was never aggressive.
Naomi Winston:I was a black girl in a space that wasn't prepared to give me grace. And I think that there are so many moments in my life where I think about those late nights at Xavier. I think about crying every day in my freshman year because it was so hard. And it's just, like, Xavier gave me the thing that no other space has been able to, which is the permission to fail, the permission to be angry, and the permission to be tired, exhausted, and the permission to, like, try stuff and fail. And, like, that's not an experience that you can get just anywhere.
Naomi Winston:And I think that environmentally wise, like, I don't know what my life would have been like if I would have went to my local PWI or if I would have wouldn't have done my major in history. But I know that who I am right now
Rob Lee:and
Naomi Winston:the person, the personality, all the great things I've been able to do in the world is directly reflective of everything that Xavier poured into
Rob Lee:me. So today, I am thrilled to introduce my next guest, a Nigeria born Baltimore based visionary behind Yele, which blends Afrofuturism and modern fashion to celebrate African heritage. My guest has been recognized by, Essence and Yahoo News and featured in Visa's She's Next 23. Yele is refining luxury fashion. Please welcome Abisola Oladinde.
Rob Lee:I I touched on it a bit earlier. Everyone has their go to style, and mine is that utilitarian and being productive. And, you know, we have a fit whether it's or a sense of style, whether it's running an errand or night out. How would you describe your your personal style and perhaps how that personal style, like, blends into, like, and spills into your designs?
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:My personal style is just bougie. I can't help it. It's just bougie. Like, I dress up sometimes and be like, are you going to work? I say, yeah, I'm going to work.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:So that's those style. I love, I love, I love feeling good. I love looking good, and so I love making other people feel and look good. So I'll say it's, like, it's, Afro luxury. It is it's giving business casual, it's giving formal, it's giving red carpet.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:So it's still like it just sips in. It's like you you it's heavy. You know it's heavy. It has weights. Like like, that's that's that's that's the vibe.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:You know? It's it's, yeah. It's giving one of a kind. It's giving I walk into a room and buy it and look at me. That's that's how it is.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:Like, that that is how I always like, even when I dress down, it's still looking dressed up. I don't even try so hard. I'm like, I'm not really trying.
Rob Lee:Like, I'm not I'm not this. Hey, man.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:I was
Rob Lee:just bent over there.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:Yeah. I I I I dreamt of one time, and then someone was like, oh, wow. Wow. You look so good. Is this this new?
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:I'm like, no. This whole thing is 2021. I mean, 2021. But, you know, it's good. I'll see it.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:So so, like, that that that is it. It's like Afro luxury. It's bougie. I love bougie afro luxury. It's like, make me feel good.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:Let me look good. Let everybody know that I look good. Let everyone know that I stepped into this place without me talking. Let me start conversations with what I wear. Like, I don't even say much.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:I just get in and everybody's like, oh, I love that Luna. And then it was conversation starts. Like, that that is it. That's yearly. Period.
Rob Lee:When did you have that moment that fashion was gonna be, this is gonna be what I'm doing?
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:When did I have that moment? My Spider Man moment. This is a very good question. I, for me, I feel like it's, just little, little, little things that added up to make it be like my moment. But I remember, I, I think I remember a defining, I think I remember a defining moment, and it was when I got to the United States.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:So I was doing fashion back in Nigeria, but, like, the end point was to still, like, just do it for the meantime until I finish my masters because I have a masters in bioinformatics. No. Just putting that out there. So, like, I finished my masters and I become, like, a full time professor, a tenure professor somewhere. That was the plan.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:That was, like, my plan. So I was just like, I'm just doing this for the meantime to keep myself busy because I don't wanna be idle and all of that. But then I go to the United States, and then one day, out of the blue, someone just sent me a message. She was like, my fashion designer canceled on me. Can you fill in for me real quick?
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:I have a photo shoot. I'm coming all the way from Philly. I'm coming to Baltimore. Can you, like, do and I was like, okay. Like, I do have some pieces that I could, like, I could throw on the model.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:And and so I did that. And then the next day, it was a 2 day shoot. The next day, there was another shoot, and they were asking me if I had more pieces. I stayed up all night to make new pieces for the shoot for the next day. And then when I did, so when I got the shoot was at graffiti alley, like at the back of the building that I'm in right now, and then I got to the graffiti alley and then I dressed this model and everybody kept stopping.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:They were like, who made this dress for you? Who made this dress for you? And then to make like the icing on the cake, there's this photographer. He's legendary. He's a legendary photographer to me.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:Jazz's Jazz's Studios, Geoffrey Butler is also in the motor house and his, studio was facing the hale. So he saw my pieces and he rushed out to ask the model, who are the designer that made the pieces. And they were like, that's art. And I was like, And then he came up to me, and I was like, oh my goodness. I love your pieces.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:I I think it will be great for, like, a photo shoot in my studio and all of that. And I think that was the defining moment for me. Like, that was I was like, I love this thing so much that I stayed up all night to make new pieces for this shoot, and everybody was in love with this. I think that was the moment where I was like, okay. Yes.
Abisola Yelé Oladeinde:I believe passion. For real. For real. Not for fake. I'm doing for real.
Rob Lee:Chicago based artist and author who's who's joining us today to, you know, have a little story with us. Her work is deeply rooted in big feelings, feminism, and pop culture, and she's made waves. Not only has she illustrated for big names like Netflix, Comedy Central, and ESPN, but her unique art has graced the pages of Glamour and Bridget Magazines. Celebrated for her Sydney Taylor award winning graphic memoir, Dancing at the Pity Party, and her beloved children's book, Bodies Are Cool. She's a true innovator in her field.
Rob Lee:Most recently, she co authored Are You Mad at Me? With her sister, which is a book about childhood anxiety. Again, those big feelings. It is my pleasure to introduce the incredibly talented Tyler Feder. So so I wanna I wanna switch into themes a bit.
Rob Lee:You know, as as I have in sort of the the intraosy, like, you know, feminism feel, and we've we've talked about that a little bit and we've we've dabbled onto that, and obviously pop culture's in here as well. You know, what draws you, like, to these themes, and, like, why are they important in sort of your creative work, your art, and your writing? Why are they important to you?
Tyler Feder:Well, when I started putting art on Tumblr, I think I was really trying to find a subject that a lot of people would want to read blog. So I did primarily fan art and stuff at the beginning. And then once I got more followers, I felt like I had a little bit more flexibility to try to bring in some other topics. And, making personal sort of confessional ish style art was something that just felt really good to do. And I am in a family with 3 girls, no boys.
Tyler Feder:So, I have naturally a feminist bent. And then, my sisters and I have all struggled with varying kinds of eating disorders over the years. And so that was kind of my, like, entry point into body positivity. Like that side of feminism and, making art like that just felt really good. And it got this response that I really liked where people would say, like, this is the first time I've seen someone who looks like me drawn where it's not in a negative way.
Tyler Feder:And, that kind of spiraled into working on all kinds of diversity. And I mean, I think of caring about diversity as a pretty feminist y liberal kind of thing.
Rob Lee:It's liberals hard.
Tyler Feder:Yeah. It's just it's I think gradually I realized that this is like, at least for now, the kind of space that, feels best for me to inhabit, online and with my work.
