When Thom Shaw was alive, sometimes I would do a drive-by to see if his little black truck with the ARTWERK license plate was in the parking lot in Essex Studios. If it was and I had some time — because Thom Shaw could talk me under the table — I’d pull in and make my way back to his space.
Usually, I followed the strains of reggae records Thom played on his old turntable. Other times, it was quiet because Thom was in his zone doing large-scale wood cuts of black boys with guns shooting each other, or maybe he’d be inking a huge comic book-like piece about aliens molesting little girls.
Whatever he was up to and no matter how good or bad he felt that particular day, he always made way and time for me.
Like many other black creatives of my generation in Cincinnati, Thom Shaw was a counselor, a confidante, a sounding board and, mostly for me, a great living inspiration of a man who showed me by his own art and actions how to stand up for what I believe and to never ever abandon my truths regardless of the blowback, the pressure, the racism or homophobia.
Like me, Thom hated/loved black folks for all our ironies, self-destructive behaviors and brilliance.
He remains — after bouts with diabetes, a neck infection, a coma, a flesh-eating bacteria that took his right leg and, finally, his death nearly five years ago at the age of 62 — one of this country’s greatest, most prolific and searing artists capable of profound and profoundly uncomfortable visual statements on blackness in America that is still eerily relevant decades after most of the works were first created.
When Thom died, I compartmentalized his absence as yet another loss, a signpost that his generation of venerable black male artists in this region — men like photographers Melvin Grier and Jymi Bolden, visual artists Bing Davis and Gilbert Young — were meeting their mortality and saying goodbye to one another.
It was easier to file Tom Shaw that way.
Before he died, there was a plethora of benevolent art shows where other artists donated their work for auction to help defray Thom’s mounting medical bills.
Black folks of all stripes turned out to help, and these shows were as much about helping our brother as they were fellowships and family reunions. We all saw one another after long gaps of absences and missed phone calls and unreturned emails.
Then Thom died.
Speculation swirled about the whereabouts of his large collection of art. The family, I think, splintered a bit over Thom’s estate.
And then there were those bills.
And we all whispered.
And, suddenly, as if back to finish one last piece, an auction of Thom’s oeuvre was put up for auction last Sunday, and it was said to have been bank-mandated. So all his pieces — imposing woodcuts, ink on paper, self portraits in acrylic and his lesser-known abstracts — were all hung around all sides of the Main Auction Gallery on Fourth Street. The specter of all Thom’s work together in one place was overwhelming, like touring the inside of his head and heart without him there like the little sweat bee he was to give running commentary on each piece like he used to do.
I was overcome with rushes of simultaneous joy and sadness; joy that, finally, Thom’s work was destined for good homes to commingle with other people’s art and sadness because the auction had been forced so that his bills could be zeroed out a long five years after his death.
A greater part of my heart ached, though, when I walked into the standing-room-only auction Sunday morning and I could count on both hands the number of blacks present.
I have long tried to keep from judging what other black folks do with their money, but Sunday showed me what many art-loving blacks and I talk about on the sidelines of art shows, gallery openings and art auctions — and that is that many blacks have a strange and disconnected relationship with art.
In short, they do not appreciate it, do not need it, do not regard it, would never even dream of acquiring it and can find a myriad of ways to live without it.
This troubles and baffles me.
When I walk into a black person’s home, the first things I look for are books on the shelves and art on the walls.
This can be judgmental or classist, even.
However, if black folks spent the money on art we spend on Caribbean cruises, cars, high-end purses festooned with initialisms (G’s for Gucci, MK for Michael Kors, C’s for Coach, etc.), weaves, gaudy suits, drinks at the bar and on and on, we could own a significant portion of this country’s art and have it in our homes to pass on to our children like diabetes or heart disease.
If black people who worship at the altar of talk radio spent as much time online researching black artists to collect as they spent on hold on their cellphones to get on air to spout conspiracy theories and attacks on other blacks they loathe then we’d have some serious black collectors in the rank and file.
Like Jazz, the Blues and now Hip Hop, white people have long outspent and out supported black folks to ensure the longevity of our own indigenous art forms.
And so it was at the auction of Thom’s work.
I sat in my chair thanking God for the white people — some of whom I knew and some who were strangers — for vigorously bidding on Thom’s work.
And while it’s true white people in America still earn more on the dollar than blacks, and that women generally earn still less than men, buying art is a matter of self-love, priorities and investing, a principle many work-a-day blacks may not fully understand but one I am certain Blue Chip Negroes grasp quite well.
So where were they on Sunday?
Maybe church, because the auction did start around 9:30 and if there is one thing white mainstream culture does not understand about blacks is we love us some church and will not miss it if we can at all help it.
However, when I left at around 2:30, the auction wasn’t even half over, so some of us could’ve still made the second half.
All I thought about on the long walk to the bus and the ride home was how blessed I’d been to know Thom and that now maybe he rests in peace.
CONTACT KATHY Y. WILSON:
This article appears in May 20-26, 2015.