Transcript:

[Joyce J. Scott] Hey, Leslie. How you doing?

[Leslie King Hammond] No complaints. I’m here with you, so I’m afraid!

[Scott] Good! You should be afraid because we’re about to talk about me.

[King Hammond] Oh, this is going to be fun. The thing that is so compelling about your work is that people come upon it, and they see all these beads, and they are awed by it. “’Oh my God, how did she do that?’ All those little itty bitty, bitty, bitty glass beads.” So here you are, a trickster playing that game back and forth, seducing them in. Well, that’s what makes you the quintessential trickster.

[Scott] So, like, you know “The Buddha Gives Basketball to the Ghetto.” When you look at it, it’s got the closest to basketball color I could get in beads. And, and there’s a human who’s flat. That’s about not making it as a basketball person. And then there is a ladder that’s wrapping around Buddha where he is ascending; becoming smarter, better, more actualized. And it’s talking about how some people use basketball to get out of the ghetto, but also how, you know, working towards some kind of goal. That is who I am in the art. Well, you know Leslie, I have this thing about Buddha. I love him because he’s not a god. He’s somebody who’s enlightened, who figured out a bunch of stuff. So I’m always trying to figure out how to use him in everyday life.

[King Hammond] Well, Joyce, I have always been fascinated with the way you take an iconic figure, and you turn it around, and you position it in a real life situation so people can really grapple with the meaning of this, you know, iconic spiritual entity. But then, you know, this could be a dude on the corner.

[Scott] That’s the point. Look, there’s another piece of mine that I really love. And it really is special because it shows the evolution of what I’ve been doing with glass. It’s called “The Birth of Mammy, Anansi.” It also pinpoints a certain time in my creation, because it’s my use of industrial glass, before I really started working with glass artists in studio. So this is a glass work that I found somewhere, a jar that I like the shape of, and I covered it in beadwork. And the Birth of Mammy, here, it’s Anansi the spider. You talked about a trickster before, and the trickster, of course, is like me, it’s a rascal who’s always insinuating bad behavior and stuff. Anansi here also has the watermelon pattern, because that’s one of those broad and overarching stereotypes about African Americans in America.

[King Hammond] By taking these stories, these trickster stories which come from the continent of Africa and, and Anansi, who really is a Ghanaian icon, and you’re taking all of these, accessible common day, ordinary mundane materials and mixing them into this incredible capacity to tell amazing stories. Because the trickster is also the individual who questions, who has a moral compass. And the way you dance and play with it in materials, Joyce, and also your performative work and in just plain conversation, which is hard to have with you because you’re not a straight arrow! [Both laugh] Your personality is so imbued in these works; people cannot avoid their own sensibilities relating to not just the artwork that you create, but also your nutty ass personality and behavior!

[Scott] So, Leslie, thanks for talking to me. I had a really wonderful time with you because you’re always giving me accolades. Okay Stinky, stay out of trouble.

[King Hammond] I’ll try! No promises.