Photo by Helen Baskerville
by my counselor that I had received a few scholarships from Carver Vocational-Technical High School to continue my education at the Maryland Institute College of Art which was located in Baltimore City. I knew the prospect of me going to college would make my parents proud as I would have been the first college attendee in my immediate family. Even though I had no desire to continue my education, I knew that many people had higher expectations for me. Later, I would find out that I had no clue what to expect as I prepared for college. Truthfully, at that point I didn’t even know what a scholarship was. I hadn’t been to the counselor’s office, except for when I was in trouble. So here I was in my 12th grade year being offered these things called scholarships. At that point in my life, I thought my future was going to be that I would graduate from school, find a little shop that I could afford to rent, I would paint signs, and live happily ever after. After all, Mr. Washington worked from a garage attached his home. I was tired of school, and ready to be out of school. Nevertheless, the scholarship actually changed my trajectory. This “thing” was being offered to me and everybody around me was telling me I should do it. So, on a dare from my high school teacher, I enrolled in the Maryland Institute College of Art. Trust me, I was not college ready and had no clue what I was walking into, but this trajectory would certainly change my path. I would later be inducted in the Carver Vocational Technical High School “Hall of Fame” in 1993, as well as being invited back to Carver as graduation commencement speaker in 1997.
College Culture Shock
I was living two lives . . . part city boy, part college student. Being from the east side very few folks in my community knew
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that I was in college. I think a lot of them assumed I was probably dealing drugs. I kept that part of my life to myself. I’d always heard those crabs in the barrel analogies.
the kids were white, and that was culture shock. I came from a predominantly black school. In fact, I never had a white student in any classroom until college.
Initially, I thought I wanted to be a cartoonist, animator or something like that. I often would fantasize about maybe doing comic book art. By the time I reached college, I realized a few things. One is that, when I said I wasn’t college ready, I wasn’t. Even though I was a pretty good student academically all through high school, when I got to the Maryland Institute College of Art, I quickly found out that I had some problems. Imagine if you’re going to school half a day and academics half a day in a vocational setting, you’re probably going to be a little weaker in academics than most other students, so when I got there, it was an immediate culture shock.
My most difficult adjustment was in the area of academics. For the first time since my high school years, I realized I had some academic challenges specifically with English. Even though my academic grades were in the 80s and 90s all through high school, when I took my English placement test at MICA they decided to place me in English 101. Now, English 101, typically, was for international students who were speaking multiple languages. That was very embarrassing for me to be placed in English 101, because I only spoke one language. Why am I in this class?” Everybody kept trying to explain to me, “Well, you tested pretty low in English, so we’re going to put you in this class just to kind of get you acclimated from your high school life to your college life, and then you’ll be fine.” I reluctantly got onboard, and I started going to these classes. Believe me, it really was an eye opener because what it did was introduce me to other students that weren’t white that were from all over the world. Here I was in this diversity movement without really knowing it, and this was before diversity was as popular as it is now. What I started learning was that I was fine in my studio classes.
Imagine going to orientation at a new college with about 300 students in an auditorium. Imagine only seeing about fifteen black students in the crowd. The staff began to do a roll call of the students and the classes they were to attend. It seemed that everyone was present. As they completed checking off the list they asked if any student had not heard their name. They asked us all to stand. About 30 of us stood up, only to hear an announcement that would set the pace of things to come at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The announcement stated that if you were standing your financial obligations had not been met and that you should report to the financial aid office to resolve any financial matters. It was the most embarrassing experience I had ever had. I wasn’t by myself though because surprise most of the other students were the same color as I. I later found out that the few scholarships that were given from my school were not enough to cover my first semester of tuition. I also found out that my high school had an arrangement for a four-year scholarship once had been defaulted on by a former student. And no, I could not resume studying there on what was left of the scholarship. I was informed that the scholarship was offered in four-year cycles. The former student had only completed two years before they dropped out. How could a black person drop out of a four-year paid scholarship? So from the very beginning I had to struggle.
Academic Challenges
My days at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) were really confusing. First, I had gone to all black schools my entire life. I did not see one child of another race through high school. When I got to college, it was just the reverse. Most of
As a matter of fact, I was a little above average in my studio classes in my foundation year because of my vocational educational and the things and techniques I learned in high school. It gave me room to catch up with my reading because I didn’t do much recreational reading. I could pass my tests in high school without even doing any studying. It just made me buckle down, but it made me join a group of people that came from different cultures. I can’t tell you how that impacted me. I needed it because at that point, I was actually fearful. On the other hand, the foreign students at the school seemed to welcome me with open arms. The foreign students were from all over the world and most of them came from pretty prominent families. They also had money which was something I had to always work hard for. I, by no means, tried to hide the fact that I was financially challenged. Every now and then they would invite me to a party or get together. Most of the time I accepted their invitations. At those gatherings we discussed everything from foods, other cultural traditions, to religion. Some of my most valuable lessons were learned by affiliating with the foreign students. It was very interesting coming from a Christian background,
to talk to other people with other religious affiliations. In my sheltered life, I thought there was only Christianity. I would soon learn that all my views would be challenged. I began to feel as if I were the most arrogant and naive person in the group. We had pretty good representations of many faiths in our group. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Christians and even an Atheist. The interesting thing was when we’d have discussions on religion, they were always civil. There was no yelling there was a general respect for each other’s faith. From my Baptist background, I never had the opportunity to meet other people from other faiths. This experience changed my life. It was there that I began to pay attention to the other things that were happening in the world. I quickly humbled myself and tried my best to focus on my academic classes. Our school was going to be more than just drawing and painting. For a moment I questioned whether I had made the right decision, but I had a history of completing what I started. While trying to catch up in my English classes, I developed a great relationship with an instructor named Joe Carderelli. After I passed in a few assignments, he commented that I had a knack for writing and that I should pursue it further by beginning a journal. I had kept a journal for most of my life. It was not uncommon for me to have a few diaries. He challenged me to read more and motivated me to write more. It took me awhile to appreciate literature, but by the end of his class, I had a better appreciation for writing and conceptualizing my ideas.
From Signwriting to Illustration
Sign work was becoming scarce because of technology. I did hand lettering from 1979 all the way up to the late 80’s. The art form was becoming competitively challenged by Gerber Systems and other plotter-based technologies. These new vinyl cutting systems began threatening the future of hand lettering. So, I was already beginning to feel the squeeze of the industry adapting to this new technology. It was around that time that I had an opportunity given to me from a couple of local film studios. They still needed hand lettering for movies and commercials because the plotter-based systems at that point, produced lettering that was very stagnant and mechanical looking on camera. So, I made a transition from waiting by the phone for my old sign clients to call me back into local television and video reaching out to me for freelance work, which was much more lucrative. I was reinventing myself again. After a few months, I left my temporary job at the
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