ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

maintenance department at MICA and immersed myself into studio work. It felt prestigious to be working indoors painting signs for commercials that you would see on local and national ad campaigns on television. As I made this transition into the local video and film arenas, I got a couple of big commercial opportunities, including commercials for local Chevy dealerships and I aligned myself with Balloons Over America that needed imprints on their balloons for different commercials. I also created a life-size dollar bill mascot for a local Maryland Lottery commercial campaign, which eventually led me to contracts on gigs with Barry Levinson who was shooting his movie, Avalon, in Baltimore City.

I was young and I was black and there weren’t many black sign painters in that arena for some reason. I knew every Black sign painter in the region because we were trained in the same place, and we all had the same philosophy and hustlers’ mentality. I was fortunate to learn from many legendary Black Baltimore sign painters like Ricardo Valentine, George Wainwright, Al Green, James Forney, and Jerome Washington. Along with my former high school teacher, Barbara Thomas, who pound for pound was the fastest signwriter in Baltimore City. She was the reason why I learned lettering so quickly. My first signwriting job was at Washington Signs. Washington had to be one of the most accurate letterers in the game. So here I was learning from the fastest signwriter in the city and the most accurate letterer in the city.

Now, I was an inner-city kid, working with this Hollywood set stationed in Baltimore. They needed letterers to do time-dated facade work on signage, vehicles, and murals. I was young and enthusiastic. I’ll never forget the lead came through one of the video companies I was working with that the studio was looking for sign painters. So, I contacted them, and set up an immediate appointment. I showed up with my lettering brushes in my back pocket. I’m excited. I’m full of confidence. I get in there and they proceed to pull out a blueprint and lay it on the table. The lead painter Danny Hinzo said, “Now, Mr. Brown, we need you to duplicate this blueprint.” And I go, “Do you have any other instructions?” And they replied, “No. We just want to see what you can do.” It was like a test audition.

So, I looked at the blueprint, I looked at the measurements to the lettering styles on the blueprint. I was familiar with all the materials. I had an old Walkman. I put my earplugs on, and I proceeded to reproduce this sign from the blueprint on the set. It was like I traveled through time. I got in the zone for a while, and I didn’t even realize that people were watching. I’m trying to impress these guys and replicate this sign. I’m knocking it out and not even stopping for a break. I’m into music and maybe about an hour and a half later, I finished the 3ft x 16ft sign. I go to the bottom of the sign to signature it because I was so used to signing Washington Signs on completed assignments. My brain said, “Well you’re not working with Washington, so go ahead and sign Poncho Illustrations on the bottom of it.”

So, I put Poncho Illustrations on the bottom of the sigh. I finished the sign, I’ve taken my headphones off. I’m looking at the sign to make sure it’s looking like the blueprint. I turn around and there are about six painters staring at me. I looked back and I walk over to Danny Hinzo, a Native American in charge of the painting department who was over all of the signwriters on set. Mr. Hinzo looked at me with this strange look on his face and he said, “Come here young man.” I walked over to Mr. Hinzo and he says, “Look, we’ve got a couple of problems.” I said, “Oh, sorry sir, where can I make improvements?” He said, “No, you did an excellent job. But these are the rules around here. Number one, we don’t sign anything here. We are a representation of the movie studio, and we are replicating a particular period in time in this movie, so there will be no self-promotion.”

He says, “The second thing that’s a problem is for you to slow down because you’re making all of us look bad.” We all laughed, I agreed to his terms, and that was the first time I was hired on a professional movie set as a sign writer. I did the freelance position for two months. I learned a hell of a lot and it was the most money I’d ever made per hour in my life. The movie was Avalon directed by Barry Levinson shot around 1989.

I would later pick up a few other movies filmed in Baltimore like He Said, She Said shot in 1990, The Meteor Man directed by Robert Townsend shot in 1992, and a couple of other local movies in the Baltimore area as a signwriter. Soon thereafter that successful run, the Gerber sign systems became more and more sophisticated and my life as a sign painter began to come to an end. I didn’t see it coming, but my main hustle line was beginning to dry up.

It was around this time that Chenal Alford suggested I go and see an accomplished graphic designer by the name of Joseph Ford. He worked at Morgan State University in the Public Relations office. I had compiled a portfolio of my graphic design and illustration projects. He really acted as my first mentor of African American decent that wasn’t a formal teacher. At this point in his career, he was a shining star in the region, being the first black art director for a major ad agency. Mr. Ford looked at my portfolio and reviewed all the different types of art projects I was doing. He was perturbed by the amount of raw talent I had, but he knew I needed some direction. This was the beginning of another trajectory into investigating graphic design and illustration as a career path. Mr. Ford was very keen on discipline and recognizing talent. He made me look at myself and humble myself to figure out what my career next step would be.

Early on Mr. Ford tried to funnel me through a few illustration projects. He also tried to introduce me to some people within his circle. By his request, I began participating in many portfolio reviews with local designers, illustrators, and design agencies. He also sent me to a few local television stations. I met so many people that I got a chance to show my talent with the prospects of them hiring me, but I still was having a problem being picked up by anybody. Some people looked at my work and they felt like I was a little overqualified for some of the positions that they had available, and I probably didn’t have enough experience for other positions. I found myself in this strange spot where people were impressed by my work, but nobody shared any interest in hiring me.

It was Mr. Ford who would later be the person to give me my first real illustration job. It was a black and white illustration for a poster for the Morgan Walk-A- Thon. Mr. Ford hired me for that project, which he offered me about $75.00 for that illustration. This project was low budget, but he saw an opportunity to get me acclimated to working for a client. Soon Joe Ford would be saying to me, “You probably need to stop painting signs because you’re bringing the quick and dirty sensibilities of painting signs into doing illustration work. I believe that if you would slow down when you’re creating illustration work you could probably find a lot of work in illustration.” Joe Ford was the person who made me steer away from doing signs, which changed my direction because up to this point, I had only imagined myself being a sign painter. I hadn’t imagined myself being successful as an illustrator.

Working with Joe Ford was a challenge because he was direct, straight forward and never used color or blackness as a reason for not achieving success. So, when I kept explaining to him my experience with going to portfolio reviews, he always looked confused. “Well, you got raw talent here. I don’t know why you wouldn’t have been picked up by any of these people.” Joe Ford was the kind of person who was a simplistic thinking person. He was a results-oriented person, a problem solver, and a task master. He also had mastered his craft as a graphic designer. This guy could simplify the most complicated of concepts. Watching him work was quite amazing. Later in my life, some of his approaches to graphic design would rub off on me as an artist.

Ultimately, Mr. Ford would give me my second illustration job, which really connected a few dots in my mind. The second illustration job was a poster featuring Bill Cosby. Mr. Cosby was doing a benefit concert to raise funds for Morgan State University. It was a big deal. City-wide people were murmuring about Bill Cosby coming to Morgan. Joe Ford felt I had enough talent to do a portrait of Bill Cosby on this poster and so he gave me my first color illustration job. Man, I was scared to death. I wondered if I could do it. I was doubtful, but Joe Ford believed I could do it, and this second project had a real budget. He could have hired top talent from the Graphic Group in Atlanta, a top talent agency for illustrators, with that budget, but he decided to make sure I got compensated on this project, since I wasn’t paid much on my first project. The project paid about $1,500.00, and that kind of money changed my whole trajectory. Why would I continue painting signs, if I could do what I loved and still make the same money? Back then that was a lot of money. If I did a sign job, a four-foot by eight-foot piece of aluminum with lettering on it would cost about $500.00. So, to be doing a 22 by 17-inch illustration for that kind of money was eye opening and it helped fuel my transition from the sign painting into illustration.

That project gave me great exposure. Even though MSU ended up not being able to sell the poster, it was given away to a lot of people and other HBCU’s. Ultimately MSU gifted the original art to Bill Cosby. What’s funny about this story is that Dick Gregory would call me to tell me that he saw that piece in Bill Cosby’s living quarters. That gave me a lot of confidence