2017 New Artist Statement

There is a quote by Pastor Rev. Otis Moss, Jr., D. Min. of the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio that states, “Those who did not understand African theology and African spirituality sought to silence this drum beat and jail the song leaders, like the prophetic James Bevel and the gifted vocalist Bernice Johnson Reagen. Each generation must sing its song, but if we are to sing with power and purpose, we must know the songs of our ancestors and embrace the spirit of the songs. It is incomprehensible to think of Dr. King as the leader of a songless movement. African and African American theology has never been and never will be a songless theology.”

I know this experience that Rev. Moss speaks of, and I know of the spiritual drum beat which echoed throughout my grandmother’s house with the daily work that needed to be done. My artworks will imbue this drum beat because I know the marching of the civil rights drum beat of the Sixties and Seventies. This African drumbeat will never die. It is always in my mind and the depths of my soul!

My new body of works is influenced by the: Empire, Labor, Visibility, and the Negro Spirituals Songs which I will fortify with the Ancestral African drum beat with the tools and implements used by my ancestors as they sang and toiled on the hot plantation field and in the long and dangerous protest marches with the hopes and dreams of freedom and equality!

                   James L. Buxton, Jr.