How I Solved a Personal Low-Stakes Mystery

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Do you have any low-stakes personal mysteries in your life?

You know, those unanswered questions that just bubble under the surface? They really don’t mean much to anyone, except for you, but they are just things you wonder about from time to time. The answer (if there is one) feels just out of reach.

In some cases, not even the internet knows what the hell you’re talking about because maybe your low-stakes personal mystery is that set of keys you lost, or a book you enjoyed, and you can’t remember the title.

Or perhaps your low-stakes mystery has to do with a panting you saw at a gallery that one time. For some reason, this painting spoke to something inside of you. As you stood a few feet away squinting at it, you felt captivated by the bold use of colour, the interesting angles, and depth of field. At the centre, is the artist himself, standing at the top of a staircase, wielding some tools, surrounded by other paintings.

Look, I love a painting of the inside of a room. Several many examples come to mind, and I have some ideas as to why, but that will be a post for another day.

There’s just no time right now because, WE HAVE A MYSTERY TO SOLVE!

So, a few years back, in 2021, the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) hosted an exhibition called Black American Portraits.

The central pieces were The Obama Portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, and they were amazing to see IRL, but the message behind the exhibit, was to redirect the gaze — reframing portraiture to centre Black American subjects and spaces.

The exhibit showcased more than 100 stunning pieces spanning over two centuries from c. 1800 to the present day, highlighting emancipation and early studio photography, scenes from the Harlem Renaissance, portraits from the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, and multiculturalism of the 1990s.

The point of Black American Portraits, to put it all-too-simply, was to demonstrate the ways in which Black Americans have used these mediums to envision themselves through their own eyes.

I would say (and so many others have said it much better) that this is what was exemplified in Kendrick Lamar’s iconic halftime show performance. Using symbolism and thoughtfully-curated visuals, this subversive performance twisted the spectacle and fetishization of the Black experience, with a focus on abundance, joy, community, and ultimately, revolution.

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But back to the LACMA exhibit because I think about it often.

I think about Henry Taylor’s She is Not a Ho (2005) which references Rene Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (1929) as a comment on perceptions and biases.

I think about I Still Face You (2015), a massive piece by Njideka Akunyili Crosby that makes you feel like you are actually inside of the room itself.

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Another one I think about often is the softness in Clifford Prince King’s Safe Space (2020).

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A post shared by @cliffordprinceking

Again, I wish I could spend more time on these specific artists and paintings, but THE MYSTERY!

I may be building this up way too much, but out of all the pieces featured as part of LACMA’s Black American Portraits was this one — a relatively small self-portrait of the artist standing at the top of a staircase, wielding some tools, surrounded by other paintings. It was this one I thought about the most.

And you’d think that, being so moved by this piece, I would remember the artist’s name, or at least snap a pic of the placard with all of the information on it?

Uhh, yea no. Did not do that.

So, I was left to my own devices, trying to find an artist of a painting I saw once at an exhibition in LA.

You’d think that my internet sleuthing skills would come in handy here, but try as I might, without the name of the artist, and only a memory of the painting, no amount of web scouring linked me with the right guy.

Until I doing my daily scrollz, it was September 7th, and a pal on IG shared something commemorating the birth of an artist, named Jacob Lawrence!

I nearly dropped my phone. That’s him, that’s the guy!

Jacob Lawrence!

Now, this may be showcasing a huge gap in my art knowledge, exposing my naivety when it comes to iconic Black artists of the twentieth century, because once I discovered his name, I read a lot about him — his other works, style, and inspiration.

Jacob Lawrence was known for his modernist illustrations of everyday life, but he also highlighted narratives of African-American history and figures.

In 1941, at the age of 23 Lawrence gained national recognition with The Migration Series, a whopping 60-panel piece depicting the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Many of Jacob's paintings are, to this day, seen as a crucial comment on the Black experience during the depression and civil rights movement of 1960.

Lawrence also has a painting up in the White House (for now) called The Builders (1947).

The piece I fell in love with — The Studio (1977).

You may be asking yourself, why share this now?

That exhibit wrapped in 2021 and Jacob Lawrence passed away in 2000.

Well, it is Black History Month for one, and I thought there was a connection to be made between what the LACMA exhibit set out to do, and also what Kendrick Lamar did with the halftime show. It got me thinking about race, symbolism, art, angles, safety, transformation, resistance, fear, joy, violence, silence, misunderstanding, our complex relationships to the past, present, and future, as a community and as individuals.

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Whether you are in the middle of a sea of people, or alone in your studio.

Well, recently I found myself killing some time at the Toronto Reference Library. We went all the way to the tippity-top floor where there were some random filing cabinets.

Inside the drawers were hundreds of manila folders, but there was only one I was searching for:

Jacob Lawrence’s Picture Collection folder at the Toronto Reference Library.

Magazine clipping of Jacob Lawrence in his studio, standing in front of his self portrait The Studio (1977).