By Jordan Horton
Jordan: Hey narkita, can you tell me about yourself and your overall practice?
narkita: I am someone who is very aware of my positionality in the world as a Black woman from the South who grew up in a conservative home. I am very aware of how I was shaped. I think that who I am is actively subverting respectability and almost everything I’ve been told. I see my art as a manifestation of my work to heal and liberate myself and to share that with others as a means to inspire people to look inward, connect with self, heal, and change so that we can all maybe bring forth something different, collectively. I am really interested in time, and crossing temporal boundaries. So that, for me, means looking at ancient craft traditions and bringing them into a contemporary space to have conversations around remembering and reclaiming ourselves.
J: Can you speak about the throughlines of your medium and message throughout your practice?
n: I think there's always been a theme of introspection in my work, since the beginning. I still consider myself a portrait photographer. My first project was based in portrait photography. It was all about asking Black folks in Denver, who are you? What does it mean to be you? And then also asking the viewer, who are you? What does it mean to be you? to inspire that inward look. I'm really interested in spiritual activism. I'm not religious at all, but I do think there's something rich about spirituality, and I do think the spiritual is political. So I bring that into my work. Spirituality is a throughline. Time is a throughline. Intergenerational healing is a throughline. Identity is a throughline. Yeah, inward-looking is a throughline.
J: Your recent work utilizes indigo. What does the color blue mean to you at this point in your art practice?
n: It means a lot of different things. I think about the cosmology of the dyestuff and color. I think a lot about indigo, especially because I'm still in the midst of working a Tatter event with a world-renowned indigo dyer named Aboubakar Fofana, who's from Mali and grew up in France. For me, it's always been about the history and how we talk about this color. I hear many people say, “Indigo is my favorite color.” but whenever I see indigo, I think about the commodification of people and the exploitation of natural resources for profit. I think about colonialism and capitalism. I've been thinking about the state of the world right now, especially while crimes against humanity are taking place all over the world and producing generational psychological trauma. So when I see indigo I see trauma, I see violence, I see history. But I also see healing. I also see introspection, I think about the third eye chakra. So what’s exciting for me with indigo is that there is this loaded history associated with it, and there's also this cosmic healing and spiritual meaning with it as well. I've been thinking about indigo-dyed cloth as something that's really sacred and holds healing properties.
J: Could you share a significant lesson or insight you've gained along your artistic process?
n: Don't make art to make money. I think I've been really turned off in some of the interactions I've had over the years with people who only think about the market. It's pushed me to really think about why I make work. I really do work from an inner space – from a contemplative space, and I don't think I've ever been concerned about selling. I think it's great when people buy my work. Cool, that's wonderful. But I think what I've learned is I have to stick to who I am and what I want to do, and that brings about conversations and dialogue that are really necessary. I don't make work to sell. I've had to learn to stand in that.
J: Who influences your approach to your practice?
n: It's funny I didn't start out in textiles. I started out in photography. I had a mentor, Tya Anthony, who curated a show at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. She invited me to make something different, and I naturally gravitated to cloth. For the show at BMoCA, I went to the craft store and bought pre-dyed synthetic cloth, and I made these prayer flags for an immersive installation. I'm so grateful that I was even invited into those spaces when I first started. I remember talking to Tya about textiles. She shared with me that cloth is spiritual on the continent of Africa and has significance for us. And that stuck with me. So I started making cyanotypes on cotton cloth not long after that because of what she said about its connection to the continent, and its connection to spirituality. And then I visited Faith Ringgold’s show at New Museum and there was something within me that just clicked. That afternoon, after I saw her quilts, I bought a sewing machine – I didn’t know how to use it, but I was committed to teaching myself, and I started making the piece (amalgamation i) with all the afro picks and combs. Faith inspired me to pick up a sewing machine and make something. And so I would definitely say Faith Ringgold is someone who is an artist who I think of often and Aboubakar Fofana, who I mentioned earlier.
J: What's something that you learned while at TAC?
n: I came to TAC as a summer camp counselor. I absolutely love learning with children. I think it is less intimidating when you get to be with these little people who are really open and curious. I think it brings forth permission to be open and curious just like them. TAC is where I learned how to screenprint and weave. It's where I learned how to block print and create repeat patterns on yardage. There are all these technical skills that I've been able to learn that have really shaped me as an artist. Before I moved to New York, the director at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver encouraged me to build a community of artists instead of pursuing an MFA. I think TAC is where I found that community of artists who exchange ideas and share and talk and uplift and encourage one another. And I think being in a city like New York, where it can be extremely competitive, TAC is where I found a sense of communal appreciation and respect for one another that has been really necessary for me.
J: How do you know when a project is done?
n: I think that's why I'm going to grad school. There’s a criteria that I want to create for myself. In the past, I’ve worked on a deadline. But I'm starting to think about myself in relation to the work. Is the work doing what I want it to do? And I think that is what I'm moving toward. Developing the criteria for myself to look at my work and say, it checks all these boxes, or it aligns with what I expect of myself to put out and be able to just say with confidence, “okay, it's ready”, but I'm not there yet. I'm going to grad school to develop that criteria for myself so I can share work that I feel is finished.
