For me, especially with this last book, I had nothing else to say about these characters from this point in their lives. I felt like I’d reached the end of what they’re telling me—it wasn’t even what they’re telling the story, it’s more what versions of them I needed at that time.

A piece is finished when I don’t have anything more to say. My works are suggestions and I tend to create series of works to avoid routine. Of course I test every painting for its legitimacy. Worst case the canvas gets torn, painted or pasted over.

It just, um, starts feeling correcter and correcter until it's done.

I don’t know. Right now I’m just in the insecurity portion and nothing feels good enough. But I think one way that I can answer this is, if I go back to it and I have a little chuckle with myself, then I feel like it’s good. I still think it’s funny. There are some parts of this new book that I look back at and I feel mortified. There are some parts where I’m like, “Wow, this person really gets me. This me really gets me.” And it feels good. Because even though it’s me, I’m really connecting with it. And hopefully, someone else will feel that way.

Yes, the Kuleshov effect. When you place one image next to another, meaning emerges. If you change one image, the meaning changes. They are these psychological landscapes that are being painted. So I find this technique and the various ways that montages can be assembled extremely helpful.

I’m leaving these things behind so that in 2076 someone can say, “Oh, wow. OK, so this is what they were dealing with,” and maybe they can draw some sort of parallel to whatever is happening in their reality right now, the conditions that they face right now, as much as I can draw a parallel from what Fred Hampton was talking about to what I’m experiencing now.

The spiritual practice is West African–derived and earth based, and there’s a process of ancestral veneration that is a hallmark of this tradition. I’m talking to them and seeking their help, petitioning them, thanking them, praising them. Attempting to listen and be led.

One of my biggest disappointments: I used to take piano lessons as a young girl, and then I stopped, because I was having a really difficult year as a kid. My step father had died, and I didn't want to do anything -- so I just stopped taking lessons. And then I think back and I'm like, “Damn, I could have been Nina Simone!” Haha

Visibility doesn’t equal power.

When I start a project, it’s a kind of investigation and curiosity at the beginning. I’m basically culling materials. I’m gathering. A lot of the work takes on a collage aesthetic. So I am thinking through an idea and then gathering all of the supporting documents. In some ways it’s essayistic. I’m attempting to put forth an idea or a thesis. There are assertions that are being made, and what can I use visually, whether it is 16 millimeter film from the past or things that I shoot myself, whether it’s interview that I go out and get, whether it’s me painting on film and creating some sort of abstraction that alludes to or gestures towards the assertion. It’s playtime at the beginning. It’s almost like a very active brainstorming that requires me to go out and find materials as well as make notes, as well as look at footage as well as read. It’s investigative curiosity at the beginning, this phase of questioning and garnering. And at the end it’s instinctual. It’s a sweet spot. There have been times where I’ve gone out and presented something thinking that it’s done and then brought it back. I’ve gotten audience reactions, brought it back, turned it up a little bit, and then it was done. Sometimes my finishing process requires me to see it with a large group of people.