Willis "Bing" Davis: Reach High & Reach Back

(whimsical music) [Julie] Yeah, just talk to me about the painting.

[Julie] Yeah, just talk to me about the painting.

-Yeah.

-(static buzzing) This is part of a long series called "Ancestral Spirit Dance" series which began in 1973, where I'm taking African patterns and combining them with urban abstract expressionism.

That man is an artist through to his marrow in his bones.

His work kind of just speaks to you.

It's magnificent.

[Bing] I begin by setting up rhythms and melodies.

And those melodies and patterns give me the structure for the composition.

He is creating images that have an impact to draw us in.

At some point, I go for the fun part, which is the improvisation.

It's like a musician in a combo where you step out and you have a solo.

(lively music) Bing Davis has been one of the leaders across the United States, African American artists, visual artists.

He's been doing this for 60 years.

And I'm tying those two in, all the time trying to make it relate as a whole and actually using the negative space as part of the composition.

In many ways, Baba Bing has embodied the Western African tradition of the griot, where he's able to transmit a wealth of knowledge to several generations.

So there's always pure surface coming through, which is as important as the part I touch.

(soft lively music) He's a creative human being.

He's one of the most creative men in the world.

Whether it's clay or paint, whatever medium he's working in, he's excellent at it.

It's a pretty powerful, powerful experience to meet Bing Davis.

(dramatic music) [Videographer] Very good.

(bell chimes) (dramatic piercing music) (cymbals whooshing) (circulating air humming) (pencil scraping) (circulating air humming) (sensor beeps) How'd you know Been down How'd you know Been written down How'd you know your name Been written down How'd you know your name Been written down On the wall, oh, it's been written down I was named for Willis Hoke.

That's my uncle who was a minister in South Carolina.

I was named for him to follow him.

And I thought I was going in that direction.

And I used to think that I let a lot of people down following art, but I found out that art became my ministry.

His family is part of this larger mosaic of Black families who left the Jim Crow South and came north to the Midwest seeking opportunity, seeking a chance to have a fair shot at this American democratic exercise.

(singers vocalizing) [Narrator] Most families who came to Dayton, Ohio through the Great Migration settled on the city's West side.

But the Davis family made their home in a small African American enclave on Dayton's East side, a working class, Appalachian-rooted neighborhood adjacent to factories and plentiful opportunities for work.

(lively jazz music) I had this nurturing kind of environment there in East Dayton.

Just a little small neighborhood of African Americans that had musicians, artists, dancers, poets.

(lively jazz music) Some of the best gangsters in town.

(laughs) His mother was a shape note singer and a quilter and his father was a gospel singer.

His entire family were gifted, naturally.

[Narrator] Bing's household was a busy one, with five brothers and sisters, all talented, energetic, and creative.

When Bing was in grade school, their family was shattered when Bing's father moved out.

Close friends encouraged Bing's mother to put the children in an orphanage.

She refused.

Instead, she dug deep, working two jobs to keep her young children all together under one roof.

Only Bing and his younger sister Diane are left to share what it was like at home in those lean years on Diamond Avenue.

(lively piano music) We stayed in a small two-bedroom house.

We were so close and very poor.

Mom was the mom and the daddy and the sister and the brother and the minister.

She was everything at home.

And she didn't play.

She was only about 5'3".

Little bitty mean lady.

She didn't play.

(laughs) Oh Lord.

(lively piano music) [Narrator] Bing's mother was the glue that held her family together.

She ensured her children were nourished physically, spiritually, and mentally, regularly imparting life lessons through "sayings" that Bing still references to this day.

She also went out of her way to make sure young Bing had art supplies.

(lively piano music) One of the two jobs my mother had the longest was, she was the maid at the Biltmore Hotel.

And she would go around to the rooms she was cleaning, and she would get the little pieces of cardboard they put in the back of the shirts that come from the cleaners.

And she'd collect them up.

And sometimes she'd bring me a stack.

The hardest thing to draw on because they had a coating on them, but I used them for paper.

And then she couldn't find something for her baby to draw on, she would get some old paper bag, and she'd come home and iron the wrinkles out of paper bags with the iron so I'd have some paper to draw on.

And saved those little yellow pencils that they'd fill out the menus on, she'd collect them up before they'd get thrown away, and I'd have these little stubs to draw on.

So there's no way I could not be successful with that kind of nurturing support.

I've been made to reflect about, where is all this coming from, and how did it get to where it's at?

I just had been nurtured, had just been nurtured, and wasn't even aware of the nurturing because it came in the form of love.

-(fragmented radiating music) -(birds chirping) (traffic droning) -(fragmented radiating music) -(birds chirping) We happen to be sitting in a holy spot in Dayton and that's the YMCA gymnasium.

I played many, many games here.

It's so different than where I learned to play basketball, and that was in Irwin Community Center.

Jack Reynolds was our community center director and he worked with all of us on giving our best, doing your best.

Don't do something if you're not willing to work hard at it.

And he was that male figure, not having a father in the house, that was one of the early males that made input into me through that community center.

At that era, you could become important by displaying the sort of talents and skills that everyone in your community really admired.

Everybody liked and respected you because of what you could do when you went out on the playground.

So I think that's an important element of sports and athletics in the African American community, is that you don't necessarily have to go on to the big time.

(upbeat music) [Narrator] Participating in school and community athletics gave Bing's life structure and focus, as well as access to strong male role models and coaches who offered him advice and guidance.

But his interest in art never stopped.

(upbeat music) I knew early on that art was very important to me, very satisfying, very enjoyable.

As much fun as sports was, art was even more fun.

Art gave me an inner feeling that I didn't feel anywhere else.

As a matter of fact, in the fifth grade, "Okay today we're gonna stand up, and we want everybody to say what you want to be when you grow up."

And I stood up by my desk and collected myself and cleared my throat, (Bing clears throat) "I want to be an artist when I grow up."

It's stone silent.

And then, (mimics classmate snickering) when I finished, some of them started to giggle and laugh.

At recess, I went around to everybody who laughed at me and says, "I like you, you're my friend, but I can't play with you no more.

I'm gonna start playing with people that believe I can be something."

I started off like most artists, drawing cartoons and illustrating things that I saw in comic books and magazines and newspapers.

And realism was always how you sort of measured your development, too.

In high school, I would spend those study halls in the libraries looking at the great master books, and looking at Da Vinci and Picasso and Cezanne and Renoir and De La Croix, and all the other artists, I wanted to know.

[Narrator] But the community knew Bing best as a gifted athlete.

In high school, Bing won the city high jump championship in track and field, and was voted to the All-City basketball team.

An athletic scholarship seemed to be right around the corner.

Although he was invited to attend as a walk-on, no colleges offered him a scholarship.

For many families, even if you wanted your child to go to school, you may not have the financial wherewithal to get that done, and so you're going to rely on scholarship money.

In the 1950s, for a Black man pursuing higher education, that's a very tall task.

[Narrator] Bing was disappointed, but he knew that college was always going to be a long shot.

Many of us in the athletic community was just waiting to get 16 to get our work permit to quit and go into the factory.

When they voted me All-City on the basketball team, or me winning the city high jump championship on the track team, they didn't know we were on welfare.

It was embarrassing that I couldn't help at home.

And so I was waiting to get to be 16 so I could get my work permit, drop out of school, and go ahead and get me a job.

That was my goal.

[Narrator] One of Bing's mentors, Coach Dean Dooley, made sure Bing didn't drop out, then stepped up to see if more could be done.

Coach Dean Dooley, my homeroom teacher, basketball coach and track coach, put four or five of us in his car and drove us to DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana to talk with his friend who was now the admissions director and said, "I have five young men from East Dayton.

I'd like for them to see DePauw and what you can see about finding scholarships to see if they could do college work."

And one had not taken any college prep classes.

(lively upbeat music) So that was how I got to DePauw University.

They needed a small forward and I needed an education.

So we traded.

[Narrator] Bing brought his A-game to campus, leading the DePauw Tigers in scoring and rebounds.

He decided to major in art education and broadened his artmaking skills, finding an artistic mentor in his ceramics professor, Richard Peeler.

I enjoyed the painting, enjoyed the printmaking, but I loved the ceramics.

Richard Peeler encouraged us to find our own voice.

He didn't force us to become a production potter where we would make 50 cups a day or 100 bowls a day.

He encouraged those of us who wanted to make one-of-a-kind, who wanted to do sculptural kinds of work, who wanted to also reflect our cultural history.

[Narrator] Through making art, Bing was finding his voice at the same time that Black Americans were collectively finding theirs.

Starting in the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement began to gain momentum when long-standing segregation laws and policies were struck down by the Supreme Court.

America was changing.

And as he got ready to graduate from DePauw, Bing's future looked bright.

(gentle music) (wax paper rustling) (circulating air whooshing) (roller clacking) (peaceful delicate music) (delicate soothing music continues) (delicate soothing music continues) When I graduated in '59, Dayton Public Schools said, "We need a part-time teacher at Colonel White High School, where we have an overload of art students.

Could you come over and take this class for a year?"

I said, "Well, yeah, I guess so, I could do that."

So I went over and began to teach at the high school.

Fell in love with teaching.

Never looked back.

For a lot of children who aren't from the Black community, that's gonna be the first time they see a Black man in an authoritative position.

And that makes your job exponentially more difficult as a teacher, because now you're not just tasked with getting information across, but also have to navigate the social normalities of being a Black man in a leadership position, even with integrated schools.

(mysterious music) It was a great education to be around him in high school.

It was just the thrill of a lifetime.

All the students that I went to high school with, they all wanted to be Bing Davis.

They wanted to be him.

And he just made you a better person, better artist.

There were a lot of students that were much better artists than I was.

But I wanted it so badly because of Bing.

(laughs) He made me want to be an artist.

Oh, I just yearned for it, I couldn't get enough of it.

[Narrator] Bing was a natural in the classroom, but he wasn't content to just be an arts educator.

He did everything he could to push himself to grow as a professional artist.

I took a compass and put it on Dayton and spread it out to cover 500 miles and twisted around Dayton.

And that circle of that 500 miles was gonna be my target area.

I said, "I'm going to be a teacher, but I'm gonna keep working to try to become a professional artist as well.

And I can go within 500 miles and spend a whole weekend someplace selling art, or making art, or experiencing art, or looking at art, and then get back in time for my eight o'clock class (laughs) on Monday morning.

[Narrator] Bing's plan paid off.

He furthered his studies at the Dayton Art Institute and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

His first solo art exhibition was held in Dayton, followed by one-man shows in Wilberforce, Yellow Springs, and Cincinnati.

Soon, his work was winning first place in the annual Midwest Ceramic Show.

But Bing was troubled by the turmoil he experienced in the world around him.

His artwork became a canvas to explore his feelings and pose questions not easily answered with words.

In 1966, we had our own race riot here.

It was called the Dayton Race Riot, or the Dayton Uprising.

Baba Bing's work captures that.

And so in many ways, what he's able to do in centering the Black perspective in his artwork is really apropos for the time period.

-(sirens blaring) -(fire crackling) [Narrator] The racial tensions that had erupted in violence in other cities across the country, ignited on the streets of Dayton's West Side in the early hours of September 1, 1966.

Bing was a 29 year-old newlywed, married for less than three months.

He and his bride watched as their community was torn apart by rioting and looting.

The National Guard was called in and quickly brought an end to the uprising.

Bing, of course, responded with art.

[Michael] Civil rights, equal rights, equal justice is a long game, and that can be frustrating, because we want change now, but it has never been immediate.

And here's what's uncomfortable in America.

America's never done the right thing in the social justice space without discomfort, violence.

(people yelling) Art speaks a language that needs no expression other than the art.

What Bing wants people to do if they oppose progress is wrestle with themselves and not his work.

He presents a different lens and lets you deal with that.

He creates art out of love.

Bing is one that could go to a KKK meeting and they all fall in love with him.

By the time he's finished talking about how great we are and culturally how we're connected, and the humanity piece, they'll be like, "What am I doing?

Let me take this hood off, I'm done."

(solemn reflective music) [Narrator] By the mid-1960s, the arts and the humanities became part of the focus of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, as crucial as the war on poverty and civil rights legislation.

Dayton Public Schools applied for Federal Title III funding for an experimental afterschool arts program, and won.

In 1967, the Living Arts Center opened its doors to young learners from across the region.

[Pamela] We had kids from the whole community actually applying to come.

The whole idea was cultural enrichment for kids who are maybe less exposed to various art disciplines, whose parents don't take them to concerts or museums, or anything like that.

So that was our first priority, to reach these kids in the inner city.

The students were inspiring.

They were gifted and talented, expressive, they were great.

And It wasn't just going to each school and pulling out the best musician, dancer, writer, but we could take any student, and using some of the techniques we had for teaching, that we'll use the arts for human development.

We stopped teaching art and we began to teach people.

We used the arts as a learning mechanism for human development.

If they become artists or become great, that's icing on the cake, but we really want to use the arts for developing people.

[Andy] Last but not least, Art Director Bing Davis talks about the art program.

Thank you, Andy.

In the Art Department, we're very concerned about the total growth of the individual students, much more so than the end product that they produce through these art experiences.

The Center itself in its Linden Avenue headquarters can accommodate about 800 students a semester.

But in reality, the Center touches a lot more students here in the Dayton area, both through staff visitations in the schools and especially through the guest artist program.

[Reporter] In its three years of operation, the Center has brought to Dayton nearly 100 guest artists.

They came from all fields and all walks of life.

They ranged from opera stars to jazz pianists.

And their appearances have touched nearly 110,000 Dayton pupils.

And what are the accomplishments of such a program?

The long-range benefits probably won't be known for a number of years.

Perhaps the biggest support, however, comes from world-renowned concert pianist Lorin Hollander.

What's happening here in Dayton with the Living Arts Center ranks, if not the highest, then certainly among the highest and the most fulfilling educational programs of any type I've ever seen.

I don't know anywhere, and this includes all the experimental things you hear about in Japan and in Hungary, what's happening here at the Living Arts Center is simply out of this world.

You cannot overemphasize how much these kids are getting out of it.

[Narrator] It wasn't just the kids who were getting something out of it.

During his time at the Living Arts Center, Bing began experimenting with light installations.

He taught part-time at Wright State University.

His art was displayed in front of a national audience at the NAACP Convention in Cincinnati.

And best of all, son Derrick was born.

There was so much to look forward to.

(soft alarming music) Under Title III, the Living Arts Center had just three years of federal funding, with the expectation that taxpayers would see its benefits and raise local funds for the program to continue.

By all metrics, the Center was a resounding success, but some in the community didn't approve of its focus on the humanities.

As positive as it was and as great as it was, there were some who didn't like the positiveness and some who did not like the greatness of it, who could not see past their own smallness.

There was a conservative facet called SOS, Serving Our School, who said that if they win the majority of the school board, the first thing they were going to do is close the Living Arts Center, 'cause you're not teaching art.

You're teaching integration and sensitivity training.

Once they won the majority, then they began to take it down.

(gemtle somber music) It was unfortunate.

It's very similar to what's going on now in some places, if you don't mind my saying so.

The heads of the art departments, they sort of scattered.

I accepted the offer to come back to DePauw as its first Black full-time faculty in the entire university.

But I went in tears 'cause I was so sad from the demise of Living Arts.

I still get inquiries of people wanting to do a Living Arts, and that was 1970.

I learned so much.

It humbled me as to how much talent is in our communities.

Talent is sprinkled from such a high place, it falls on every neighborhood.

So you can go into any neighborhood you want, if you look, you're gonna find talent.

To this day, I still utilize what I learned from that unique experience of using the arts for human development at Living Arts.

-(traffic droning) -(birds chirping) (engines whirring) (upbeat phone music) (bright jazzy music) (bright jazzy music continues) In 1973, I was at DePauw when I discovered the National Conference of Artists, which at the time was the oldest and largest organization of Black artists.

It enriched me totally and became an integral part of my life."

[Narrator] When Bing joined the National Conference of Artists, he became part of a vast network of emerging and established artists of African descent, with membership that stretched across the nation.

Connecting with his peers both grounded Bing in his African roots and electrified his artmaking.

Some of the best African American artists in our country were part of this group.

So he was part of this organization and very involved in it because it was important to him.

[Narrator] The National Conference of Artists was so important to Bing that he served as its Vice President starting in 1973.

He then stepped forward to become its President in 1979.

For Bing, working with the National Conference of Artists was both empowering and affirming.

It was very important to acknowledge self.

It was very important to acknowledge Africa.

So since I've known Bing, he's always worn something that says, "I am African."

And he's always talked and encouraged other people to accept and stick your chest out because I've got something special, because he's always felt like he has something special.

(funky upbeat music) [Narrator] Soon after connecting with the National Conference of Artists, Bing took his first trip to the African continent on a study grant, visiting Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria with a group of educators.

The following year, Bing returned to Nigeria solo.

He had received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to document and photograph the artwork he was seeing there so he could bring it into the classroom and share it with his students.

This is the time in American society, in the late 1960s, when young Black students were asking for African American studies courses, Black studies courses.

People are being funded to actually go out and do research.

So I think that's a really incredibly important moment in American history.

He's one of the first in this region to really start pulling together African art histories and teaching it in universities, and then relating it to what African American artists were doing.

So he was analyzing what was happening globally and within the diaspora and bringing a different perspective.

There is a connection of traveling to Africa, connecting with Africa, but he also wants to see how can we move forward to Africa?

So many times people think of African Americans looking backwards to reclaim what they have lost, and that's important.

But Bing is also forward-looking to Africa, what can we learn?

What can we infuse in our humanity, and what can we infuse in humanity that helps to make the world a much better place?

Bing's work is an affirmation of humanity.

He is trying to get us to see the humanity that one sees in the African American experience.

It's an offering and it is a plea to see Black humanity through his work and in the process, appreciate that there is a universal experience to be reckoned with.

[Narrator] In the mid-1970s, Bing's work continued to grapple with what he was seeing in the world around him, and his art was finding its way outside the Midwest.

From Berkeley, California to the Studio Museum in Harlem, his work was connecting with a broader American audience.

(subdued music) One of the aspects of the National Conference of Artists was collaboration.

We were charged and challenged that this ain't just about you.

You must find ways to pass it on.

No doubt about it.

You don't travel this journey by yourself.

What will your legacy be?

Will you be known as an artist, an educator, community activist?

Why not all three of 'em?

(lively music) [Narrator] Bing embraced the challenge and began to build a legacy that encompassed all three, artist, educator, community activist.

As an artist, he was hitting his stride.

His work was selected to represent the Midwest at the Second World Black and African Festival of the Arts And Culture in Nigeria.

As an educator, he was making a difference in the lives of his students.

But his position at DePauw wasn't living up to its initial promise.

The school's commitment to expand the number of Black faculty and students on campus had made no substantial progress in six years.

If Bing was to affect change and make an impact, he would have to take action and a leap of faith.

When tenure came, I had to agonize.

To me, to accept tenure would've been condoning that lack of initiative, as much as I loved that school, and loved the faculty, and loved the community.

I ended up having to resign to be able to sleep with myself.

That probably was not a wise thing to do.

It was more like a knucklehead because I had just gotten divorced and I had custody of a five-year-old and no job.

I just resigned a well-paying job.

(laughs) Let's start talking about living on principle.

(laughs) You can't eat principle.

[Narrator] Bing's future as an educator was uncertain.

He moved on from two career disappointments, now as a single father with custody of his young son Derrick.

He continued his studies at Indiana State University, then was recruited to help increase minority enrollment at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio as Assistant Dean of their Graduate School.

He became a husband again when he met and married Audrey Van Masden, an elementary school teacher and budding artist.

Everything was falling into place, the last piece of the puzzle came when Bing was asked to help revamp the arts program at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.

I said, "Oh, boy, I would love that.

I had always wanted to work at an HBCU."

Historically Black College and University.

And I said I was gonna do that before I retired.

I was gonna at least spend a year or two at an HBCU.

So I took the job full-time at Central.

That lasted 20 years since then.

One of the most enjoyable 20 years of my life.

(upbeat music) [Narrator] At Central State, Bing found a home that gave him both roots and wings.

Teaching, making new work, traveling the globe as an artist and educator, Bing was unstoppable.

In 1984, he helped charter a branch of the National Conference of Artists in Dayton.

Bing had accomplished two of the three aspects of creating a legacy, as an artist and as an educator.

Now he set out to weave in the third, community activist.

(dramatic ringing music) (train horn blaring) (gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) (gentle upbeat music continues) The country was built on the Appalachian and African American people's backs.

And I think they have a spirit, those old pieces of found objects have a spirit of those people.

You know, we can be more than one thing.

We're all a combination of many things and many traditions.

And Bing honors his African roots, but he also honors his Appalachian roots.

We used to go to all the Appalachian festivals together 'cause Bing wanted people to know that there were African-American Appalachians.

That was important to Bing, and he made sure people knew that.

And he told that same story every year, that he was born in Greer, South Carolina, and how his mother had raised him in East Dayton."

(gentle upbeat music) [Narrator] In the early 1990s, Dayton was a divided city.

Neighborhoods had been defined for decades as either Black or white, bolstered by discriminatory housing tactics.

A study by the University of Chicago named Dayton the third most segregated city in the United States.

The widest racial boundary was the Great Miami River, separating East from West.

A city this divided cannot grow and thrive.

Bing and artist Tess Little knew that something had to change.

We were trying to figure out a way to get East Dayton, which is Appalachian, and West Dayton, which was African American, try to bring them together.

Because lots of times the press vilifies both of those groups and kind of turns them against one another.

So that's how REACH started.

REACH stands for Realizing Ethnic Awareness and Cultural Heritage, and it was to promote the cultures of Dayton.

[Narrator] Bing and Tess teamed up with Paula Recko, the Director of the Dayton Visual Arts Center, to start REACH Across Dayton, an annual symposium and workshop to build bridges of understanding between diverse communities in the city.

It was supposed to run for just three years.

Instead, it continued for more than 25.

[Tess] If we start from a place of community and of things in common, then it's easier to talk about the hard things.

We used art and humanities as the vehicle to talk about those cultures and how they were similar, acknowledging that there are differences, hard differences, things we've got to fix.

And we used art to hopefully make this world, our surroundings, a better place.

[Narrator] While REACH was designed to bring together diverse cultures to grow a more understanding and empathetic city, Dayton artists of African descent were hungry for a community of their own.

When it comes to museums and gallery access, African American artists had little, or should I say not as much opportunity and exposure to both development and financial support.

So I wanted a group of individuals to come together to organize and also make sure that artists were being developed and also supported, and understood their role in the community, understood their value.

(groovy upbeat music) [Narrator] To fill the gap, Bing and artist Curtis Barnes Sr. started the African American Visual Artists Guild, or AAVAG.

The African American Visual Arts Guild has been here for more than 30 years.

We are in their headquarters now in their exhibition space.

They have exhibitions showing the kinds of both struggles and accomplishments of very contemporary artists.

It's really helped build a tremendously vibrant community of artists, photographers, culture makers here in Dayton.

(lively jazz music) [Narrator] Through REACH and AAVAG, Bing achieved the third strand of his legacy as a community activist.

But he was far from finished.

In fact, he was just getting started.

(machinery clattering) (dynamic bass music) (syncopated lively jazz music) (syncopated lively jazz music) I think it ties into his spiritual system as well as his artistic aesthetic.

There's no such thing as trash.

There's something here.

And it was made and created, and it had this purpose, but I'm reusing it now and it has a new purpose.

He's taken a tire, and through his skillset and it being split, it ends up being this decorative headdress from an African indigenous nation.

And you're like, "Wow.

Wait, how did you see that?"

When you see a Bing Davis creation, it's just mind blowing, it just really is.

(gentle dynamic music) I think the "Ancestral Spirit Dance" series is really one of the most important contributions that Bing Davis has made to humanity.

(gentle dynamic music) You think you are simply looking at a work of art that is beautiful on the wall, but really it goes well beyond that.

It is a map of the world focusing on the Atlantic.

The North American part of the composition is the clearest part to him.

But at the same time, there is Africa, which is part of his memory, but is quite fuzzy.

It's not quite clear.

That sense of the composition as a map is so very important to the concept of the Triangular Trade.

The ship comes from Europe, goes to Africa, and then goes to the Americas, which is the Middle Passage, and then goes back to Europe to create these triangles.

(gentle dynamic music) The significance of the black background.

When you are learning to paint in the Western tradition, you start your composition with a white background, and then you begin to apply color on it.

-(gentle dynamic music) -(divine choir vocalizing) The composition is based essentially on white light coming from the sun, titrated by the prism that turns the white light into all the colors of the rainbow.

Bing is doing the very opposite.

He starts with a black canvas and begins to apply color to it.

-(thud booms) -(gentle dynamic music) An aesthetic that is based on heat, on fire, that starts from the sun as a burning charcoal.

And when the charcoal is burning, it releases all the colors.

And when all the colors are released and the fire dies, what you have left is white.

So these are two different aesthetic theories, coming from two perspectives.

One that is regarded as absolutely scientific, (flame whooshing) the other that is regarded as spiritual and sacred.

[Bing] But I just wanted you to know that... [Narrator] In 1998, Bing retired from Central State.

But retirement for Bing didn't involve kicking back and taking it easy.

And so I almost feel that art has allowed me to place my life into the hands of the universe and go with, as we say, go with the flow.

[Narrator] Instead, he put his foot down on the gas pedal and accelerated into a whole new phase of his life, one that invited Dayton to come right to his doorstep on the city's West Side, and brought together all three aspects of his legacy, artist, educator, community activist.

Bing Davis believed in the power of a community center.

So in the 1990s, he worked with the city government, the state government, wrote grants, and bought the building.

And it became what it is today, an important cultural center for West Dayton.

[Narrator] Today, the building houses the Willis "Bing" Davis Art Studio, the Ebonnia Gallery, and the non-profit Shango Center for the Study of African American Art and Culture.

It's a dream come true for Bing as well as other artists in the region.

If you go into his studio, there are two chairs that are covered in an African cloth.

And I sit there amongst the plants with their life and I just sit and get recharged.

And I think it's such a powerful place, the energy that that space has, it's like a warm hug.

You never know who is going to come into the studio.

You never know who you're going to meet, what they're going to be talking about, what they're looking for.

Everything that he does now is to serve the community, serve youth, and to bring people up.

People really enjoy coming down to the studio.

There's not a lot of places in the city where you get to see your own people, the Black expression and Black art in the community.

It's not a common thing.

I think the thing about Dad is that he makes it seem common.

And the key point is that African American artists will have a place, they will have a home, they will have people they can talk to, build with, connect, that kind of thing.

Every time you turn around, there's all these different wonderful things that's going on in there.

[Narrator] Today, Bing's legacy is also embodied in those who are following paths he forged and creating impactful legacies of their own.

A tremendous amount of my journey can be tied to Bing's mentorship.

I remember being a student in high school.

I knew that I was going to be a visual artist, and somehow knew that I was going to make it work.

I had no idea how.

I had no idea of the struggles that African Americans had when it comes to dealing with visual arts.

(birds chirping) Bing showed up at a grocery store that I was working at when I was a student.

He let us know that we was building a program here at Central State University.

Obviously he made his case because I'm here (laughs) and I ended up coming.

[Narrator] Dwayne Daniel now teaches at Central State, stepping into the role that Bing had when Dwayne was a student there.

[Dwayne] You're talking, stepping in.

Well, I play a role here.

I don't step into his shoes because that would... (Dwayne laughing) That's unfair.

(laughs) I do what I can with the torch that has been passed.

Try not to burn myself on it.

[Narrator] While artist Dwayne Daniel is making a difference in education, artist and educator James Pate is following another path forged by Bing, opening an art gallery of his own, just steps from Bing's studio on West Third Street.

(subdued lively music) I determined I was an artist at a very early age, six, seven, eight years old.

Now mind you, you know, I'm growing up in the hood and when I was a kid, fourth grade, you know, they start this Arts Consortium.

It kept me off the streets.

When my buddies started veering into doing more criminal-minded stuff, you know, I was in the Arts Consortium.

I mean, art had captured my imagination.

I went to an arts magnet school, the School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati.

And he went to visit me, and he act as though he knew everybody all of their lives, you know?

And it was just, and it just, he stuck with me.

I had just never met, I'd just never met a guy like that before, ever, you know, in my life that was that expressive and that happy.

(dynamic upbeat music) [Narrator] Since his teen years, James has been mentored by Bing, helping him to grow and flourish as a professional artist and as a man.

I grew up without a father, and meeting Bing from day one, you know, he's had this impact on me.

I'm grateful and thankful that the universe or whatever brought our paths to intersect, you know.

I get so much inspiration from just observing Bing and I'm very blessed to be in his sphere.

(dynamic upbeat music) (drill whirring) (tool clacks) -(machinery clattering) -(air whooshing) (hammer thudding) [Moyo] The assemblages of Bing Davis are layered with information.

(gentle introspective music) In Yoruba, each spike that is driven into the object turns that object into a power object.

And the more the spikes driven into that object, the more power that that object gives.

(gentle introspective music) There was a lot of attention brought into that gesture of kneeling down.

When Bing Davis references it, what he does is he's bringing prayers into that situation.

He's praying for a resolution, he's praying for a good outcome as well as bringing closure to a community that seems to be in distress.

(gentle introspective music) This year's recipient of the Pat Meadows Lifetime Achievement Award is a most valuable citizen of the greater Dayton community and beyond.

And he is, not least of all, a truly, truly wonderful human being.

Bing Davis.

(audience members applauding) I would just like to thank you for acknowledging my effort to just do what Mama told me to do.

(audience laughing) She would say, "Boy, I want you to always walk with dust on your shoes."

(gentle lively music) I wasn't sure either.

(audience laughing) She said, "You may travel the world."

She said, "You might be able to dine with kings and queens.

Always walk with dust on your shoes."

And what she meant, that in spite of all these wonderful things, keep your feet on the ground.

Stay humble.

(audience applauding) And know that it's just flowing through you, it ain't even about you.

You've been given something that's not yours, unless you share it.

(gentle reflective music) He has been receiving awards way before I was even born, but to me he's just Dad.

So I'm very proud of him.

I can see the effect he's had on the community, but he's so humble, so modest.

He is willing to go above and beyond for anyone, and I really admire him for that.

[Narrator] Bing's passion for community extends far beyond his adopted hometown.

Bing's community is the entire country, the world, anywhere human beings are found.

Now in his 80s, Bing's community work regularly takes him around the world, but his heart always brings him back home to Dayton.

(tender gentle music) My dad has this strong compassion for the community.

So I think the fact that he wants to give Dayton all that he has.

He's willing to stay up to all hours and just create and contribute any way he can.

I wish he had another 80 something years on this planet, because I think there's so much more to come.

(medical monitor beeping) (wind whooshing) I'm sitting in, in the middle of my church, Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, where I've attended for 86 years.

It was right there that I stood as a senior in 1955 when the church announced that we have one of our own who's gonna go off to college.

(gentle reflective music) The preacher would allow the church to have an extra basket for me to stand there and then my friends and neighbors would come by and drop in those pennies and dimes and quarters.

It also let me know that I was gonna be representing more than just me.

That it was the community sending me off.

$34 and some change.

That's a lot of money, for incidentals that I would need to survive in school.

But also, the older folks, they'd drop in their donation, but they also would touch me.

They would lay on hand as they go by.

And you could feel it coming in you.

That $34 and some change lasted a couple of months.

But the touching and the prayers and the good wishes I'm still living off of, I'm still benefiting.

That's what brought me to here.

-(gentle melancholy music) -(birds chirping) [Narrator] Bing's had cancer three times.

Each time, he's recovered and resumed his work as an artist, an educator, and a community activist.

But each time, it gets harder to rebound and come back as strong as before.

Being a three-time cancer survivor is an unbelievable achievement in my perception.

Particularly since you, as an individual, have little to do with it.

Going into the surgery on the second time, I remember telling my dear wife, "Don't worry, if I don't wake up, my work is finished.

If I wake up, I have more to do."

(gentle melancholy music) The fact that he's breathing lets him know that he still has work to do.

Yeah.

(chucklea) So, you know, I have no choice but to believe him.

(gentle piano music) I think Bing's legacy will and should continue to grow because his contributions are going to continue, the seeds that he's planted around the country and the world are going to continue to blossom and bear fruit.

(gentle piano music) The Bing Davis Collection will be a remarkable resource for students, artists, activists, and scholars who want to understand how to use art as a catalyst for societal change, as a medium for community building, and as a commentary on our times.

To look beyond their own life experiences to our shared humanity, as Bing and Audrey often remind us.

That's the great lesson of Bing's life and work.

Okay, I'm in your hands, so.

Okay.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about our mortality.

Thinking about how tomorrow's not promised to any of us, so we gotta make the most of it right now.

We have to love right now.

We have to love with an urgency.

We have to create with that same urgency.

Why are you worried about your impact on the world?

Why are you worried about what your art's gonna mean to somebody?

Just create it.

Right now, in this moment, just create it.

Right now is really where it's at.

I'm a byproduct of what can happen in a community like Dayton.

This community has supported me every step of the way.

But when I look back, this whole journey has always continually put me in contact with and interaction with great people.

I mean, little great ones to big great ones.

-(lively piano music) -(device tweeting) I'm one of the richest people in the world from what matters, and that's the interaction of other human beings.

It's been amazing.

-(lively piano music) -(device tweeting) (lively piano music) I've never really been able to find out how I got the nickname Bing.

I know it came from one of my sibling.

We had a dog named Bingo.

And so when I came along, it was an assumption everything small was a Bingo.

And so I was called Bingo, and the dog was Bingo.

And so supposedly that when I became a toddler, and Mama would call us for dinner, said, "Bingo, time to come and eat."

And me and the dog both would run home.

So they cut mine short to Bing.

When I started school, the first three days, I was marked absent.

And the teacher sent a note home, "Mrs. Davis, your son is not showing up for school."

And teacher would call the roll call and say, "Willis Davis."

And I'm looking around seeing who Willis is.

I ain't never heard that name.

(laughs) And so, Mom said, "Hey, your name is Willis.

You have to respond to that."

And I did, but Bing Davis stuck all the way through.

(gentle piano music) (whimsical music)