Wisconsin Life

[upbeat jazz music] - Freida High Wasikhongo Tesfagiorgis: I am a Black woman, artist, mother, professor, curator, art historian.

I'm all of those things.

So, all of those things become a part of me.

[driving jazz rhythm with horns] I began teaching here in 1972.

[edgy jazz] And I taught that for both Afro-American studies and the art department for 41 1/2 years.

This was a period right after the Department of Afro-American Studies began, which was in 1970.

[dramatic jazz] When I started my actual teaching, most of the professors did not have afros.

I was the only person teaching with an afro.

And so, there was a different kind of interaction with me and the young students, too.

By the time I left there, many of the girls in the school in my class had afros.

[electro indie synthesizer] I started on this a while ago, but it got too emotional, so I had to stop.

But the past couple of months, I said, "I keep feeling I gotta get back into that.

So, I'm gonna get back into it."

Now, I'll try to capture some of the essence of joy my mother had.

I'm more interested in being loose with my brush and being expressive.

Afro-American art is more of a sociological term.

Afro-American person who's doing art.

Black art was much more specific related to African American culture, going into cultural heritage, and so on.

Freida: What matters most is that these artists are true to themselves.

They're creating what they want, what they think, what they feel.

They're passionate about what they're doing.

Then, if they are doing Black art, then that means they're actually immersed in a certain kind of work that is embedded or emerging from, or somehow connected to African American experience.

[gentle trumpet and piano] [paper rustling] [trumpet] It's a portrait of my baby brother David, done back around '71, '72.

I like to work with bright colors, bright, bold colors, and quite a bit of rhythm.

[slow, relaxed music] So, those were all people who were lynched in Alabama.

It's supposed to be the tree of life, you know?

A lot of people say, like, in Africa, when a person of importance dies, they say, 'a great tree has fallen.'

And when we think about lynching, it's usually the tree that takes the life.

[gentle piano] When I teach, I don't just teach Los Angeles or New York.

I teach artists who are doing exciting work.

Artists who are doing work in different types of materials and presenting their ideas.

Being an artist and a professor, there is certainly that intersection.

In my case, what I study, what I teach influences my creativity.

Well, all of my work, you can look at it, it's all Black art.

I don't know how anybody would categorize it, but it's me.

It's a part of me and my creativity and my knowledge and my learning.

[gentle jazz]