Aliana Grace Bailey Interview

Aliana Grace Bailey interview by Elizabeth Khovayko

October 2020

To start us off, can you tell us about yourself and what you bring with you to your work?

My name is Aliana Grace Bailey, I am from DC. I live in Baltimore right now, I have been here for the past couple years, I moved here for grad school. I am a socially engaged artist and designer. I went to undergrad at North Carolina A&T State University and while there I double majored in visual arts design and social work. Both those fields really shape my practice overall. My work is really about radical self-love, it’s about joy, it’s about self-awareness, it’s about my experience as a black woman. And I just love colors, I love textures, I love emotion. I think those three things are really a focus in my work.

What events throughout your life lead to your art style developing to what it is now?

With the color, I’m still trying to figure that out, but a lot of my current style has definitely been influenced by my upbringing, it’s been influenced by my grandmother. When I was in college my grandmother passed away and that’s the time when I made the transition to using fabric in my work. That’s when I started sewing again, I started sewing into the canvas, I started actually embracing who I used to be as a child.

So as a child I used to experiment with everything, I would purchase everything, find everything, save it all, and find ways to create things out of it. So, during college I had been working on my senior thesis around the time my grandmother passed away and I was grieving through that experience. I just really embraced what it was like to create as a kid. I embraced the fact that she loved quilts, and she loved details, and… she was just that type of person. So I really dug deep into honoring her, honoring my childhood, and that’s when I started incorporating all my different mediums together. And I think ever since then, it’s really evolved.

And… I’m still trying to figure out the color thing! But I did grow up in a household where my parents were really supportive of us as creative people. So I was given freedom to explore, to paint whatever I wanted to paint, and I definitely think throughout that period I was evolving my sense of color.

Is there anything you can say about how your use of color relates to your culture?

I think it relates to my culture in different ways, and I think it also depends on how you define culture. But in terms of my upbringing, and the values that were a part of my upbringing, and how we give to one another definitely had influence. I even remember this distinct moment with my grandmother where I was like, coloring with a crayon, and she was like, telling me I was coloring too light! And that was when I started using crayons really hard, to get the vibrancy of the color. So little things like that, that were part of my childhood, definitely shaped the way I use color.

And in addition to that, I think it’s related to my culture because I’m definitely a strong believer in that I’m creating for myself, but I’m also creating for my ancestors, so the people who came before me. A lot of the times when we’re creating, it doesn’t completely feel like us that’s doing the work. It’s like me doing the work, but it’s also everything that made it possible for me to be here in order to create.

Nowadays your art is really tied to activism, and being uplifting and supportive to Black communities. How do you think artists in general influence activism and social change?

I think art plays an important role in creating social change. For me, when you’re doing activism work, there’s so many different ways to show up. Whether you’re on the front lines, or whether you’re a healer, there’s so many different ways that you can show up to different movements. And I think art is a powerful tool and there’s a variety of ways that you can use it, whether that be art that’s a part of a march, or if it’s art that’s used as a tool to heal people going to workshop, or if it’s art used as a tool to solve problems. Around 2017, I was a part of a fellowship that was centered around sacred arts activism, and that was with the Sanctuaries in DC. I was really happy that I found this place because it was the first place I found that combined art, social work, and spirituality all together. Those are the three things that are really important to me and before I was forcing ways to make them all connect, but the Sanctuaries was the first place I found that was already doing it, so I was very happy to be there. While there, I did a lot of workshops, and I had a lot of experiences working with social justice, and utilizing my art, utilizing my design. I think art is a tool to teach people, I think it’s a tool that allows people to connect to one another, it’s a tool that allows people to let go, and release, have a moment to themselves where they can just be present. And I think that’s powerful, and I think the average person isn’t exposed to that enough, unfortunately. But when you see it happen, when you see the transformation that happens when people are creating art together, that’s amazing, it’s an amazing thing to look in. I think art is very powerful for a variety of reasons. It depends on the project, it depends on the people, but at the end of the day, the process is really about activating communities and activating individuals and, putting the communities and those people first.

Do you personally feel like you are playing an important role as an artist?

Yes, I think so! I think that it’s taken me a while to really, fully embrace what my role is, partly because I’m an introvert and that’s been a process in of itself in terms of embracing what I had to bring to communities, and what I had to bring to people and groups. Because you know, if you’re not the person talking the most in the room, you may not feel like the most influential. And it took me a while to really embrace the gifts that I have and I that had to give people. And it took me a while to embrace and be okay with the role that I play with social justice and activism work, and that is of a storyteller, a healer, a caregiver.

And it definitely helps that people are very expressive with how my art has impacted them. So every time someone expresses something about that impact the art has made, it makes me feel a lot more energized to keep going, and a lot more mindful of what I’m doing and the fact that it’s working.

Are there any particular interactions people had with your work that you really remember, that stood out to you?

There’s one that comes to mind first. That one was an installation called "I Am Built of Black Goddesses", it was a Black goddess tribute. That work was about the Black goddesses in my life, living and not living, that have been an important part of who I am today. And that was about sharing gratitude and love to those people and honoring those people, and so that’s what that installation was. And I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I put the installation up and people were interacting with it, it became less about me and more about the people reading it, and how they associated it with people in their lives. And that was my “aha!” moment. I was so exhausted and tired and I haven’t slept getting this installation up, but now it was so worth it because people were crying, people were sending these messages to their loved ones, people were hugging their friends. I was like, wow, there’s so much emotion that’s happening right now. And so that was definitely a shift for me, it was the moment that I became a lot more aware of the impact and the emotional connection people have with my work. And that’s when I was like, “okay, this is what I’m doing, this is why I’m doing it”, the purpose is to give people joy and the purpose is to spread self-awareness, and the purpose is to create some type of impact just by making people feel good or making people connect with themselves. That’s a special example that comes to mind.

Now that the pandemic is happening, we can’t really go out and experience installations. But you have a project going on, “Ambivalent intimacy”, could you talk about it?

Yes! That project is still going on. In grad school, I was working on my thesis, and my thesis was about intimacy. And it was about sharing spaces with one another, and it was about being in communities, physically near each other. But because of COVID, I never got to finish my thesis, I never got to finish those physical installations. And I was heartbroken, it was just tough to go through two years of grad school and feel like you don’t have anything to show for it because you couldn’t finish your thesis.

And so, after everything turned digital and I moved out of my studio, I was sitting with my thoughts, a little depressed for a couple weeks, and then I realized that the thesis work that I was doing was very relevant right now. It’s relevant because intimacy looks different. Intimacy is really important to me in my work but now it’s taking a different form because of COVID and social distancing, and because of having to think beyond ourselves in a different type of way. To really think about the overall community, to keep us safe. Ambivalent Intimacy is a place where people submit their personal experiences with intimacy during COVID-19. So people have been submitting their reflections, and then from there I’ve been creating digital animations of those reflections. And that’s been very powerful. I really enjoy people’s feedback, and the fact that people feel seen. And this is a very lonely time for a lot of people, it’s a very sad time for a lot of people, and it’s also just a very weird time for people. And so, to be able to go to a place where you see, “oh, this person is going through what I went through”, or, “this person’s feeling how I’m feeling right now”, to create that emotional connection through a screen, I felt really happy about that, and I’m really happy about the responses. I’m really proud of that project.

What do you think you’ll do in the future after this project?

Well right now I’m working on a new body of work that’s kind of like a collage series, involving text. It’s a Black woman love letter series that’s focused on statements that have helped me heal through the past couple of years, or just statements from that time period. Tt’s all about embracing me as a Black woman, also other Black women, and things that we need to hear, or just affirming things that I’ve really embraced over the past couple of years that have helped me get through some things. So I’m working on that, and I’m also moving into the direction of creating environments. That’s what my thesis was going to be so I’m going to push for and continue doing that, as well as focusing on my social work side- creating these environments for the purpose of providing a comfortable space for survivors, for people who are going through grief, and group support work as well. So I’m really in a place where I’m integrating my group support and my work with homicide survivors. I think now more than ever I’m really aligned with how to go about combining my social work and my arts together so I can feel really fulfilled on both sides.

So you really have a diverse variety projects, including textiles as well as all the social projects. Can you tell about your process of coming up with new ideas?

I think all of my work aside from the socially engaged work (sometimes that’s more about the people involved), all my personal projects definitely start with me. There isn’t a work on my site that’s not about me. And I do that because art is really important to how I process things. It’s a part of how I take care of myself, it’s a part of how I connect to how I’m feeling, and so I usually start with how I’m feeling right now. Usually my work stems from how I’m feeling at the moment, because I also don’t believe in forcing anything. Even in grad school, I ended up making all my work about self-care, because I needed self-care. And so I’m definitely a person who will make my art about anything that I personally need it to be about, because it’s what I’m spending my time doing, it’s what I’m investing my time and energy and money into, so I want that to be invested into myself, rather than for other people. So yeah, it always starts with how I’m feeling. The series I’m working on right now, I did a mind map of the theme of healing, the theme of love. One of the things I’ve been thinking of over the past six months or so is that my time in grad school really taught me how to love myself deeper. So I made a mind map, how did I get to this point? What helped me love myself deeper? What helped me heal? And so I usually start with words, I don’t sketch things, my sketchbook is full of just words. So I always start with emotions, and thoughts and feelings, and see what evolves from there. And I also embraced just, creating for the act of creating. So separating myself from having to achieve something, separating myself from having to meet some type of expectation. So I really embraced just making stuff, not worrying about what it comes to, looking at the process more than anything.

You mentioned doing workshops, could you talk about those?

I did a lot of workshops with the Sanctuaries in DC, and I did different workshops with schools, and churches, just different communities. Some of the workshops were centered around helping the communities through the creative process. To bridge connections with one another, to figure out how to make their statement on what they believe in, to creating workshops so people can create public art. So it’s really varied, we were predominantly doing workshops in the DMV area, but we also traveled quite a bit. Did a workshop in Boston for a conference… so just lots of different workshops centering around using the arts to build community and to solve problems.

So it’s a big group project, essentially.

Yes! So for example, there’s a piece on my website where I worked with a church and we created these four banners, these fourteen foot banners, that was a seven month long process and it started with a workshop. Teaching people the tools, and why art is powerful and why art can be used as a powerful social change tool. So it starts with that workshop, getting people creative, getting people to loosen up, getting people to really tap into the gifts that they bring, and helping them to empower themselves as creative people. Because a lot of people have difficulty with that, like if you’re not an artist, it’s hard for people to be okay with the idea of embracing and taking risks and not being perfect. So that started with a workshop, it then turned into building a team and that team going out and talking to the entire congregation. And so it’s really important to make these projects inclusive, to make sure as many voices as possible are part of it. And they went out to talk to their congregations and got input, about how people were feeling about these four banners, and, what do you believe about this and what do you believe about that? So really serving, and then from there, we took all of the information and developed a design. And then from there, there was an editing process of each design. And then from there, there were ten painting days where the community came to paint the banners. And so yes, projects that are socially engaged involve a lot of time and a lot of commitment to the process and a commitment to listening to people and growing with them, and teaching and also remaining teachable. It’s a very intimate process.

Your last installation is called, “A Beautiful, Resilient People”, and I was wondering, are there any stories behind it?

Yes, so that work was inspired by Roberta’s House which is a family group support center in Baltimore. I started working there as a MICA resident. I was required to work there for two semesters and I’ve been there ever since, I never left. I just fell in love with group support and fell in love with the community and the work and what I was witnessing. The main group I was working with was Rays of Hope, which is a group for homicide survivors -- the family members and loved ones of people who have been killed. I’ve been working with them for a little over two years now and it’s just a really beautiful experience to be a part of Roberta’s House community, to witness people’s transformations and to hear people’s stories. It’s definitely a privilege and an honor.

It’s a very special place, and I was just thinking about how strong our people are and how strong the people I’ve interacted with are and the way they show up and show up for each other is really beautiful. And I was also thinking about how we define resilience, and how resilience is the reason why I exist. People had to be resilient in order for me to even be alive right now. And so I was just thinking about the resilience of Black people and the importance of that resilience being rooted in support. I think Roberta’s House does a great job doing that. And so the idea of that you don’t have to be strong by yourself, that you can have a support system, that you can have people around you who’ve experienced what you’ve experienced and who can listen to you. You can be given the tools to help you through this process and you can be given the tools to learn what the grieving process is like. And yes, A Beautiful, Resilient People is a statement to Black people as well as a statement to the community at Roberta’s House. I’m not from Baltimore, but it exists within Baltimore and so it’s also a statement for the Black people in Baltimore.

You said without resilience you wouldn’t exist, how is resilience important to you in your own life?

I think there’s a lot of layers to that… for one being an artist is not easy. At all! But, you know, there’s a reason that I’m doing this and there’s a reason I continue to do this and that’s definitely resilience. The fact that I’m still here and that I’m still creating and still carrying out my passions is definitely resilience. My ancestors and the fact that people have gone through so much and still go through so much, and, for one, I wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for my ancestors being so strong and for them being so resilient, my family line literally wouldn’t exist. I literally, literally(!), wouldn’t be here. And if it wasn’t for my parents, if it wasn’t for all of my ancestors, if it wasn’t for all of the things that they pushed through, I wouldn’t be here. And so, I think that makes every day really important. Especially with COVID, just waking up is like, “I’m still here…”. So, there’s a lot of layers now, because before COVID, Black people were like, “I’m here. All these things happened to my people, and I still exist”. And that’s a powerful thing.

I think resilience also shapes my work because I think, being vulnerable and being honest, and talking about things that are important to me and putting that amount of work in, that requires strength! I think there’s a lot of strength in being honest and being yourself, and just embracing what I bring to people, and being very personal, is a strength. So I’m just thinking, about all the strength that made my work possible.

I think about that’s about all the questions I have, but is there anything else you’d like to talk about? Anything exciting going on?

One thing I can share is that right now I’m in an exhibition with Latela Curatorial on Artsy (she’s pretty cool). And we had our VIP opening reception last night and that’s where I did the artist talk. And it’s just really important work that that gallery is doing. It’s an exhibition of 102 women from the DC area and they’re really advocating and spreading awareness about how the artists in the DMV area are very underrepresented and how DC is known for museums, but the actual artists don’t get enough support and attention. And there’s also this gap between women artists and male artists, and so it’s really an initiative that lifts up women artists in the DMV area and lifts up the things that are happening in the art scene, the things happening within the arts in general. So this is what’s happening, these are the statistics, this is the percentage of women that are actually in exhibitions, this is the percentage of women that are supported on Artsy. And it just really brings awareness to the pay gap. It’s a show that’s really important, it’s a show that highlights 102 artists and their stories. It’s a 6-week long exhibition and it’s broken down by week, and so we’re in different categories and themes. I think it’s just a powerful exhibition, I’m really happy to be a part of it. That particular gallery is very intentional about the things that they do, very intentional about focusing on women and supporting and lifting up women. So I’m excited about that, happy to be a part of it, happy to be part of the VIP artist talk. I would check that out, because they’re really important for women in the arts.

Yeah, sounds like something that’s important to me!

Yeah, definitely!

Well I think that’s about it, thank you so much for talking, it was really cool to hear about everything you have to say.

My pleasure!

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Artist website: https://www.alianagracebailey.com/

Ambivalent Intimacy: https://www.ambivalentintimacy.com/