The life-changing art of art
By Yemi Adewunmi, Founder & Creative Director of The Matronage
In many ways, being “a creative” has saved my life.
I didn’t consider myself an art-kid growing up. I was book-ish; good in all of my classes where I could get tested and graded. But art class was the exception. I don’t remember getting grades, and if we did, I definitely was not getting straight A’s like in my other class subjects. I remember doing interesting creative assignments in art class, like collaging out of old magazines and creating paper mache with thinned out glue.
I also remember one or two of my classmates who were seriously gifted. Like, you could tell that they’d be professional artists one day. I remember envying their natural artistic talent and wishing I could draw as realistically as they did. The natural artists in my classes doodled and painted and created so effortlessly - just as I could ace an algebra test without much effort. We all had our gifts.
I think that was how I came to form two paradoxical beliefs: that being a creative (read: artist) is a function or job that some people are naturally gifted and passionate about - they are meant to do it. And, the second, that creativity (read: art class) isn’t meant to be assigned a grade, and because it’s ungraded, creativity is accessible to everyone.
So everyone is creative - and yet, there are those of us in our society who were seemingly born to do it. They can’t do anything else but to express and reflect their world into an artistic practice.
We all have something that we are meant to do. Personally, I am simply a creative person, infinitely curious about the world, and so I research and learn. Although I’m obsessed with taking photographs (literally, obsessed), I would not characterize myself as an artist who was born to do it.
But I am so grateful for those artists who have defined themselves as such. I’m grateful for who they are and what they contribute to our society.
Me, a photographer
I mentioned that I’m curious, that I research and study. At university and in graduate school I studied political science, philosophy, economics, and public policy, and within these subjects I’ve had to read up on a lot of history.
I’ve come to realize that across my academic career, whenever I researched history, I always had to reference the artists of the time as primary source material to get a true understanding of what I was learning about. The authors, the poets, the speeches, the graffiti, the posters and signs, the music and lyrics, the chefs and their recipes. These are all primary sources that have always been more truthful than the textbooks.
And now today, textbooks won’t be able to be relied upon as a full nor accurate representations of what’s really happening in our world. Our news outlets won’t be able to relied upon either.
How will future generations learn about this time period, this time in history? I’d bet everything that I own that they’ll have to refer to the artists and creatives of today to be honest and to leave a true record for tomorrow.
I’m not a betting woman (I hate to gamble), but I am betting on this. I’m betting the next evolution of my career on supporting living artists and protecting their legacies. I’m pulling on all the threads of curiosity that have woven themselves together across my career and I’m assembling my most beautiful body of work, The Matronage.
The Matronage is an art gallery and design studio that works with artists, collectors, curators, and communities to support sustainable art ecosystems. The Matronage exists to support those artists who were born to do it, who can’t imagine not creating, and who can’t stop truth-telling.
In my life, the honesty of artists has saved me, protected me from harm, shown me how to imagine, exemplified what it means to create, fed me inspiration, and filled my life with colorful experiences.
The Matronage is my give-back to art ecosystems. I plan on reflecting what I’ve learned across my career into operating programs with institutions, designing experiences that amplify the work of artists, and building bridges between art collectors and art communities.
What first started as a labor of love - an idea that was stewing in my mind for over 5 years - has now become an imperative endeavor. In our society today, we’re seeing the destruction of art institutions, libraries and books are being attacked, artists are being silenced, genocide is destroying history and legacies. The way I see it, supporting living artists and the arts broadly, is an existential need.
What will the future say about today? My prayer is that they’ll have the honesty of art to help inform them.
Follow this space to keep up with The Matronage. Connect @thematronage.studio @yemi.adewunmi
