![]() I remember there being a lot of space space to think, space to breathe, space to roam. What I remember most about growing up in Ohio has been chronicled in a lot of the poems I’ve written. We were all up at each other’s parents’ houses listening to music, watching TV, or whatever. We all played together, rode bikes together, went swimming together, went roller skating together, danced, and did homework together. ![]() The majority of my friends and neighbors were white, which, for the most part, was a non-issue for everyone around. ![]() KF: I grew up in a racially mixed suburb in Dayton, Ohio. Tempestt Hazel: Since you’re such a pillar in Chicago some people may think you’re from here when, in fact, you’re from Dayton, Ohio. …voyage whose chartings are unlove (Detail), altered book and mixed media in aquarium, 2012. In our conversation she offers some insight into the seeds of her life’s work by starting from the beginning. Instead, she will leave you with shapeshifting breadcrumbs so mighty and nourishing that you’ll feel full while eventually realizing what you actually got were hors d’oeuvres. The Krista Franklin blueprint can and will never be written down. She is one of those artists whose style and technique is often imitated but never can it be duplicated because her radial disposition is organically constructed through insatiable curiosity, instinct, and learning through living, making her process and approach distinctly her own. Unflinchingly, she approaches them with an unconditional love and discerning eye whereas most people would be left stunned, shook, and fleeting.īy sharing her origin story, Franklin offers traces, not a blueprint. She does not discriminate between the celebrated and condemned strata of the landscapes she traverses. Then there’s how she lays plain the underbelly of these mondes, expressing truths often thought but rarely said, as messy and monstrous as they may be. Then, within the same breath, I could speak about the recurring lyrical and visual motifs that show reverence for the grace of Black women, youth, and street scholars while channeling the supernaturalness of veves, afro picks, cowry shells, and global Black memorabilia. I could use the lyrics of Bad Brains, the album covers of Parliament/Funkadelic, the music videos of Outkast, or the echoing sound of voices that linger above 47th street in Chicago on any given day to bring it back into a place of Black sonic culture. To describe her work I could as easily cite the poetry of Fred Moten and Amiri Baraka, writings of Ishmael Reed, or the worlds of Octavia Butler as I could the collages of Hannah Höch and Romare Bearden, or the chameleon-like characteristics of Grace Jones or Prince Rogers Nelson. Each work comes with its own laundry list of liner notes and citations. In poems and on paper, Franklin reveals herself as a master sampler who builds bridges between a vast range of elements and references within a profound sea of influences and experiences. Her flow between roles is mimicked in the work that she makes. Her work demands that those titles be interchangeable with historian, educator, caretaker, life scholar, ethnographer, anthropologist, and receiver. With fluency, Franklin makes visible places and intelligences that are accessed by anointed scribes who have taken on the responsibility of translating the cultural and social detritus of humans, androids, and ancestors into a language that we can begin to understand.įranklin is a storyteller and a vessel for well-known histories, things unwritten, and realities that have yet to be, which is why defining her as only an artist or a poet is inaccurate. Once you stop to stand still and sit between the lines or underneath the layers, there are pasts, presents, futures, and other worlds being agitated and conjured. But the initial encounter one may have with her work is simply an enchantment, a quick and captivating tool that forces a pause. ![]() Those of you who know her work may be equally as familiar with the rhythm of her prose as you are with the beguiling tactility of her collages and handmade papers. It’s true–she is a fierce wordsmith and maker who moves naturally, yet distinctly, between words and paper. I describe Krista Franklin as a poet and an artist only for the sake of offering an entry point into her work. –Krista Franklin, from Manifesto, or Ars Poetica #2 & the sightings of UFO lights blinking in the black of an Ohio Strawberry fields I roamed with my mother & aunts in the summer, With the memories of Pentecostal tent revivals, apple orchards, the & Here, evil peering at me behind a blue-red eye. One of Chicago’s mainstays discusses her beginnings in Dayton, Ohio, relocating to Chicago, and how her poetry and visual work come together through deep poetic, sonic, and visual influences.Īt twenty-one, I stood at the crossroad of Hell
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