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Today's April 29th, we're at Paul Robeson Park in Petworth, and could you tell me your name? My name is Michael Anthony Brown. Could you tell me about your connection to this park? Well, it goes back to my connection to Allen Uzikee Nelson. And when I came back to DC from graduating at MICA, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, Januwa Moja, Allen Uzikee's wife, we were classmates, we graduated together so I met him that way through her and we came back, I moved into an apartment that he had available. Also help them work on them and learns how to do that type of work, and at that time I was going to Howard for grad school. So, you know I stayed there in, you know, renting from him, until I actually was able to buy my own house there and, you know, I bought my own house and just continued going on with everything. So, you know he's an artist but, you know, and I was an artist as well. And at the time, I really wasn't doing sculpture, my-I was primarily focused on printmaking and oil paintings, but getting, you know, the time and the space and the other materials, I knew I could do it. And that was what was funny, people say how do you know you can do it if you never done it? I just knew I could do it. And I remember the first sculpture I did it, you know, it was to be cast in bronze and my buddy whose house I was working over his-he was a sculptor but I told him, I can sculpt he said, I've never seen any of your scupltures, I said I haven't done any. He said well you can't sculpt. I said, yes I can. So I said, so could I use like some of your materials, what he had, because he had materials there for wood or whatever. And I was up all night, carving and sculpting, and I finished that thing and set it where hecould see it when he got up. He just shook his head because I could sculpt. So that was the first sculpture I did.

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Wow. And what was this-can you describe this sculpture? Well, it was a wooden sculpture, was based on traditional African sculpture in that it had bent knees. It was shortened statute, because it was from a-carved out of a 4x4 piece of wood, and I inset eyes with cowrie shells in it. So that's the, you know, and I studied African art at MICA under the few-the few African art classes we had there with Leslie, King-Hammond and that's-that was the result of it, I guess. That's terrific. And so, you were here on the day that this was installed. Well, yes, I was helping them to install it and all of that. And he-he brought up the thing about the credit card and all of that with the crane and everything. I honestly, I forgot about that. I wasn't, I didn't even remember that, but yes I was here helping them install it. And I, as I did, I helped them with a number of the pieces to install because clearly you can see that isn't a not a one-person job. So, and there's a lot of things that have to be done. So, as an engineer, he understood all of the technical things. But at the same time, it still required physical manual assistance. And obviously, it did a good job. It's been here all that time.

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It looks wonderful, still, to this day. So you, how-how would you describe yourself as an artist today? Well, I've been a full-time artist ever since I graduated from school, and I recently took a job at Howard University because my daughter was at, she was graduating. She was at Duke Ellington School of the Arts and I had graduated from there in the-in the mid 70s, but it was called School of the Arts at Western. That was that first year that it went from Western High School to, it was School of the Art at Western and later to become the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and that was under Peggy Cooper Kayfetz and Michael Malone who were phenomenal in terms of the city., the things they would they were able to do with the arts, and the like workshop for the careers in the arts and various other things like that. So I was a I guess a beneficiary of all of that including workshop for the careers in the arts, so that was a big deal for me. I was actually too young for them to have allowed me to be there. But what happened was I was going to Gonzaga High School in DC and they had a program called pre-prep program that was designed for inner-city African-American youth that had good academics but not necessarily the means to afford an institution like Gonzaga at the time, which was significant then and probably still significant now. So I was one of those first students that went there, and that's how I found out, you know, from the seventh grade and I stayed there from the 7th to the 11th grade, but I left in that twelfth year because that School of the Arts had opened, but that's how I found out about the workshop for the careers in the arts. So I was actually 12 when I first applied, but it was for 15 to 18 year olds. And the reason I found out was because I was going to a high school but I was technically in a junior high age and grade group. So I went there, I interviewed, they got to the part about the age, and I told him I was 12 years old. He says, oh no I'm sorry son, this is for 15, I believe the gentleman's name was Race Fan. He said this is for 15 to 18 year olds, come back when, you know, when you're 15, and I knew that's what to do but I gave it a shot. So another year went by, the program came back up, I had even more work, I'm like, hey let me go back and try, so I went back to interview again, you know, they looked at my work, he asks how old are you? And I thought about lying but I just lowered my head and I told him you know I'm 13, and he said, I'm sorry son, this is for 15 to 18 year olds, come back when you're 15, and then he looked at me real curious. He said, were you here last year? And I guess a big smile came up over my face because he even remembered that I was there last year, and I was like, uh huh, he said hold on one second. He talked it over with the other instructors. They allowed me to stay. And for me that was a game-changer, a career changer, a life changer, him giving me that break. For two reasons. One, not only was I painting with the best of the best of DC , there was 15 to 17, and they were like-it was like they could walk on water in terms of what they could do compared to where I was. But it accelerated my growth expeditiously in terms of the arts. I learned to stretch canvases on frames, on stretchers, how to prime my canvas, you know, and how to paint. And that had a tremendous effect because I'd started painting landscapes and, wow, my work back then probably was not at the level of the rest of the gentlemen and ladies in the class. Being in a position like that as a young person really accelerates your growth so that helped tremendously. So, went from there to doing, I was painting, I mean, stretching my canvases, painting, I went down to visit my grandmother that was in Bristol,Virginia, and there's a Twin City Bristol, Tennessee Bristol, Virginia had a famous postcard with a man standing on one side, on the Virginia side, with his donkey, on the other side, and it said, man standing in Virginia with his ass in Tennessee, so I remember that postcard. But walking down Main Street, there was a guy in there that was a landscape painter, he had the swindle full. I must have sat-stood out there half an hour looking at all of these beautiful, wonderful landscapes. So I finally, you know, went inside and tripped a little bell, he came out with a paintbrush in his hand and he said, can I help you? I said, no, I'm just looking at the landscapes. I said, I'm a painter, I paint. He kind of chuckled or whatever. But he couldn't continue to talk to me, he said, so he, you know, he went, you know, he said, well look, I'm working in the back, you're welcome to watch, went back, to this day I can still see him painting that landscape. Now, the painting that I did with the workshop in DC took me a month to do. It was Robert Woods how to paint a landscape, but it took me a month to do it. After watching him, I went to my grandparents house, found some wood, I know how to build my stretch, I took some canvas or whatever, then I put some white paint, and I had some paints there, and I painted a landscape in an hour and a half. Big difference. I took it back to him. The next day he was like, oh he likes it, where did you get the idea? I said, that's what you did yesterday, you know, when he was painting, but from an-from a month to an hour and a half, you understand, that was a game-changer and I started at 13 years of age, painting landscapes. And I was charging, back then I believe the minimum wage was a dollar and a quarter, I was making $30 an hour, painting. So if it took me 15 minutes, I sell a painting for $15 plus, whatever, it took me a half an hour, it'd be 30, you know, $30, and I was selling these paintings like hotcakes. So, and it's interesting theres people around DC that probably has a very early, Michael Anthony Brown painting if they, you know, if they kept it. So, that's how I got started. And, you know, from there, I just continued to do everything including the sculpture, the print making, the painting, the drawing. So, okay, I have a few questions on this but one is, so early on what were some of the inspirational landscapes that you were interested in or? Well, I have to two, I'm glad you asked that because I would have been remiss to have left this out. Robert Duncanson and Henry Oswald Tanner and Bannister. I love Bannister's landscapes and I love, I love all of their work but those are artists that really impressed me and inspired me. So from there, you know, those are the works that I emulated and attempted to replicate in terms of technique, tyles and various other things like that. So Robert Duncanson is phenomenal, especially his landscapes. I love Henry Oswald Tanner's but I love those three artists as a young person that was very impactful and to be exposed to them was another thing. So, at 15 years of age, now I'm 15, that's two years into doing these paintings. I would ride my bicycle from Northeast DC to Northwest, to the National Gallery of Art and look at the paintings that they had there and they had the most beautiful paintings. One of them was called Sunrise in the Tropics, they've changed the name sense then to a Hispanic name, Rio de Sol, I believe is what it's called, but that was one of my favorite paintings and I'd go there and look at it. Sometimes for hours, because I'm trying to break down how he created it. He did it in glazes and layers. What I found was initially that I'd be there that the guards was like son, son, you gotta back off you're too close to the painting, you know, but I came down there so often that they knew me, and I would speak with them. Most of the guards down there were artists themselves. So, this is a way that they could be around what they love. And eventually they'd see me in there, they would leave the room because-because I'm getting close, I'm all up in this thing, and they not trying to lose their job because this little kid is trying to figure out how in the world did this guy create these beautiful pieces of art so that-that that's it, you know?

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And so then when you went to University, how did your artistic inspirations transform? It-it continued to develop. I learned more techniques. I studied printmaking, so even though I had printmaking in high school cause that, that last year, that senior year, at Ellington School of the Arts, I took printmaking. And by the way, I was in the printmaking, graphic high school contest or whatever won second place in the region for my print making. It was the etching that I did that had images within images. So, I was pleased with that, but the School of the Arts, it's such a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing for young people who are interested in the arts. To have a school like that in the district is a blessing, and it's a blessing for a number of reasons. One, it helps young people to figure out what it is they want to do, and then how to do whatever it is that they want to do. And two, we produce some of the best talent nationally because of the young people having the experience early on in areas that they're already gifted or have interest in, and it's just a phenomenal thing. And yes, it's funded by the city but you couldn't ask for better results or better money being spent, you know, on-on young people that already have a desire and know what they want to do, an idea of what they want to do, to be able to learn, express and grow, it's a big deal. And if you look at me, I've never left this, I've always doing it. Now, I'm giving back to other young students. I've created summer programs for young artists that were free, based on what happened with me and, you know, teaching at Howard University and additional young people. I also helped found a rites of passage program called Ancobia Rites of Passage. And for the past, like, 38 years, 34, 38 years, we've been taking young people through the rites of passages in the traditional system, exposing them to, from my field that, you know, to the arts and various other things. So, one of the things we do is stamp t-shirts with adinkra symbols, which is a form of pictograph writing that comes out of West Africa, the Akan people. So each symbol has a different proverbial based in a meaning. Very akin to the Madhu Netar, what we, what's called hieroglyphs by the Greeks. So you know, this, we just, you know, running our leg of this relay race and handing it off to the next generation. That's terrific. I want to ask you one other question and we could go on for far longer than I think we probably have space on this card, but I wanted to ask you one question about, so, for Paul Robeson and also Uzikee Nelson, from my understanding of his work, their art has been very kind of integrally connected to kind of their sense of political activism, of community building. I wonder if you might tell me a little bit about your-your perspective on the relationship between artistic and creative expression to-to kind of political activism, to community, etc. Well, artists have a choice of how they choose to express their creative gifts. Some sing, some dance, some perform, some sculpt, some paint, some draw. And, all right, in my opinion, all of these expressions come from the soul. It comes from, you know, emotions that you may not be able to say in any other way, their gifts, their talent, their blessings and it's something that can be shared with the world, you know, it's one thing if something wonderful happens in our life, we just have this happy feeling. It's another thing to be able to share that happy feeling with the world and I think that's what artists do. And sometimes yes, we share our hurts and pains as well through our work, but I think again that gift of expression to get it out is a wonderful thing. That's what therapists do, they take you, they help you get your pain out, artists get it out. So, I, maybe there's artists that need therapy, but if they do their artwork, nine times out of ten, they can get that out and in a productive manner. Other people can get out, whatever it is they going through, but it's not necessarily in a productive manner. So, they're getting this out may be more destructive than constructive. It may take away more than it gives. And, you know, having these programs for young students for all people is a wonderful thing. It's interesting how the circle of things go. But yes, that's just a wonderful thing about art, about giving, about receiving and about life, so.

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That's a great message. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us today? I can't think of anything at this time, but I'm pleased. I was lucky to have run into Allen Nelson. Ukizee, as we affectionately call him, and be able to assist him in what he did. And that also helped teach me a number of different things. Now, while I have not done a monumental piece like that, because the methods and materials that I work in tend to be a lot more expensive and harder to produce, especially we're talking about casting and foundry work. So, the bronze casting takes, you know, obviously foundry equipment and facilities, whereas the welding, which I do, primarily takes space and even in that space you still need lift equipment to lift, because you imagine, even if you did this in sections, still heavy, one of those sheets of metal that he's talked about, very heavy, okay. So yes, you need equipment and systems to lift this thing up, let alone to be able to cut it, to torch, weld it, you know, put it together, assemble it, and his engineering background, obviously helps him very significantly in anchoring these things to the ground so that they don't tip over or some of these other things. So, a number of different sciences that come together to exemplify the art or expression that is in people's soul. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. I appreciate you.