We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anita Bates a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Anita, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

Both my mother and father allowed space for creativity. In the beginning, we did not possess a great deal of financial capital; what we lacked economically, my parents more than made up for with a large infusion of cultural capital. My mother was a municipal employee and my father worked for one of the Big Three automotive companies. Throughout the journey of planting middle-class roots, they always stressed exposure to the arts as paramount. Our home was filled with art. I remember a replica of Michelangelo’s David sat in our foyer and served as a point of conversation when guests entered our familial space. David was significant because it reflected my parent’s commitment to arts and culture; we would often spend weekends in Canada and Downtown Detroit attending museums, theater productions and other cultural activities. Museums, large and small, played an integral part in our development. Visits to the Detroit Institute of Arts as well as Your Heritage House—a small, specialized museum ran by the late Josephine Love — imbued my siblings and me with the idea that the museum belonged to us. In fact, it was our birthright. This sense of ownership created our sense of place—that is, there was never a sense of place imposed upon us; it was not about where people wanted us but rather, where we wanted to be. This exposure instilled a feeling of belonging and appreciation of creativity, ultimately creating adults, who are formidable artists and writers.

Anita, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born in Highland Park, Michigan but grew up primarily in Detroit. For over 25 years, I have been a practicing artist with numerous exhibitions in the Detroit Metropolitan area as well as New York, Chicago, Wisconsin and abroad. Some of the venues which have held exhibitions of my work are the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery; Dell Pryor Gallery; Detroit Artists Market; River’s Edge Gallery in Wyandotte, Michigan; Querini Stampalia Museum in Venice, Italy; A Gathering of the Tribes Gallery in New York, NY; the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, WI. I earned two graduate degrees in art–an MFA in painting from WSU and an MA in studio art from Eastern Michigan University. In 2019 I was awarded a Kresge Arts Detroit Fellowship and I am currently represented by the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery in Detroit.
My work has been noted and reviewed in various periodicals and publications such as The Detroit News and Free Press, The Romeo Observer, Art News, BLAC Magazine, Imago Mundi: The Luciano Benetton Collection and Detroit Home Magazine.
I enjoy meshing my career as an artist with education. In 2001 I received a Fulbright Memorial Fellow in Japanese education and I taught art in k-12 settings for 22 years before obtaining my PhD in education from Wayne State University in 2021. Currently I am an Assistant Professor of Teaching at WSU in the Visual Art Education program. My academic research interests center on how identity, space and power are reflected in visual culture.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Yes. For me, the driving force behind my life as a creative deals with the need to contribute. Ars Longa Vita Brevis–art is long, life is short. Death is an inevitability; in order to live forever, creatives must live through their art and contributions.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The act of creating is extremely rewarding because I am in total control. I get to bring forth these large surfaces of paint that possess texture, shapes, movement and so much more. Each work is a special entity. I enjoy just being in the presence of my work, as if we are engaged in deep conversation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.anitabatestheartist.com
• Instagram: @anitabatesartist
• Facebook: AnitaBates ArtistDetroit

Image Credits
TrilogyBeats