We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Raymond Elman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Raymond, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I made only abstract art pieces, many of which featured elements of collage, from 1970 to 1989. In 1989, I wanted to document my wife Lee’s pregnancy, so I made a 6 x 5 foot mixed-media portrait of Lee showing off her swollen belly. I enjoyed the process of making the portrait so much that I have done almost no other forms of art since 1989. I moved from documenting Lee’s pregnancy to documenting my life in the Outer Cape Cod Art Colony (Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet), to documenting the art communities of South Florida. There are approximately 400 portraits is this series. In addition, with the help of an Ellies Award from Oolite Arts, I had the unique opportunity to create 40 x 60 inch, mixed-media portraits of people who were patrons of or performers at the Historic Hampton House during the Jim Crow era; and video record the stories of their experiences at the Hampton House. The portraits have been exhibited at the Hampton House since February 1, 2022, and at the opening reception, the people in the portraits told the stories of their experiences at the Hampton House during the Jim Crow era. The Hampton House, of course, has also been immortalized in Kemp Powers’ play and movie, “One Night in Miami.”
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I earned an MS and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania while taking as many studio art courses as possible. I also attended NYU graduate school of fine arts, studying with Knox Martin, who became my mentor. In New York City in the late 1960s, I met Baba Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) and began an exploration of Buddhism and Hinduism. I moved to the Outer Cape Cod art colony (Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet) in September 1970, to live year-round, to be alone to paint, appreciate the beauty of the Outer Cape, and pursue a spiritual path.
Over the years, my artwork has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationwide, and in 12 U.S. foreign embassies. From 1970 to 1989 my artwork was abstract. In 1989, I began a series of large scale (i.e. 5 x 6 feet) mixed media portraits of prominent people in the arts. My large-scale portraits of Pulitzer Prize-recipients Jhumpa Lahiri, Stanley Kunitz, Alan Dugan, and U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky are in the collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and have been exhibited there. To date, I have made approximately 400 portraits in this series.
In 2018, I was awarded an “Ellie” from the ArtsCenter/South Florida now called Oolite Arts, which includes a grant, to make large scale mixed media portraits of patrons of The Historic Hampton House, a “Green Book” motel in Brownsville, Florida (Miami) where prominent African-Americans like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcom X, Muhammad Ali, Duke Ellington, Sammy Davis Jr, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, and many others stayed and performed in the 1950-60s when Miami Beach was still segregated. I also recorded video interviews with former patrons and performers who are now in their 80s. I donated the portraits to the Historic Hampton House, where they have been exhibited since 2/1/2022.
In March, 2023, I will be exhibiting approximately 20 large-scale, mixed-media portraits and related video commentary at the Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach.
In addition, I founded or co-founded three arts publications: “Provincetown Arts” (1985), which is still being published 35 years later; “Cincinnati Arts” (1988); and “Inspicio Arts.” “Inspicio Arts,” which is sponsored by The College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts (CARTA) at Florida International University (FIU), provides insight into all arts disciplines with a focus on Miami and South Florida.
The heart and soul of “Inspicio Arts” is the more than 400 video interviews with impactful people in the arts such as Pulitzer Prize recipients William Finnegan, Jane Smiley, Art Spiegelman, and Jim Morin; U.S. Poet Laureates Billy Collins and Juan Felipe Herrera; dancers and artistic directors Lourdes Lopez and Robert Battle; architects Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Pat Bosch; musicians Gary Burton and Tony Succar; cartoonists Al Jaffee, Bob Mankoff, and Bob Eckstein; prominent writers and poets like Jay McInerney, Alec Wilkinson, Gail Sheehy, Adam Gopnick, Jane Leavy, Marie Howe, Campbell McGrath, Richard Blanco, Ben Mezrich, Gerald Posner, Larissa MacFarquhar; actors; and film directors Eric Bogosian, Billy Corben, and Alan Metter – and many more.
To understand the full scope of “Inspicio Arts” visit the website: http://inspicio.fiu.edu
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I moved from Greenwich Village to Provincetown, MA in September 1970, I did not know a soul on Cape Cod. I had only been to the Cape once, in June 1970, and was blown-away by the beauty of the Outer Cape and the charm of Provincetown. At the time, I did not even know that Provincetown was an art colony – let alone the most important art colony in the nation. I moved to Provincetown to pursue my art, and my exploration of Buddhism and Hinduism, in the isolation of the Cape Cod winter. I reasoned that Provincetown was too far away from Boston to be a suburban commuter community and that the cost of living would be cheap.
I arrived with $5,000 in my pocket (the result of a Federal Income Tax rebate), and no source of income other than my artwork (which I had yet to sell). But I did manage to find a two-bedroom cottage, perched on 35 acres of undeveloped land overlooking Cape Cod Bay, which rented for $75 per month.
My first day walking down Commercial Street – Provincetown’s main drag – I met E.J. “Terry” Kahn, III, the editor of the “Provincetown Advocate,” the local newspaper. 14 years later he was “Best Man” at my wedding, after I had been “Best Man” at his wedding.
In 1973, I had the opportunity to buy a 3,000 sq. ft. 3-story house, overlooking Provincetown harbor on one side and the Provincelands (vast dunes like the Sahara Desert) and Pilgrim Lake on the other side, or $75,000. I was collecting unemployment insurance at the time and did not have “a pot to piss in.” But I had done the wealthy owner of the house a favor – screened one of his movies, “Circus Girls,” at my Outer Cape Repertory Film Society – so he cut the asking price in half to $37,500 and offered to take back a second mortgage. All I had to do was raise the $7,000 down payment, which I did by sending out a prospectus to friends and relatives, vowing to remortgage the house as soon as possible and pay them all back – which I did two years later.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
One of the lessons of human history is that art – visual art, music, architecture, poetry, plays, literature – is one of the few things that survives over long periods of time and defines eras and cultures. Yet it is amazing how art manages to survive even though it is so sporadically supported financially by most societies. In the United States, funding of arts education has continuously diminished over the decades since I was in school. When I recorded a video interview with Alberto Carvalho in 2017, when he was Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, he said, “Education without arts education is malpractice.” Taxpayers and parents need to recognize the importance of arts education for all people – not just for students with talent. Because art awareness will change people’s world view.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.rayelman.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspiciomagazine/
- Other: Inspicio Arts website: https://inspicio.fiu.edu/
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