Equity In Art

A piece Spencer created several years ago while a student at CIA didn’t sit well with someone.

She had decorated a Christmas tree with ornaments made to represent Black people who died by lynching, and the tree was removed from a hallway outside of a prior studio space at the former Hodge arts complex in Cleveland. Spencer said she later found it broken in the basement.

“They took it upon themselves to get rid of it,” she said.

While she realizes some might be unable to look at trauma in art, she doesn’t think artists or people should necessarily avoid such work. 

“If you can't see the images, and these images, they happen, they happen to people… and you are having a big problem looking at them, think of the people that have the problem, losing their loved ones,” she said.

Another piece she did as a student reflected on death by lynching. The painting included a collage of images of white men “standing around proud they lynched somebody,” she said.

To Spencer’s surprise, she found “nobody was horrified."

Years later, she looked at a cutout of one of those images on a table in her studio featuring a man looking confident in his stance and expression and said she wants people to see that the safety of all people – not just Black people – is threatened when someone participates in taking a person’s life.

Cleveland makes its way into Spencer’s sculpture in different ways. Sometimes it’s as working material, such as driftwood from Lake Erie. Other times it’s as inspiration, from the city’s architecture to its history.

Spencer’s approach to creating sculpture is to start working and see what emerges.

“I never do a model unless it's a commission,” she said. “You have to figure out, like, ‘OK, now I'm going to make this, like, structure stay in the middle of this.’ So you figure out a way.”

Spencer also stays open to changing the art. One wooden sculpture, for example, was going to be displayed like a labyrinth on the floor of an art show. During the setup for the exhibit, Spencer’s sculpture was moved to the side to provide working space, and she said she ultimately decided she “liked it better that way.” It became a “wall labyrinth.”

Ahead of the 2016 Republican convention, Spencer installed a large sculpture in the city’s downtown Hilton.

“It was an engineering feat,” said Geoff Baker of Still Point Gallery, who was on site for the installation.

“Harmonic” was constructed of woven reed grass tied together with stainless steel jewelry wire.

Spencer said she prefers people “look at a piece and have emotions and feelings first rather than reading my explanation.”

The woven reeds accumulate and transfer energy, moving inexorably in cycles (circles), intersecting, unifying but always proceeding forward. Such is the history of Cleveland and the cycles that inspire the artist - the city's natural resources providing the early foundation for its industrial society, its cultural assets attracting population and capital, and its institutional and intellectual assets further sustaining the region's transition to a new economy and future. The sky, earth (urban landscape) and water (Lake Erie) are integrated into one unified work; their harmonic cycle a powerful statement for the city's capacity for renewal. – From the description of “Harmonic” on Spencer’s website.

Spencer said she doesn’t have a favorite piece, but she particularly enjoys the experience of creating.

“You lose yourself in the sculpture,” she said. “Especially when you're finding out some things, like that the materials can do or you can do with the materials that you've not done before.”