Pierce County artists meld art with activism to support the Black Lives Matter movement

As protests over systemic racism and police brutality have swept the country, Tacoma artists have been expressing themselves through their work. From murals to music, they have all expressed a shared message that Black Lives Matter.

Perry Porter, who grew up in Spanaway, was part of making a mural at the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) that spelled out “BLACK LIVES MATTER” along the street.

Porter is a musician and artist profiled by The News Tribune in 2019.

More recently, he spoke about how he got involved in the CHOP project and what his most recent art has meant to him.

“It all happened really, really fast,” Porter said. “What was great about that was it let us know that everyone was thinking very selflessly. It wasn’t talking about pay or time. It was just, where do I need to be to make it happen.”

The project required Porter to work with restrictions he hadn’t had before.

“I’ve done a few large murals, but this was the first one where I’ve had to work within dimensions,” Porter said. “Since I had to fit it within a letter, it was a little complicated, so it took me a few hours to think about how I wanted to do it.”

He tried to visualize how he wanted it to turn out but seeing it in person was where it all came together.

“I came to it probably like an hour or two before I had to paint,” Porter said. “Once I got to physically see the ‘L’ while I was out there, it just hit me and I knew what I needed to do.”

Porter said he and other artists who worked on the project were surprised by the response it generated.

“We didn’t think it would take off the way that it has,” Porter said. “It has been overwhelming for most of us.”

Porter said he hopes his art can be part of a positive change.

“The whole message is supposed to be Black Lives Matter,” Porter said. “To the white people out there, time to listen to Black people. Please listen. If you have the privilege, give your Black friends a platform to actually get their voices heard. This is the time for change, be part of the change and love everybody.”

‘I was just tired’

Tiffany Hammonds is a freelance artist who also works at a nonprofit serving young people by providing art programming. Hammonds talked told The News Tribune about her journey through these tough times.

“I was an activist back in 2014 and ‘15. As a teen I was marching streets and doing all this stuff like that. Honestly, I was just tired. I didn’t have anything in me to go out and march. I felt really bad,” Hammonds said. “Seeing Black people dying in general was just another level of trauma and my heart honestly couldn’t take it.”

Hammonds was moved to get back into art in response to the ongoing protests over police brutality. One project she recently worked on was a mural at Tacoma restaurant Indochine.

“I have a message that I want to share,” Hammonds said. “I came up with the quote, ‘It doesn’t matter how far the light is at the end of the tunnel as long as I can reflect the light from where I stand.’ And then the second part goes, ‘Don’t lose hope if you don’t see the light, just be it for someone looking from the other side.’”

Hammonds put that message across several boards of the Indochine storefront.

“The message is hope,” she said. “If it’s our vision, that means we are capable of doing it.”

Hammonds said she has found catharsis in her work and hopes she can provide it to others.

“I’ve definitely found peace. It’s been a crazy experience,” Hammonds said. “That’s kind of what I want to be able to give in my paintings. Each color in my paintings has a different meaning.

“Reds are a color of anger, but they can also double as passion. Orange is the color for change. Yellow is the color for hope. Green is the color for peace, blue is healing, purple is victory, pink is tenderness, grays are wisdom. I use those colors to be able to share what I have with other people.”

The work and vision created at least one moment of connection with someone.

“One young girl came by the other day,” Hammonds said. “She was like, ‘I just wanted to thank you.’ Then she went on to say that she was super angry and livid with the things going on.

“She saw my mural. As she was reading it, she got her peace. If it’s just one person, that’s all that matters to me.”

‘Turning it into a show’

Jeremy Gregory, an artist and illustrator, has been hosting near daily livestreams on Instagram.

Gregory paints, draws with the audience, goes through his old work, juggles to get rid of negative energy and sometimes just talks.

“I started doing live when quarantine started,” he said. “I started turning it into a show and that’s all I’ve been focused on.”

Gregory has been figuring out what he will do for his next piece, which would be displayed at McMenamins to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement. He said he wanted to make sure he got it right and has been taking his time to decide what he wants to do.

“It’s a poster that’s going to go at all of them,” Gregory said. “The point is the confusion. I do art all day for everybody all the time, and I don’t ever have this problem. We’re in a different time, there is a different thing going on, you know? I’m just trying to figure out how to navigate that.”

Navigating through tough times is what Gregory has looked to as a healing process for himself.

“That’s how I deal with it,” he said. “That’s been my therapy my whole life is that art. That’s how I got so deep into it when I realized I could be in power of it.”

‘Time on my hands”

Another artist Philip Slater made a short film titled, “Look At Me,” which was shot around the corner from McMenamins in “a hidden area” close to downtown Tacoma.

“I literally picked up the camera two months ago,” Philip said. “When the quarantine happened, I had a lot of extra time on my hands.”

Despite being a novice, he has jumped right into it.

“I don’t have any experience, but I have this ambitious mind and idea that I want to see if I can make work,” Philip said. “I haven’t looked back since.”

A description of the work on YouTube calls it “a visual depiction of the emotions and feelings of those who are Black living in a world that won’t look at them as the same.”

“The message that I wanted to portray through this was really simply to look at me,” Philip said. “Each and every person.”

Philip worked with his sister and artistic collaborator, Charity Slater, who wanted to include her whole family in the project.

“As a Black mother, I have two sons,” Slater said. “I wanted to raise my fist but in a responsible way, in a way that would be able to express some creativity, in a way that I could allow my boys to participate safely.”

The process was emotional, but Slater was glad she did as it sent a positive message to her sons.

“I think I cried multiple times watching it over and over and over,” Slater said. “It was very emotional, not only from the perspective that this was happening in this world, but seeing my boys express that they’re lives matter because they do. It’s something that I have to think every single time they’re not in my presence. It terrifies me.”

Seeing it all come together helped Slater share with her sons an important lesson.

“I just wanted to make sure to express to them how important and valuable their lives are but also let them know this was an opportunity to use your voice as well for the younger generation,” Slater said. “Their voices and their lives matter.”

‘Get the groove back’

Reggae band Stay Grounded performed recently at Wright Park in an event put on by Tacoma Protest Daily.

It was the group’s first show in three months.

“It went pretty good, trying to get the groove back,” Michael Gumann, bass guitarist, said. “It took us a second to get our grounding back, but once we were there, it was all vibes.”

The band members hadn’t planned to do a show as they were working on new music but decided they wanted to be there when event organizers reached out.

“We wanted to be proactive about the Black Lives Matter movement and the stuff that’s going on,” Gumann said. “It was really cool for a lot of us to go and experience that as well as play music at the same time.”

Singer Law Fetui agreed.

“Being invited meant a lot. I didn’t want to make it feel like this was a time to push our brand. That’s not what we’re trying to do,“ Fetui said. “To be invited and to be part of it and help the cause, I think it was a good thing. That was why I agreed to do it.”

Francis ‘Franny’ Cacalda, lead vocals and guitar, said it made sense to them to start getting back to performing.

“We’ve been around almost like five or six years now. We got a really good base in Tacoma, so I think that’s a perfect place to play again,” Cacalda said. “What keeps me driven is playing music and performing.

“I love playing at bars, I love playing at huge shows and huge stages, but, something for a cause, I want to stand for something.”

Their music was often personal and meant to help others who might similarly be struggling.

“I was just talking more about my own struggles in this quarantine,” Calcada said. “You got to find that strength, you got to find that courage, push through it. Maybe not everybody needed to hear it, but maybe there could be like one person that needed to hear a message like that to keep fighting.

“Keep fighting through the hard times, stand together, don’t give up.”