Growing Pains is a poem written for my son in 2005 when he turned eighteen, inspired by a Romare Bearden photomontage. What I didn’t know then, that I do know now from watching the film Praise Song and lectures from Professor Chatman is the symbolism that called out to me from Bearden’s works was suppose to have spoken to me, that is, it wasn’t be accident that certain things stuck out, like the chickens and trains. The film calls Bearden and Charles White, “Griots of Imagery”, storytellers with deep understanding of culture.

Charles White born in 1918 Chicago, was extraordinary at age seven. White’s artwork to me captures deeply personal emotions of the black expressions and experiences. White’s mastery to capture the blues and its poetic suffering is astounding! The facial expressions, body language, it was said of White’s drawings and works are stroked as Langston Hughes writes. There is a social realism in White’s work to me that are more personal than Bearden’s, only meaning White’s subjects are more singular, concentrating on one person connecting to the community than vice versa.

Both artists honor “the black woman” in their works. They honor her in her every truth, as mother, worker, healer, and lover and in her joys, in worship and pain.

Romare Bearden born 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina and raised in New York, and like White started at art young. More than Bearden’s watercolors and drawings, I am a fan of his later work of photomontage and colleagues which speaks volume to me. I’ve written at least twenty poems to Bearden’s work. This genre artist has a way of connecting the viewer with black life whether city or country life and the life of the black musicians. Like White with the Blues, Bearden expression of Jazz, the feelings and improvosions are magical. To me if you look at a Bearden piece well enuf you could almost hear the music! The film spoke of Bearden’s lines, his mastery of forms, balance and design shown fervently in his earlier drawings, Bearden’s common or central theme was of life, black life prevailing.  

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said and I do agree, that Art (and I say no matter the form) remains the one way possible in speaking the truth. Both Romare Bearden and Charles White proved through their artistry that they are Griots of Imagery.