Doing It His Way: Ademola Olugebefola's Long and Varied Career in the Arts

Abstract

Doing It His Way:Ademola Olugebefola's Long and Varied Career in the Arts Nathaniel G. Nesmith (bio) Ademola Olugebefola (Bedwick Lyola Thomas) is an educator, activist, and multitalented artist. His versatility encompasses graphic design, illustrations, theater set designs, woodcuts, lithographs, etchings, serigraphs, oils, ink, charcoal and pencil drawing, free-standing sculptures, and murals, among other artistic forms. His works have been featured nationally and internationally in numerous exhibitions, galleries, museums, and universities. During the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, he was politically active and became one of the founders of the Weusi Artist Collective. He later became a cofounder of the Dwyer Cultural Center in Harlem. Early in his career he was a musician, but ultimately he focused on the visual arts and has had a long career as a theater designer, where he collaborated with prominent Black directors, producers, and playwrights. His journey as a visual artist continues to this day. I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Ademola Olugebefola at his office in the Dwyer Cultural Center in Manhattan, July 1, 2020. ________ NGN: How did your training to be a visual artist begin? ADEMOLA OLUGEBEFOLA When I was eight or nine years old, we were living in Brooklyn on Grant Avenue—we had just immigrated from the US Virgin Islands—and, as I recall, I asked my mother, Golda, to draw me a horse. She did it effortlessly, and that began my journey. From there I took art classes in high school and junior high school, where I used to draw political cartoons. Then I developed an interest in fashion because my mother and my aunt made their own clothes, so I went to the High School of Fashion Industries. And, of course, there you had to be able to draw. After that, my teaching came out of the Weusi Artist Collective and Academy and the association with other artists, in particular Otto Neals. The Weusi was the gathering of artists from the New York area; we formed Nyumba Ya Sanaa Academy of African Arts and Studies. But after my mother did that horse, I drew horses for the next fifteen years. That was my initial training, and then there is a certain amount of natural affinity I had for drawing. [End Page 131] NGN: I understand that you were also a musician, and your involvement with music began in high school. You sang, played drums, and played the acoustic bass. How did this come about for you? AO: I grew up in Amsterdam Houses in Brooklyn, which is where a lot of Caribbean people landed in the 1940s, after World War II. There was always music in my house; my mother loved music; my father loved music. As I was growing up, rock-and-roll, rhythm and blues were very prominent. My singing in those days was part of the doo-wop—singing on the corner, singing in the hallway with my friends. I loved music, there was nothing more wonderful than when you hit a note and you heard that harmony; that was my high. Then I had a girlfriend, the mother of my oldest daughter, who was a jazz aficionado. When I listened to Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" and heard Paul Chambers, the world changed for me. I just loved his rhythm, his sense of melody, which really got me wanting to play the bass. Some of my colleagues and friends of that period formed a group—I'm going back to the mid-1950s now. One of the things that was very influential at that time, with all of us, was that I could look out my window from our apartment and see the Phipps Houses, where Thelonious Monk lived. I used to play with his cousin, ran track and played basketball with his nephew and niece. Thelonious Monk was a real impetus for us all to get into music. After we formed the quartet, I bought myself a bass and started teaching myself. Then later I studied bass with Attila Zoller and developed to a point where my group played professional gigs. That went on for a number of years. I would play...