Creative Connections: Autumn Spears
Back in September I had the pleasure of meeting Autumn Spears at one of the events where I was selling my work. Taking a break from her mural along the Metropolitan Branch Trail, Autumn stopped by and absolutely made my night with her outpouring of enthusiasm for my paintings. After seeing more of her work beyond her mural, I felt so impressed by her involvement and success in the DC arts scene, I had to reach out for coffee to learn more about her path and process as an artist.
I loved hearing about her musings, shared her curiosities in balancing pain with celebration, and especially admired her gumption to walk directly toward the beat of her artistic heart. Outside of my scripted questions, Autumn also reminded me of something that I particularly needed to hear at this junction of my life: money comes and goes but time is a currency we never get back. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, meditating on it, in fact, as I start to envision what my own path and process as an artist might look like.
In 2023, you had your first solo exhibition and it was that event that showed you, you can be an artist. Can you share with me what was going through your head during that time?
I [come] from a family that doesn't really understand art. It was also a concern of, oh, we want you to have a stable career. So I was pushed to follow a certain path but then I wasn't really enjoying that. I was teaching [visual arts at an elementary public school] when I got this opportunity to show my work at my alma mater. It was so fun and really opened something in my brain: my career in teaching overshadowed my life, and the artist I am took a seat on the back burner.
Autumn’s solo exhibition, Becoming, 2023
So after [my solo exhibition], I thought, I want to keep doing this. I literally felt like a celebrity. I'm a normal person, but it was just so crazy because I go to events all the time, see people showing or talking about their work, and now I'm having this experience [myself] and it felt so surreal. It was a great opportunity there but then I thought, how can I keep doing this when I go back home to DC? For those years when I was teaching, I forgot that I’m an artist. “Real life” [told me], art is for fun when you're a kid, but now you're an adult, so you have to make decisions and be serious. What I'm learning now is that you can do both.
What is your source of motivation?
That's a good question. I feel like I create because I have to. I have all of these ideas in my head. Some of them are personal, but over time, my work has evolved to include more people in my vision. A lot of my work focuses on communal stories that come from the African diaspora, but reimagining them in contemporary contexts: pulling from the past to reimagine the present and the future. My vision is expanding beyond myself. When I'm applying to these spaces that are showing my work, I ask myself, who are the people that are seeing it, and what messages do I want to share with them or what type of impact do I want to have on them? But it is always just starting with an idea that's personal to me and if it relates to others, that's cool too.
Autumn in her studio in Petworth.
Digging deeper into the work you do, reimagining black histories, and narratives, and then also thinking intentionally about where and who your art is reaching, what do you hope that influence will be?
As I'm getting older and recounting my experiences, navigating my own identity as a black person, as a black woman in predominantly white environments, I want people to know more about our history in a literal sense. When I was a kid, the history that was taught to me was always about black people being enslaved. That is the history. There's nothing more than that. And as I've learned more about prominent African Americans, and thinking about how our cultures are connected over decades, over continents, I want to show more of that diversity and just inspire people. I'm inspired by a lot of the books I read, like some of the greats such as, Tony Morrison, Octavia Butler, Maya Angelo, or even Nigerian folktales. I've been reading a lot and what those novels inspire are pride for people that have culturally not been made to feel like they should have pride. I want people to have that sense of legacy, that our history does not start and end with slavery. There's so much more to it.
Is there a particular piece you've done that you feel was particularly successful in doing just that?
Yes. It's called A Gentle Reminder. It’s currently on view at the Commission on the Arts. That piece specifically was inspired by this folk tale called The People Could Fly. I always want to acknowledge both beauty and pain. Not one overshadowing the other, but a balance of the two. And that's one piece where I felt like I was able to do that really well. The painting has this curtain motif of braids. And then the view is of a cotton field.
A Gentle Reminder, 2024
The sky could be interpreted as a sunset or a sunrise and there's a little ambiguity: there’s a plantation in the background, but flowing in the sky from the background are these abstracted people. Some people think that they're birds–it's interesting to hear people's interpretation. Someone thought it was footsteps in the sky. Obviously I’m showing scenes from enslavement periods in America or across different places, but there’s a hopeful element of reenacting things from the story: these people were in this situation, but as the sun is rising or setting, these people through faith have allowed themselves to be liberated. It's really beautiful because that piece for me balances those two narratives. A lot of artists I've come across [focus on] trauma porn. Yeah, you want people to feel things when they see your art, but I don't think you should always be profiting off of misery and pain. I try to be mindful of that in my work.
Can you walk me through, whether it's this piece or just in general, your process from start to finish?
I'm always thinking about the concept initially, whether it's inspired by a title or a character or a certain situation. I used to always treat my sketchbook as finished products. Now they're random words, phrases, sketches that probably don't make sense to anyone else except me. I think of it as a psychological playground instead of always a visual one. But there's always a lot of sketching and now that I'm in this mixed media/fiber art stage, once I have the concept, I'm always thinking about what material do I want to use to tell this story?
Original sketches for My Mother’s Keeper
[While] I have to have some type of plan, [I also] allow room for flexibility or ideas to change. [For example], I always had this idea [for a particular piece]: it isn't exactly a collage where it's multiple images on one surface, but maybe an assemblage of different images of children who were killed out of acts of hate. That was inspired by one of the situations in Beloved, by Tony Morrison. I wanted to bring Beloved and these real children in conversation. One idea I [had was to make] a life size cut out of Beloved and have images of the children around her. Somewhere the entire idea visually shifted. Even though the concept is still the same, I turned it into this quilt, this crocheted quilt with all of the children. That is not how that started out. How did we get to that? I have no clue. I cannot force myself to make art, especially if the idea isn't ready. I have to give myself time because I have to just feel it. If I don't feel solid on it, I can't make the thing that I don't feel solid on. So I just need to let it brew and steep a little longer.
My Mother’s Keeper, 2025
My final question for you is, what does it mean to be an artist?
It means everything. Let me stop. For me, that means a lot, because being able to create, give life to something that intangibly exists in your brain is just crazy. Not everyone can do that. Or people do that in a lot of different ways. But that's really special to me just to be able to create. I feel like being an artist is being a visionary because lots of people technically have skills. Just because you can draw super well, just because you can paint super well doesn't mean anything. What are you saying, whether you are speaking to an audience of one or an audience of a thousand? That's something I'm very mindful of. It's more than just being able to make something. But it's contradictory because I feel like art can be whatever. It can be super deep or not, it can mean nothing at all. But it's having that vision, whatever that vision entails, that's what being an artist means to me.
You can see Autumn’s work in various shows throughout DC:
WIP
Another commission is in the works to keep me focused through the holidays. I recently discovered the magic of liquid acrylics and it feels like a game changer for my detailed pattern work.
From the Notebook
For honesty’s sake, I’ve been a bit slow this month. Following the completion of my last commission and with the days getting colder and shorter, it’s been hard to find the energy for creative play. Here is a practice portrait I forced myself to do while tuning into a webinar.
Media Musings
Fresh Air: Poet Ada Limon on writing in uncertain times
This quote from Ada meant everything to me: “I’ve always been a firm believer that artists need to talk about the way we make livings and the way we can move in the world… I wasn’t less of an artist because I had a full time job. I was just as much of an artist as I am today.” Why must we attach our identity to our primary economic output? Let us all be artists, and writers, and gardeners, or dreamers, too! I wish these titles never felt audacious but solely true to the songs of our souls.
Artist Amy Sherald: The 60 Minutes Interview
Since seeing her American Sublime in SFMOMA in February, I have been even more in awe of Amy Sherald. With the recent talk of her cancelling her show at the Smithsonian, it’s a win-win for Amy since the government couldn’t even keep itself open to show such an exhibition. American Sublime is now at the Baltimore Museum of Art through April 5, 2026.
It’s Been a Minute: Is Taylor Swift exploiting her fans? Yes, but there’s more to the story
While I blocked her on Spotify a few years ago, I did love and am loving the conversations surrounding her new album. Beyond the hate I now love to indulge in, it was also an interesting listen about the music business and the commercial/industry success artists find by turning themselves into literal products. Comparing Taylor to different lines of Mountain Dew at Taco Bell and Walmart felt wildly appropriate in too many ways.
Upcoming
Material Things Holiday Extravaganza!
December 6, 4-9pm, 4531 Rhode Island Ave, Brentwood, MD
I’ve been taking ceramics classes here for the past year and I absolutely love the community. While my ceramics are not sale worthy, I’ll be making more paintings and prints just in time for the holidays. Shop loca!