A Blueprint for Forging the Unapologetic Artist
The life of an artist is a life of constant pressure. Right now, I’m in the thick of it—navigating grant applications, seeking the resources to build a vision. One of these applications is for a residency, which for many of us is the only way to get what we need most: time, space, and focus.
It’s a system that forces you to justify your existence, to prove your work is worth the investment. And the ability to even enter that arena is a privilege. For years, the demands of life, family, and survival made opportunities like this feel impossible. But this year is different. I have a partner who sees the architecture of my vision and is helping me lay the foundation, brick by brick.
So I find myself swinging for bigger things, reaching for higher structures with no guarantee of success. And that’s where you run right into the great capitalist lie: the myth that things will work out if you just stay quiet and let them be. The truth is that survival—let alone creation—requires a staggering, bone-deep intentionality. It requires you to become the architect of your own life.
This constant fight for space, for resources, has only sharpened a question I’ve been asking my whole life: How do we free Black women from the suffocating pressure of white and male fragility?
For years, I didn’t have the language for it, but I felt the crushing weight. I was told to accept a world that didn’t make sense, to follow rules that contradicted my own spirit. When I finally pushed back, I was labeled “insubordinate.” What they failed to understand was that I wasn’t breaking rules; I was trying to breathe. I was shaking myself free of a world centered on others, a world that demanded I make myself small.
Without the words to defend my own expansion, I was dismissed. I became the caricature: a grudge-holding Black woman complaining about unfairness without proof. This work, this archive of stories, is my proof. It is the blueprint of a system designed to make you believe its crushing weight is gravity, not a deliberate, calculated force. It is a truth I’m finding that nearly all of us, Black women, carry in our bodies.And now, we have the language. We can look the world in the eye and say, with a voice that doesn’t shrink, “No more.”
I spent decades practicing the art of shrinking. I made my voice higher and brighter to be non-threatening. I policed my facial expressions to keep colleagues comfortable. I poured my life’s energy into manifesting the dreams of others, only to be seen as a threat the moment I began to architect my own. I was playing a part, wearing the costumes of “obedient daughter” or “dedicated professional,” but the seams were always tearing.
But a body can only be compressed for so long before it rebels. A spirit can only be folded into itself so many times before it refuses to bend. My body doesn’t make those shapes anymore. It does not shrink on command. It does not destroy itself to make room for others.
My body has become a megalith.
It is stone and memory, expanding unapologetically. It doesn’t ask for permission to take up space. It doesn’t apologize for the sun it blocks or the ground it occupies. It has its own weather, its own gravity. The world’s tiny moths of disapproval can either fly around it or dash themselves against its surface. The choice is theirs.
This work, this life, is a reflection of that body—a lifetime of meaning, forged in an era of madness.
The Blueprint for a Megalith
This was not an accident. This was a construction. Here is the blueprint.
- Lay the Foundation: Define Your Mission. A building without a foundation is just a pile of rubble waiting to happen. In 2018, I poured my own foundation: to create and cultivate opportunities for women, young people, and BIPOC artists to express, explore, and empower. Every action, every ounce of energy, is tested against this. If it doesn’t strengthen the foundation, I don’t do it.
- Quarry the Stone: Bend Your Circumstances. I took what was available—the books, the workshops, the free courses—and I chiseled out a new reality. I made the move across the country with my kids and no money, not out of chaos, but as a deliberate act of quarrying stone from a mountain of impossibility. You must be willing to hew a new world out of the one you were given.
- Carve Your Form: Make the Outside Reflect the Inside. Stop wearing the costumes. The world will always try to dress you in a uniform that serves its own purposes. The act of resistance is to look at your own soul and carve its shape onto your skin, your style, your voice. For me, that meant finally giving myself permission to be the multifaceted person I’ve always been—whether in a hoodie or in chinos. First, you must know your form. Then, you must have the courage to carve it for all to see.
- Claim Your Space: Force the World to Adjust. Once a megalith is placed, the landscape changes around it. Rivers divert. Paths are rerouted. The world has no choice but to accommodate its presence. When I began to move with the full weight of my own intention, the world around me had to adjust. People who were used to a smaller, more pliable version of me had to learn my new shape. I went from “crazy” to “extraordinary” in their eyes, but the only thing that had changed was that I stopped asking for permission to exist.
Your Turn to Build
To you who feels compressed by a layoff, by debt, by a world that will not make space for you:
The institutions are failing. The systems are crumbling. This is not a drill; it is a demolition. And in the rubble is an opportunity to build something new.
Stop trying to repair structures that were never meant to house you. Stop handing your energy to missions that would see you shrink.
Resist. Find your own blueprint. Begin the work.
And let the world contend with the shape of you.
Leave a comment