On the podcast, this episode actually comes after the “Pathway” series, but for ease of reading here on Substack, I’ve swapped them. The transcript of the interview will be forthcoming.
Greetings and Salutations, and welcome to Vesperisms: The Art of Thinking for Yourself. I’m here to help you recalibrate toward an artistic worldview. So grab your coffee, and have a seat in my studio, and let’s have a chat. This is episode 8, The Dream of Justice: An interview with Storyteller Will Ford.
For the past several episodes, we’ve been talking about artistic process, but since the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, Brionna Taylor and George Floyd, I decided to press pause on that while I did a lot of listening, watching and reading. I felt it was important to practice what I preached in terms of process—to perceive and think before I would speak and act. So I’ve spent the last few weeks talking with some good friends, and trying to understand this moment as well as I could. With such a multiplicity of factors and viewpoints, I haven’t scratched the surface any more than anyone else, but I’ve begun to have some clarity.
One of the friends I’ve been speaking with is Will Ford III. Will and I connected through his wife, my friend Dehavilland. Together, Will and Dehavilland lead a movement called 818 The Sign, which seeks through prayer to … He’s become a dear friend, and we’ve been talking about doing a picture book together about his amazing story, which you’ll hear in our conversation. Both during the coronavirus crisis and now during the protest movement, I think his perspective about what’s going on in America ought to be at the forefront of the conversation. In this episode, Will and I talk about the nature of story and narrative, the power of dreams, and what artists had to offer at pivotal historic moments in the past, and what we have to offer at our own pivotal moment in this…unusual year called 2020.
Listen to the interview here. Transcript to come.
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