In this episode of the WWN podcast, Kate talks with artist, traveler and teacher Sontina Reid about her creative process, how she aims to bring order out of chaos, where she finds hope and inspiration, and the importance of speaking the truth in challenging times. Enjoy!
This conversation has been edited to beep out some words that may not be suitable for younger audiences; parental guidance is still advised.
Transcript
Sontina Reid: I’m Sontina Reid, and I’m a horrible artist. I deal in horror and terrible stories sometimes with triumphant endings, but mostly there’s victims and things left unsaid, and the truth was never known.
Kate Jetmore: From Civic Spark Media and the Western Wayne News in Wayne County Indiana, I’m Kate Jetmore. As a native of Richmond, Indiana, I’m excited to be sitting down with some of our neighbors and listening to the stories that define our community.
My guest today is Sontina Reid, a well-loved and well-traveled Richmond, Indiana artist. A 1975 graduate of Richmond High School, she went on to study at Cincinnati Art Academy. She’s a largely self-taught artist who has also led many art classes and individual lessons. She has worked closely with the Richmond Art Museum, sharing her passion for creativity with the next generation. Reid has lived in many cities across the nation making art, including Lexington, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and New Orleans. Her inspiration comes from studying artwork, cultures, design, and color, reading, music and film.
Welcome, Sontina. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today.
Sontina Reid: Thank you.
Kate Jetmore: I cannot wait. We connected by phone about a month ago, maybe a little over a month ago, and I’m so grateful you agreed to come on the podcast and share your story with our listeners. And where would you like to begin your story? In Richmond, in one of these other places that you’ve lived or visited?
Sontina Reid: The best context, the best place to find yourself, the best place to achieve anything is the now. Right now.
Kate Jetmore: Okay. Is that where you want to begin, right now?
Sontina Reid: Now.
Kate Jetmore: All right. So where are you right now?
Sontina Reid: I’m in Richmond, Indiana. I’m behind enemy lines, but that’s okay because I was born with this. I was born here, I’ve always known this. I’m a transgressor, I’m a heretic. I’m a person that notices things, things that are swept under carpets, things that are left unsaid, things that are not negotiable, things that aren’t talked about, things that aren’t easy to digest, spiritual things, deep concepts, life and death, and what the (beep) is this and (beep). But-
Kate Jetmore: Would you say that you’re a questioner?
Sontina Reid: Not just that. That is related to the word question, and I do, and that’s just the way I’m built. I do question everything.
Kate Jetmore: Okay, okay. So do you want to give us an example of some things that you question?
Sontina Reid: What are things that I’ve noticed?
Kate Jetmore: Yeah.
Sontina Reid: Well, we’re living in times that kind of fear rules. We fear being called names. We feared being put on the spot, asked for answers that we don’t have. There aren’t a lot of answers, lots of questions. It’s the quality of the questions, and a lot of people even fear questioning. It’s better to fall in line, there’s many comforts there, there’s many rewards. You can see people fall into these camps of, let’s talk about that. Well, that’s another story. Well, that’s this. Well, I don’t have time for that. And these are just things that are just like every day for me I happen to notice, or I happen to… I’m going to stay up late and worry and fret and wonder and pray and make art. All those things go into making art.
Kate Jetmore: It sounds like you’re talking about how you see the world as a human being, but also sort of how you react to those things as an artist.
Sontina Reid: It’s not so much a reaction, it’s an attempt to navigate. So instead of just like, oh, this is (beep) and I’ll react to it. I call that definition by opposition. Okay, now I know where that is, (beep) that (beep), okay, but how to navigate. How to dig underneath, how to figure out what their figuring is so that maybe we can have a great conversation. Maybe I’ll get told not to come back and that’s fine too. I mean, it’s a free country, we’re all allowed our zones.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah. Sontina, are you always honest with people? Because I feel like in our society, often people are not honest. You ask them how they are and they say, “Fine,” and they’re actually not fine. I’m curious, you strike me as somebody who really tells people how you’re feeling when they ask you how you are.
Sontina Reid: Isn’t that funny? Because honesty is like beauty, and I think we’ve all got a weird relationship to those things. We know what honesty is. Is it appropriate right now? Is it kind? Could it be presented in a loving way? Could it be one of those things where it’s just abrupt and unsettling and hopefully you carried it off because you were funny?
Kate Jetmore: Yeah, yeah. It’s not just one thing is it?
Sontina Reid: Right, it’s not just one thing. And sometimes you can gauge, you can gauge what’s correct, what’s the best way to handle something. Sometimes silence is more respectful.
Kate Jetmore: What about these questions in the context of the creative process? Do you mind if we talk a little bit about your creative process?
Sontina Reid: No, let’s do it.
Kate Jetmore: Okay.
Sontina Reid: That’s great.
Kate Jetmore: I mean, it’s hard to even know what to ask you because your creative process is so rich. How do you decide what you’re going to paint, or do you even decide what you’re going to paint?
Sontina Reid: How about this? I have to, and here’s the word, navigate again. I have to navigate and I have to ride about seven, possibly nine bulls because that’s what it’s like. That’s what it’s like when things are churning and you’re getting up on things and you’re figuring stuff out. And lined up you’ve got your surfaces, you’ve got your paint, you’ve got this, you’ve got that. All of those are decisions. The end product surprises me too.
Kate Jetmore: Has it always been like that?
Sontina Reid: Yes, pretty much. I’ll go in there and I’ll be totally obsessed with cameos, like I was when I was a little kid, obsessed with them. I was obsessed with, I didn’t know it at the time, sexuality, beautiful women, beautiful this. What is beauty? What is not acceptable? What is not pretty? What is not the wrong… I was very sensitive to proportions and things and understanding that, wondering about it. And always I was probably, my face always looked like this because I was all screwed up trying to figure stuff out. And then I noticed that the pretty girl faces didn’t look like that. They weren’t all completely weirded out by stuff. They weren’t trying to figure stuff out. So all these things now I can get, I write a lot, so whichever notebook I find, I’m like, oh my God, that pertains to what I’m working on over here. And see, my whole house is lined in paintings, so I can just walk around with some paint.
Kate Jetmore: You mentioned the word proportion, and I have to share with you that the very first Sontina Reid original work of art that I ever saw in my stepmom’s house, who you went to high school with.
Sontina Reid: Yes, yes.
Kate Jetmore: Was a tiny little spool. Is that the word?
Sontina Reid: Yes.
Kate Jetmore: Like a spool of thread-
Sontina Reid: Yes, a spool.
Kate Jetmore: … with no thread on it.
Sontina Reid: A wooden spool, yeah.
Kate Jetmore: And you had painted with probably a paintbrush that had two little hairs on it, these tiny little figures and this, it was like a whole story on this 360 degree canvas.
Sontina Reid: Yes, stories are important. Yes, what I do is, I talk about, I layered stories probably underneath that tiny little thing were about four or five different paintings.
Kate Jetmore: Really?
Sontina Reid: Mm-hmm. You’re on the right path to some kind of a completion, so you can put it down and worry about something else and get something to eat and maybe earn a living and stuff like that, is when a story falls into some kind of graceful, there’s an alignment, and then you’re real close. Don’t (beep) that up. Continue on with the rules. There’s rules inside individual pieces of artwork because you’ve got to live in there. You’ve got to live and breathe and get along with others and stay out of jail and mental institutions and stuff.
So you develop or it develops, because I saw on this piece of paper, you mentioned the word channeling. Well, when you’re involved in these worlds and these realms, when you have left the planet and you are inside where this is taking place, there are certain rules of etiquette, and you start noticing it. You start, it’s like, whoa, that doesn’t belong here. Maybe that belongs in another painting or maybe dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and it gets really complex, but then you land on the rules that are necessary to tell this thing.
Kate Jetmore: So are you saying that these are rules for your creative process or kind of the rules for each piece that are dictated to you?
Sontina Reid: Rules for each piece.
Kate Jetmore: Oh, okay.
Sontina Reid: That you start to notice. And then when you’re trying to find it, you’re like, oh my God, I’m having so much fun and… But it’s chaotic in this, but it’s like that’s the beauty of it. And then you have to bring order out of chaos. Well, with that comes some kind of, it’s not always my rules, it’s something that I find in there. It’s like, this relates to this, relates to this, relates to this, relates to what’s underneath it. Nobody will ever see, relates to five other things that are happening behind me that I’m not going to work on tonight. They’re brewing.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah, and does that process inform you outside of the creative process, do you learn things-
Sontina Reid: Yes, yes.
Kate Jetmore: … as an artist that you can take out into the world?
Sontina Reid: Yes. How complex people are, how complex humanity is. How complex caring is, how complex knowing is, because once you allow yourself to know, and to see, and to feel, that’s huge. And it’s dangerous to navigate well. I don’t navigate it very well.
Kate Jetmore: But it sounds like your art is part of that. It’s like a tool that you have for navigating it.
Sontina Reid: Actually, it’s worked out where it’s more of a middle finger. It’s like, (beep) I’ll get my own understanding. Or, (beep) I’ll find it myself. Or, (beep) you, I’ll read 40 books. Or, (beep) you, I’ll even do better, I’ll own those books, I’ll own that information. I’ll own that information that the world has thrown out or the world did not value. It was devalued. I relate to that.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah. I’ll tell you one word I don’t hear you mentioning in all of this, or one sort of figure that I don’t hear you mentioning is the viewer. Is the viewer anywhere in your mind when you’re creating art, or is it really just between you and the artwork?
Sontina Reid: No, because in here, in my head, in my heart, in my soul are thousands. I’m populated. I’m a viewer too, so I’m in multiple seats. There’s multiple dimensions. It’s a form of insanity that I don’t talk about too much because I don’t need the label and I really don’t, I don’t need the medication or I don’t want it.
Kate Jetmore: Right. Well, I think if we’re all honest-
Sontina Reid: I’m not going to take it.
Kate Jetmore: Coming back to the word honesty. I mean, we all have a cast of characters in our head. Right?
Sontina Reid: Yes, yes.
Kate Jetmore: We all have multiple voices as we walk through the world.
Sontina Reid: Yeah, absolutely, sure.
Kate Jetmore: And it sounds like one of yours provides you with feedback while you’re painting. This is how I see what you’re creating.
Sontina Reid: Well, it’s related to those seven to nine bulls that I try to ride that you try to… It uses my mental muscles and my spiritual muscles and my fingers and my hands are strange because they’re trying to navigate this, because I’m inside this thing physically. Okay, so in there are multiple personalities, multiple. They run the gamut. Some of them are centuries old. I’ve got old friends and wonderful friends that I love meeting, and I carry them around with me in my purse through small books. And they belong to other centuries. Other artists, other artists’ muses, beautiful words, beautiful things. Words that I’ll repeat over and over and over and over. Notebooks full of these beautiful words, words help me.
Kate Jetmore: You mentioned being accompanied by friends who are centuries old.
Sontina Reid: Sure.
Kate Jetmore: And the other end of that spectrum is children. Children who are alive in the world today and you-
Sontina Reid: The future.
Kate Jetmore: Yes, and you work with those children at… I know you-
Sontina Reid: The future.
Kate Jetmore: You worked with my son when he was little at Richmond Art Museum through their summer art camps. What does it mean to you to work with young people?
Sontina Reid: It’s the most beautiful thing. It’s past, present, and future, all at one. It’s extreme, the alchemy of it, the most outrageous things happen. There are stories that, gosh, when it’s over and you’re alone or you’re with your assistant or something like that, and you’re like, God, did you catch the one about the… Did you see what happened when we did this? What the (beep) was that? Man, all of this, yeah, where it’s not just something you experience and then you’re like, oh, okay, I’m ready for the next. Next. It’s not like that. It’s alive, it’s a living thing. And either you bring that aliveness to it or I don’t know what you’re doing.
Kate Jetmore: Is part of what you’re saying that, that, you’ve talked about your creative process, you’ve talked about riding these bulls and kind of being on this wild energy. Is part of what you’re saying-
Sontina Reid: Sure.
Kate Jetmore: … that children still have that wild energy and they haven’t been tamed yet?
Sontina Reid: That’s a very important question. And I’ve noticed, and I am in mourning somewhat, because I have noticed. I’ve noticed it in my generation. I noticed it when children quit pretending, quit allowing. One of the ways to real living information is through what we blow off as what we call the imagination. The imagination is aware, the imagination is alive, and it’s connected to centuries. It’s connected to, there’s a timelessness. It’s not just my brilliance. I’m not that bright, I don’t think, but I allow myself to touch the light. And when children put on a facade and pretend not, but look what we’ve offered them. We’ve offered them a world and a screen accessed with fingertips. That’s a wonderland.
Kate Jetmore: So, what have we lost?
Sontina Reid: I don’t think it’s lost. I think it is re-navigating. It’s trying to figure out a navigation. I think it disenfranchises a lot because it’s already been done and a child or anybody gets that feeling. It’s like, oh, I don’t feel very worthy. I don’t feel very capable with all this fabulousness, with all this. It’s all amazing. What do I have? People feel lesser than, actually.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah. It sounds like what you’re saying is that we’ve sort of given away our power and that all that sort of fascinating wild energy that you were describing, we now attribute that to things like the internet and AI, instead of our own selves and our own imagination.
Sontina Reid: Yes, our own capability, our own intelligence. Intelligence doesn’t just stop at the head. It’s in our fingertips, it’s in our organs, it’s in our feet. You’ve seen it in dancers. You’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. We’ve felt it. We’ve noted exquisite beauty, exquisite emotional storytelling. We used to see it in the movies. Occasionally, we still do. Yeah.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah, and I feel like you’re touching on the next question I wanted to ask you, because you’ve already named several different kinds of artists. I mean, obviously you’re a visual artist. You named dancers, you named actors, movie stars. I wanted to ask you for your insight into the role of artists in a society.
Sontina Reid: We turn ourselves inside out and we mirror back to society, the inner worlds, the things left unsaid. It goes deeper than my words. We are also the, I guess, like Pied Pipers, into the unknown realms.
Kate Jetmore: I mean, the word that comes to me is guide. Does that word resonate with you? Like an artist can be a guide into the unknown?
Sontina Reid: Yes, into the unsaid, into the unvalued, actually, sometimes. There’s a hushed feeling here because of things are just too strange. Nope, that is outside my comfort zone, that is not something. Those people are weird, we’re not doing that. This is too awful, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And these troubled souls usually, I don’t know any well-rounded artists. I think we’re all eccentric and have problem navigating this world. I know I do, and I do it unapologetically. I don’t give a (beep) who knows this or judges me with it. It’s like, I’m cool with it.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah. So I asked you a pretty broad question. What’s the role of the artist in Society with a capital S, but what about the role that local artists, such as you, play in a place like Wayne County?
Sontina Reid: In these troubled times, post-COVID?
Kate Jetmore: Yeah.
Sontina Reid: World wars, disasters coming, not just to the them. It’s not happening to people we don’t know, it happens to people, it’s us. We are in trauma. There is trauma everywhere, and I say that, it’s, I’m in awe with how huge this is, how imperiled humanity is.
Kate Jetmore: Is there anything that gives you hope in that, against that backdrop?
Sontina Reid: Yeah, I see it all the time. I see people coming up against all kinds of odds, and these people stand out. Those are my heroes, and they do things. You find out by talking to them, they’re truck drivers getting together a truck that’s going down to Florida with water and diapers. And it’s like, oh, that’s so fabulous. I love it.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah, and that is a source of hope. For sure.
Sontina Reid: Hope is not something that lays dormant until we need it. It’s living, it’s alive, and it’s easy to give. And it could be just a sweet little touch on the shoulder. It could be a little bit of, something funny you say to a kid that breaks the mood, that allows a breath of something else to come in, another possibility. Hope is possibilities. What is possible? And sometimes we have to create that.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah. Well, Sontina, thank you for all the creating you’ve done and are going to keep doing, hopefully.
Sontina Reid: Oh, yeah.
Kate Jetmore: And thank you so much for joining me on the show today.
Sontina Reid: This is so sweet that you’ve asked me to do this. Thank you.