Trader Joe’s Grocery Store, Alameda, CA.
Ajuan Mance
Category Archives: Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#603
On Saturday morning, my fabulous partner and I headed out to Livermore Premium Outlets with nothing but our wallets. We emerged a couple hours later with six pairs of shoes. Oddly enough, I wasn’t really planning to buy any shoes at all. I am, however, happy to say that those six pairs of shoes cost us less than we would have paid for three pairs at the normal retail price.
I haven’t made many mall trips in the last few years, and I haven’t purchased any new shoes since 2011. On Saturday, though, we immersed ourselves in the entire all-American shopping mall experience. We strolled, we browsed, and we even had lunch in the food court. There was a Japanese food stand that was handing out delicious samples of stir-fried chicken, and we chose to eat there.
The man in this drawing was in line right behind me at the food court. This was an interesting coincidence, given that I could count the number of Black people I saw at this mall on my fingers and toes. This is not to say that the crowd was not diverse. That’s one of the interesting things about the San Francisco Bay Area. There are so many different ethnicities present, that even in the absence of any one group, non-white people still might outnumber their white counterparts by a large margin. That seemed to be the case at the Livermore Premium Shops.
I chose to include this guy in the series because he was one of only two Black men I saw during my entire shopping trip (and I only caught a brief glimpse of the other man, out of the corner of my eye). The man in this drawing was also an interesting subject because his mustache and beard, the hair on his head, his eyes, and his skin were all different shades of the same color brown, kind of the way that a Crayola crayon and the paper wrapped around the crayon are basically the same shade, but rendered in different textures and different levels of saturation. It would not be entirely inaccurate to say that if this man was object, he would probably be a crayon.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#602
Cock-A-Doodle Cafe, Oakland, CA.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#601
Labor Day, Stoneridge Mall, Pleasanton, CA.
I loved this gentleman’s summery outfit. It pushed all of my happy fashion buttons, from the khakis to the cotton camp shirt to the snappy pork pie hat. It came as no surprise to me that he was browsing in the Tommy Bahama/Ralph Lauren/Tommy Hilfiger section of the Macy’s men’s store.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#600
Today marks the 600th entry in my series of 1001 drawings of Black Men. Of course, the images in this series depict many more than 600 Black men, and some of my drawings include two, three or even as many as 30 different figures. Some of my subjects are drawn from life, some from memory, and less than a handful from photographs that I took on my phone.
Last Saturday night I found myself at the New Parish in downtown Oakland. The event was the WERQ! Vogue Ball. After the excitement of spending the day at the San Francisco Zine Fest, I was a bit too tired to enjoy such a high energy atmosphere, and I found a quiet corner in which to sit and do some people watching. This brother reminded me a little of a young George Clinton, if George Clinton had worn dreadlocks back in the day. That and the fact that he was wearing sunglasses indoors and at night made a deep enough impression on me that I immediately brought him to mind when I sat down to my sketchbook the next morning.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men Event, 9/7/2013
Hi Everyone!
I hope you’ll be able to join me for this exciting panel discussion:
A World of Possibility
a conversation about
The Representation of Black Masculinity:
Past, Present, and Future
Please join us for a discussion with
artist and professor of English at Mills College
CCA professor and collaborating artist, Question Bridge: Black Males
artist and member of the 3.9 Collective
associate professor of Visual and Critical Studies, CCA
Saturday, September 7, 2013, 6:15PM-7:30PM
FREE and open to the public
CIIS Main Building, Namaste Hall
1453 Mission Street
San Francisco CA 94103
Nearest BART station is Civic Center.
In a cultural setting where the representation of Black masculinity has been subject to caricature and negative stereotype, Oakland-based artist Ajuan Mance dove into the discussion with a series titled 1001 Black Men. The artist paradoxically uses simple line drawings to conjure the richness and complexity of faces, expressions, and gestures stored up over a lifetime of looking at Black people.
Please join us for a panel discussion that considers both the representational history and present of this contested identity, and the interaction between art, artists, and the viewer.
Check out:
1001 Black Men–#599
Webster near 17th, Oakland, CA.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#598
Summer attire near Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#597
School is back in session, and all over the East Bay there are kids with backpacks and lunchboxes on sidewalks and in school yards. You can see them in their bright new back-to-school outfits, walking, running, and laughing together, making their way to and from the local elementaries. The boy in this drawing might be a student at a parochial school, but I like to think that he’s one of those kids whose parents made him dress up for the first day.
The picture in his thought bubble depicts Pam, Penny, Mike, and their father. They were part of the first Black family to be featured in the classic Dick and Jane series of early reading text books. They were introduced in select editions between 1962 and 1965. I thought it was the perfect image for the beginning of a new school year.
1001 Black Men–#596
Office Depot, Emeryville, CA.
***
My cause first, midst, last, and always, whether in office or out of office, was and is that of the black man; not because he is black, but because he is a man, and a man subjected in this country to peculiar wrongs and hardships.
–Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
Ajuan Mance