Waiting in the ticket line at the Brooklyn Museum, April 2015.
Ajuan Mance
Category Archives: Black Men
1001 Black Men #911
At the end of last April, I saw the Kehinde Wiley exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. Wiley is best known for his portraits of everyday Black men in heroic poses that are often based on old master paintings.
The exhibit was breathtaking, and the experience of walking into the first gallery of the show is something I will never forget. Mad props to the Brooklyn Museum for creating the most moving and dramatic entrance into a show that I have ever encountered. A lot of the paintings in this show were huge–up to 96″ x 72″ and even larger; and they were beautiful, every single one.
As much as I loved the paintings, I loved seeing the Black men at the show even more. Their expressions ranged from amused to rapt to proud, and I wondered what it must have felt like to walk through an entire exhibition of works celebrating their beauty and power.
Several of the drawings in this part of the 1001 Black Men series are the result of me looking at real-life Black men looking at Wiley’s paintings of Black men. The background of each of these drawings evokes the richly patterned backgrounds for which the artist is known.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #910
I was recently in Austin, Texas for an academic conference. While there, I ate buffalo wings at four sports-themed restaurants. At Champions, a sports bar-restaurant located in one of the downtown hotels, I was seated at the bar, and this elderly sports fan was seated across from me. The look on his face that you see in this drawing was the same look he had on his face during the entire time I was at the restaurant. At first, I thought he was frowning at me, and then I thought he was frowning at his food. Then I thought he was frowning at me again. The only time his faced seemed to crack even the slightest smile was when his food arrived. He probably would have smiled more if he’d ordered chicken wings. They were really pretty good.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #909
I always notice a gentleman in a scarf. The man in this drawing was waiting in line at my favorite coffee shop. The haughty expression on this man’s face appeared to reflect his judgement of the people around him, the arrangement of the space, or both. Chances are, though, that he was simply lost in his own thoughts, with little attention to the rest of us or to the setting’s decor.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #907
Brooklyn, NY, November 2015.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #906
There’s only one place where you’re almost guaranteed to see at least on Black person dressed as one of the Mario Brothers, and I probably don’t even need to tell you what that is. (It rhymes with atomic prawn.)
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #905
My love of barbecued ribs is second only to my love of buffalo wings, and I crossed paths with this brotha during a recent trip to Smokey J’s Q House, on Shattuck Avenue, in Berkeley, California. The background in this drawing is based on one of those old-fashioned picnic tablecloths. Smokey J’s uses no such decor, but their food makes you feel like you’re eating at a classic old-time barbecue hut. I recommend the ribs and the chili. My main criticism of the place is that they have no iced tea.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #904
I don’t know how I missed posting this drawing from Comic Con 2015. I was only there for a day, but I had my sketchbook at the ready to make drawings of the brothas I encountered in the convention center. One thing I love about Comic Con is that there are so many Black people in attendance that it would be impossible for me to capture even one tenth of the number of Black folks who are there. I’ve definitely been to my share of conferences at which you could fit all the Black people in a walk-in closet, so I don’t take this opportunity to commune with sci-fi and comics fans of African descent. It is an absolute joy to be surrounded by so many unabashedly nerdy Black folks; and each of my trips to Comic Con is so very special to me because, however long or short my time there, for a few hours or a few days, I am truly among my people.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #903
I spotted this brother wearing a kufi during my last trip to New York. He was on the subway, and in real life, he was actually wearing a coat (it was kind of chilly, but not fully cold). I noticed him because he was reading a newspaper on the train, a common sight during childhood trips on the Long Island Rail Road, but a rare occurrence in the current era of smartphones and tablets.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men #902
I recently walked into a Chili’s restaurant. I was in the midst of a long and stressful workday, and I need to get away from my office to relax and clear my head. I was looking for a sports-oriented restaurant where I could watch a little ESPN or Fox Sports and have some buffalo wings.
Curiously enough, Chili’s does not serve buffalo wings. They do, however, begin their happy hour at 11am. That likely explains the number of people seated at the bar in the middle of the day. The man in this drawing was part of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic group of construction workers seated around the bar enjoying French fries, televised sports, and large glasses of beer. For a few minutes, I sat at a nearby table taking in the surroundings and imagining what it must be like to go to work so early in the morning, that after work drinks begin around 2pm.
Then, after confirming that the only buffalo “wings” at Chili’s are boneless (in other words, breaded chunks of chicken breast with no dark meat anywhere in sight), I got up from my table and headed back out to my car.
Next time I’m seeking the peaceful diversion of sports and spicy wings, I’ll stop in for lunch at Ricky’s Sports Theater. They’ve got over 90 screens of sports programming, and chicken wings are always on the menu.
Ajuan Mance