AOTCE: So, if an artist reached out to you, would you be receptive?

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Kimberly:  I always am.  Sometimes I have artists just walk in here and ask me if I am interested in their work.  But, it is important to know that my gallery is non-traditional.  I don’t do monthly shows and wine sips and all that kind of stuff.  I don’t do individual shows for artist.  I have almost 100 artist in my gallery and the art objects range in almost about every medium, and I also have collectibles, I have African mask and things like that.  I have a real diversity of things that start at three dollars and go up to five thousand.  My strategy though is to make sure that art is offered in the gallery and it is accessible to everyday people.  It’s important to remember that the top two percent of people can drop five thousand for a painting and not think about it but that is not the majority of the people in this country.  Young artist need to be very clear about what they say they’re doing with their work because if you keep shooting for that two percent then you get yourself in a fog and you believe in the myth of the Ameritocracy.  There are lots of artist who do mediocre stuff and sell their work for lots of money.  That’s about connections, it’s not about talent.

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AOTCE:  So, there is a, for lack of a better phrase, old boy system?  It’s who you know versus what you know.  How do artists begin to understand that and get their work seen in spite of its existence?

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Kimberly:  If you mean by old boy system, that there are people that are connected to each other, then yes, and racism is still wide spread in America.  People get caught up by this term quote, unquote “Black Art” which is a ridiculous phrase in and of itself.  You can get your work seen if your goal is not just New York galleries that sell work for ten thousand dollars and up.  For most of my career I avoided commercial galleries.  I showed at museums, colleges, universities and non-profit organizations.  I have been only been represented by professional galleries, twice in my career.  I’ve shown my work at the Smithsonian, the American Craft Museum and been published internationally.  But it’s been because of connections I’ve made.  I don’t wait for somebody to open the door for me.  I build my house and open my own door.

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AOTCE:  Do you think artist, who happen to be Black, limit themselves by suggesting that their art is “Black Art” or has the term been used to somehow make it...less than?

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Kimberly: Yes, they limit themselves and yes it has been used to look at our art as something less than. Our ideas about race in this country are extremely complex.  It's why people can’t figure out what the relationship is of the Barnes foundations, Renoirs and Cezanne’s, to Barnes interest in African Americans.  I’d had people walk into my gallery and ask if this is what they call “Black Art” and I respond, no, this is art and I’m black but it’s not black art.  We have to make sure that when we use terms to define our work that we’re not doing the same thing as people that have unhealthy social attitudes.