Demetri Broxton

BIO

Demetri Broxton studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University. Recently, he has exhibited beaded, feathered, and otherwise lavishly adorned creations—often robes and boxing gloves—at Patricia Sweetow Gallery, in Crafting Radicality at the de Young Museum, Stitched at the Crocker Art Museum, and Second Skin at the Art Gallery of Alberta. Here, he talks in-depth about his influences, growing up in Oakland, California, the Hip Hop references you can pick up in his work, how he learned to bead, and, of course, boxing. “In my work,” he explains, “I am intuitively connecting to processes, techniques, and concepts that have ancestral origins.” Ultimately though, he hopes his work might be “a healing force in the world,” and he says, “I am humbled and extraordinarily grateful for every single person who appreciates my work.”

Interview with Demetri Broxton

Questions by Marcus Civin
November 28, 2023

Hi Demetri. I wanted to start out, if you think it’s a good idea, by talking about tradition. I wonder if you’d like to talk about what tradition means to you?
For me tradition is a way to connect with my ancestors, both known and unknown. I am of mixed heritage—Filipino and African American. The traditional art forms of both my ancestral cultures are connected to the epistemology of the cultures—how they envision the universe, their place within the cosmos, and codes of conduct. Bead work is steeped in these ways of thinking with the colors and patterns having meaning much deeper than on an aesthetic level. My artwork seeks to bring forth these traditions and apply them in new ways that are more relevant to the world I currently live in. 

Lately, I have been digging through my family’s archive of photographs. As my elders pass away, I am realizing that me and my generation no longer know the names and stories of so many of our ancestors, and we no longer have anyone around who can tell us who those ancestors were or how their legacy has impacted our lives. I am attempting to bring forth their stories through research in official archives, but when I hit dead ends, I try to tap into my own innate knowledge of who these folks were. Their images have found their way into my latest work, where their photos act as amulets of protection and guidance. 

I think I’ve heard you say that growing up in Oakland, you had to fight. I wouldn’t ordinarily ask such a personal question, but it feels perhaps relevant to your work. Would you be willing to share more about growing up and fighting?
LOL! I both love and hate this question at the same time. I grew up in East Oakland in a neighborhood that was “hood adjacent,” meaning it was a lower middle class neighborhood aspiring to be higher up in the social stratification, but we were surrounded by lower income neighborhoods. Growing up in a neighborhood like this, your masculinity or hardness is often tested. I grew up in a vibrant, diverse neighborhood, where more than 50% of the houses were occupied by families with kids. In the summertime, all the kids would pour into the streets and play together. It was incredible! I was always a very introverted, shy kid who stuck to my small group of friends and tried to avoid boys that I thought might be a bit more trouble than they were worth. I think that opened the door for bullies to test my manhood. When I was nine years old, my best friends and I had gathered our change from our allowances and headed to the corner store to buy some candy. This older boy, who I didn’t hang out with, but who was very popular throughout the neighborhood decided to throw a lemon at me—I have no idea why, to be honest. The lemon hit me in my eye. Instead of continuing to the corner store, we went back to my house. I looked at my reflection in the front window of my house to see if the lemon gave me a black eye. My dad noticed and came outside to ask what had happened. Now, at the time, my dad was a bodybuilder. He grew up in the Bronx, in the projects, so fighting was in his DNA. My six-foot-four dad gave me two options. I could fight the boy or deal with HIM. I chose to fight the boy—in front of my entire neighborhood. I didn’t necessarily win the fight, but I proved my masculinity to the whole neighborhood and from that day forth, when I was physically confronted by a bully, I fought back. This happened one more time a year later in my neighborhood. A different boy threw something at me and I punched him in his eye. No one ever tested my manhood in my neighborhood again after the second boy.

I changed schools a lot. My parents were always trying to ensure I received the best education possible, so from fifth grade through ninth grade, I changed schools every couple years. It seems I had to prove my manhood with my fists every time I changed schools. It was exhausting and frustrating, but I’m thankful it ended after I transferred to a college prep high school in tenth grade. 

I’d also like to hear about your family tree. I learned that your grandfather was a boxer. I’m curious how you learned about this growing up and how you think it might have impacted your imagination. 
My grandfather, Hiram King Broxton, was always in my life. He lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, and would fly out to visit every year. When I was ten, my parents started putting me on a plane each summer to spend at least a month with him. My grandfather had served in the U.S. Army beginning in World War II. He would always tell me war stories and about him being a boxer. He was a huge fan of both Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali—particularly their intelligent styles of pugilism, which relied more on skill, wits, and strategy than brute strength. I never learned to box, despite having to fight bullies as a kid, but I appreciated the skills required to be a good boxer. My grandfather was a very handsome man and he prided himself on, as Ali would say, “staying pretty” by avoiding punches to his face as much as possible.

I’m not sure what impact this all had on my imagination, but I have always wanted to take boxing lessons. So much so that I bought a pair of boxing gloves and had been researching classes near my home. I never enrolled in any of the classes, but the gloves were lying around in my art studio. I had been making beaded jewelry—necklaces, bracelets, and earrings—as a way to remain creative and keep my hands busy after I decided I needed to put a pause on oil painting. I needed a soft structure to attach beads to if I wanted to increase the size of my pieces. The gloves were just lying there, so I decided to attach the beads to them since I could easily sew into the foam-filled vinyl material. The meaning came later as I began to realize how potent a symbol boxing gloves are and how the meaning of lyrics changed when juxtaposed with the gloves. 

And, Big Chief Demond Melancon! Can you talk about how you ended up connecting with him and what your sessions with him were like?
I want to start off by saying that I didn’t actually have much time with Demond. He’s an incredible artist, Mardi Gras Chief, and friend. When I was first starting out making beaded sculptures, I immediately searched for other male-presenting artists who worked with beads. I had gone to bead shows and shops and even joined the Northern California Bead Society, but I was often one of the only men and certainly one of the only—if not only—men of color under the age of fifty. I found Demond on Instagram in 2016 and sent him a DM, telling him how incredible I thought his work was and he immediately wrote back. I had been making bead embroidered pieces but I hadn’t received any formal training. I noticed that his rows were straight, whereas mine were very messy, so I asked him to help me fix my crooked rows of beads. He sent me a one-minute video showing me how he stretches his fabric around a frame, just like painters stretch a canvas before painting. I had been sewing directly onto loose fabric, so as I worked my rows of beads, the fabric would tighten up and my straight lines would become crooked. Demond’s willingness to share his technique was a game-changer for me. I could achieve more refined details in my lettering and patterning simply by stretching my fabric around a frame. A few years later, in 2019, I had the privilege of flying down to New Orleans and visiting Demond in his studio for a day. We shared our favorite beads, colors, and stitches. I had a chance to see him and his wife work on his latest suit for Mardi Gras 2020 and realized that he and I use the same two-bead backstitch as our primary stitch for sewing beads. I had been attracted to the stitch but had no idea there was a connection to the same technique employed in New Orleans. Learning this gave me more confidence that in my work, I am intuitively connecting to processes, techniques, and concepts that have ancestral origins. 

What does it mean for you when something you make is worn rather than only displayed? I’m thinking about a work like what you exhibited in the show Second Skin. Can you walk us through how you see the relationship between objects, costume, and performance?
I love this question! Beginning with my very first set of beaded gloves, I always envisioned my pieces being activated by being worn and danced or performed in, but doing so is often in conflict with the goals of a gallery setting where art objects are meant to be displayed in a static manner for visitors to experience the pieces exclusively with their eyes. The work presented in Second Skin, entitled Can’t Stop Us Now, came about by chance. The museum had originally asked me to send four of my pieces, including the full robe that I activated. However, the curators didn’t realize that my pieces are heavy and shipping them would be cost prohibitive for their budget. They asked if I could send smaller pieces or if I had photographs that could work. This problem turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it allowed me to activate my work in a way that I had always wanted. 

The robe is heavy and unruly. I would estimate that it weighs about 60 pounds. I initially wanted to commission a professional dancer to activate the robe, but [wearing it is] torturous. I figured it made more sense for me to be the person to go through that level of suffering. The inspiration behind the robe is a Mande hunter’s shirt. These are heavily embellished, long shirts that are covered in amulets, tassels, and other objects that serve to display the fierceness, skill, and bravery of Mande hunters. The true power of the shirt is placed on display when the hunter’s wear their shirts when they come into the city after returning from the bush. I wanted to bring that same level of activation and display so I wore the robe and had my wife take a series of photographs of me in different poses. I then strung the photos together into a chronophotographic video piece where I played each photo for one and a half seconds and paired it with music. I paired it with a pre-1950s recording Song for Elegua by Venezuelan Santeria musical group Cojunto El Niño. 

Activating the robe in this way allows me to more deeply connect with the traditions I reference in my work. Furthermore, my pieces always inherently reference the body, simply because we all know that boxing gloves and robes are meant to be worn. By dancing in the robes and documenting this action, I feel like the work gets removed just a little bit from the confinement of gallery walls and more into the realm of ceremony. Additionally, my work most often references deep and traumatic histories as portrayed in the lyrics that are beaded onto the pieces. Dancing and capturing my body free and untied down by these traumatic histories enables my work to act as a healing force in the world. 

I’m interested too in the letterforms you use, often to present music lyrics. How did you establish your typography, the style and appearance of your letters?
I am a Hip Hop head. I was born into the same decade as when Hip Hop was born and graffiti is one of the major pillars of Hip Hop. Since I draw most of my lyrics from Hip Hop verses, I wanted to use a style of lettering that reflected graffiti. The first piece that I created using a graffiti style, on the piece I Got the Power, was made with big bubble letters, like I used to fill notebooks with when I was in junior high school. But for every piece I’ve made since, I’ve adapted a West Coast style of graffiti lettering and I trail them with strings of beads to create a drip effect. I wanted to be more clear that I am referencing graffiti and the drips that happen when spray paint is applied in a heavy fashion. Graffiti lettering creates a stronger tie to Hip Hop culture, and though traditional West African ritual objects are often the starting place for my inspiration, the incorporation of graffiti places my work in an undeniably contemporary and urban locale. 

And then, the language itself, the lyrics in your work. It seems to me they become a kind of short-form poetry: “My people… Hold on.” How do you think about poetics in your work?
Thank you for recognizing this in my work! The lyrics are usually the thing that comes first when I’m conceiving a piece. I am one of those people that listens to music for a large portion of my day everyday. I often get verses from Hip Hop, RnB, or the Blues stuck in my head, and the lyrics that I most appreciate have room for double entendre, where multiple readings of the words can exist for different people. In the case of the boxing gloves, I imagine them representing a person—a boxer—and I think about what larger social issues the boxer wearing the gloves would be fighting for. 

“My people… Hold on,” is directly from the Eddie Kendricks track with the same title. In my case, my people are African Americans who have been struggling for true equality in the United States for hundreds of years, but for someone else, their people could be a different group. I interpret “hold on” to be a call to not give up hope and continue along in the fight, but for a different viewer, holding on could take on a very different meaning relative to whatever is going on in their life. I really enjoy that the lyrics could have vastly different meanings depending on the viewer. 

Another piece that I especially love for its poetics is an earlier piece I created that simply says, “worth the weight” quoted from a track by Jidenna. Audibly, we hear “worth the wait,” and that meaning holds true for the piece. But Jidenna’s replacement of “wait” with “weight” brings so many ideas forward that are central to my work and the symbolism of the materials I employ in the creation of my pieces. Cowrie shells were a form of blood money used to purchase human beings and sell them into slavery during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Boxers are also weighed and placed in various weight classes, with heavy weight boxers holding the most value and usually possessing the ability to gain the most fame. In three words, Jidenna’s lyrics allowed me to infuse so many complex and potent concepts into one piece. 

Perhaps boxing could be characterized as fast. It takes training—arduous training, I imagine—but still, Bam-Bam-Bam. Similarly, Hip Hop is usually fast-paced, at least the musical end product. Beading, on the other hand, we could say is maybe slower. The artist Jeffrey Gibson talks about beading and craft as a way to focus. When most people look at beading and craft, they’re conscious of the time it took. 
You’re absolutely correct. I love the contradictions inherent in my work. Mashing-up fast-paced, hard-hitting Hip Hop lyrics with slow and tedious beading is one of the contradictory elements present in my work. I also think that Hip Hop is a highly masculine-presenting art form and one associated with youth, whereas bead work is associated with female craft-making and is often associated with older creators. 

You’re actively engaged as the Senior Director of Education at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. I wonder: Are there any exhibitions you have worked on there that have been especially meaningful to you? Maybe there is even one that rises above all of the others?
The exhibition that comes to mind is the Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem. Though I moonlight as an independent curator, I was not the curator for the exhibition but I was able to develop comprehensive educational resources to accompany it. What was most impactful to me was getting to live with artwork by incredible creators like Kori Newkirk, Chakaia Booker, Mark Bradford, Meschac Gaba, Nari Ward, Bettye Saar, and dozens of other artists of African descent who redefined what art created by Black folks could look like. Of all the artists included in the exhibition, I would make daily visits to the piece by Kori Newkirk. As an artist who works in a medium outside of those traditionally heralded in western fine art, seeing how Newkirk took plastic pony beads and braided them into painterly curtains validated my choice of medium. He was inspired by the beads worn by Venus Williams during the 1997 U.S. Open. Though Williams displayed incredible talent on the tennis court, half the news articles obsessed over her hair and fears that the beads might fall onto the court and trip her opponents. The way Newkirk mobilized this material so commonly used by African American girls to make compelling statements about society and culture, really struck me and encouraged me to think even deeper about the histories of the materials I incorporate into my work. 

I’m curious as well what it feels like to receive the attention you’ve received for your recent bodies of work? You’ve been featured in articles with headlines like: “Six Discoveries to Make at Miami’s Untitled Art Fair 2021” and “Nine Artists to Watch in 2022.” I’m wondering especially because you have been making art for years.
The art world is a peculiar space and trends change constantly. On one hand, I try to not focus too much on whether or not I’m getting attention from the art world, because it can be a distraction from making my art. On the other hand, the attention was incredibly validating and motivating. The attention also bolstered sales, which is an important factor in allowing me to move toward being a full-time artist, which is my goal in the next few years. The “Six Discoveries…” article was published at the beginning of Miami’s Untitled Art Fair in 2021, and within a day, all my work completely sold out. I can’t for sure know that the article was the leading factor in me gaining such a focus on my work at the fair, but it certainly helped. I think more than anything, receiving attention helps me to know that there are people deeply steeped in the world of contemporary art, who appreciate my work and can see its place within art history. So many artists work their whole life and never receive so much attention, so I am humbled and extraordinarily grateful for every single person who appreciates my work. More than anything, the articles boost my confidence in experimenting and pushing my work to the next level. 

It’s true that I’ve been a practicing artist for quite a long time. I was primarily a painter from 2003 until 2016. In 2017, I shifted to making soft sculptures using beads and using boxing gloves as the base of my work. So to get a great deal of attention on my work within a few years of working in this new medium was incredible. I only ever sold a few paintings, even though I think I’m a talented figurative painter. I've been excited about this move because I feel like I’m carving out my own lane and no one confuses my work with that of any other artists. I think switching to beaded sculptures resonates with a wider audience, especially because my work edges more toward abstraction and has conceptual elements which can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. 

I think you’re often researching objects from all over the world. Can you tell us about some of your current fascinations?
I am currently researching the lukasa, which is a mnemonic (memory) device utilized by the Bambudye, an ancient secret society of the Luba people native to the South-Central region of present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. Lukasa memory boards are hour-glass-shaped wooden tablets that are covered in beads, shells, and bits of metal. The wooden boards can also be carved with holes or embossed with symbols. The colors, objects, and patterns on the lukasa served to stimulate recollections of important people, events, places, geographies, and histories for the Luba people. I love that only initiates into the secret society and those who are at the apex of the association can decipher and interpret the lukasa’s stories and cultural history. These boards date back to as far as the 8th century AD, but possibly even earlier, They reflect a set of knowledge, recording of history, and complex social structures that many African societies are not credited for having in western accounts. I am also attracted to them because of their use of beads and shells to convey and preserve important knowledge. I still haven’t settled on how the concept of the lukasa will find its way into my art practice, but it holds my interest and my imagination. 

Concurrently, I’ve been wanting to bring more of my Filipino heritage into my art practice. Unfortunately, there’s far less research and scholarship related to Filipino beadwork and traditions, so diving into this area is much more challenging. However,  I came across a symbol called the lingling-o, which is traditionally made of jade, but now more often made from precious metals, and is a potent symbol of fertility and virility. The lingling-o was used by high priests and priestesses during ancient times—dating back to at least 500 BC—to support women with bearing children, allow crops to flourish, and fishermen to bring forth abundant catches. The symbol is circular and represents the combination of masculine and feminine energies which combine to create incredible spiritual and creative power. Again, I don’t yet know how this symbol will show up in my work, but the possibilities are boundless. 

What I appreciate about both the lukasa and the lingling-o is that they are abstract forms representing vast amounts of ancient knowledge. Perhaps my work will move more into abstraction as a result of my interest in these objects. I can’t say for sure, either way, and that is the most exciting part about being an artist for me, stepping into the unknown.

To find out more about Demetri Broxton, check out his website and Instagram.