Suritah Wignall
Hopping the Fence Podcast Transcript - #6, Suritah Wignall
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H: Hello. My name is Honore. I’m Haitian! I’m a Hatitan-based Toronto fine artist, and I’m going to be hosting this week’s episode of Hopping the Fence. It is a podcast takeover! So again, I’m an artists, I’m in Toronto and straight up we’re gonna be interviewing an artist who inspires me. So it’s gonna be something to look forward to guys! I’m excited.
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So Hopping the Fence is dedicated to talking to artists on the fringes of the Canadian art scene. Today I’ll be interviewing Suritah, who’s an emerging African Canadian artist as well as a passionate communicator. Suritah’s paintings are filled with exuberance, colour and light. Her pieces pay homage to her African roots. Now her most recent project she’s working on is Nakupenda Baba it’s called –
SW: Nakupenda Baba.
H: Nakupenda…
SW: Nakupenda Baba.
H: Nakupenda Baba.
SW: There you go.
H: Got it! And it translates to “I love you Papa” in Swahili. So this project is about Black fathers and children. And they’re going to be creating masks as well as doing these types of theatre performances and creative writing, all things creative. All paying homage to Black fathers and their children. Beautful! So our conversation… yeah! I’m excited! I’m straight up pumped, I wanna be a part of it. I don’t have children but I could round up some kids in the neighbourhood.
SW: [Laughs].
H: Don’t tell nobody.
SW: Okay, [laughs].
H: Our conversation is recorded in Tkaronto, on the on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, and Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations.
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H: So Suritah, happy Monday! It's a new week! How are you feeling?
SW: Happy Monday.
H: Ready to take on the week?
SW: I feel like hot.
H: Hot?
SW: This weather is ... [laughs].
H: I know! I'm melting.
SW: It's unpredictable.
H: It is! Yeah. first it rains a little bit so you think it's gonna be a refreshing day, like a really nice rain, but it's always light and then it's just the heatwave attacks you.
SW: Yeah.
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H: It's crazy. It's like false advertising. You get the rain drop, like a single rain drop, and you're like, "Yay! I'm refreshed!" But then it's like, "Nah fam, you're gonna melt today." So I don't know.
SW: Yeah I was kind of out and about today just running some errands, and I live in an area where I can just walk around to the places I need to go and I was dying –
H: Noooo!
SW: - and everybody else is like dying in front of me because of the heat, [Laughs], we were just like, “Oh my gosh.” But you know what?
H: Too much.
SW: We should not complain. We shouldn’t complain because our winters are horrible!
H: We shouldn’t. They are! They’re too long. They’re vicious. And COVID winter, like what is that even gonna look like? I already hate winter enough, and now it’s gonna be like mass social distance tings still.
SW: Yeah.
H: I’m not looking forward to it. I want to escape. Will you come with me?
SW: [Laughs].
H: I don’t know where to yet but…
SW: I’m actually, during this COVID, I’m actually quite comfortable to be home here in Canada right now during COVID.
H: Alright, nice.
SW: But if I did have a choice to run away with you, I’d be like, “Let’s go to Cuba! Let’s go to Havana.”
H: Let’s do it!
SW: I’ve been wanting to go to Havana for like so long.
H: Havana. Okay.
SW: My plans got cancelled because of COVID.
H: I know right? Damn. Are we doing like a resort ting or are we exploring in the town, what’s it lookin’ like?
SW: I’m exploring. I wanted to check out the flamenco scene in Havana.
H: Oooh.
SW: Just checkin’ to see what it was all about over there.
H: Yeah!
SW: I’m just gonna have to wait until things calm down.
H: Flying is tricky right now.
SW: Flying, going anywhere is tricky right now. But you know what? It still feels good to be alive and to…you know?
H: Yes. healthy. Feels good not to –
SW: To be healthy. Yeah exactly.
H: Hunnid.
SW: So, [Laughs], yeah. Straight up. Suritah, what does your practice look like for unfamiliar listeners of your work. How would you describe your work?
SW: Well I describe myself as a creative multidisciplinary artist. And my passion has always been painting and illustrating.
H: Yes.
SW: And working with oils and collages. And my passion has always been creating images that represent the beauty of us.
H: Yes.
SW: If I can be a part of, you know, putting out beauty in this world, you know, then I’m definitely gonna do that and the only way I know how to do that is through my art. So for years I’ve always painted the beauty of woman and painting the beauty of dark skin women. You know? I’m a dark skin woman myself.
H: Yes!
SW: Yes! [Laughs]. I just feel like, you know, the beauty of dark skin women just needs a little bit more representation out there.
H: 100%. I totally agree.
SW: So I’m just…I’ve always been fascinated with creating that. And fascinated with what other artists are doing around the globe and being inspired from that as well. So that’s my main thing, oil paints, collage, illustration. Yeah.
H: Mmm. So what about acrylic painting? How do you find the difference, or what has drawn you more towards oil? I’m just curious.
SW: Acrylics, I started out with acrylics. When I first started painting, I stared using acrylics. But then once I discovered oils, I just could never go back because there’s a richness in oil paints. There’s a richness and there’s just a vibrancy within the colours.
H: Mhm.
SW: And for me, oil paints… it’s just much easier to work with. Even though it’s a lot, there’s still a lot to learn. There are still things about oil painting that I’m trying to understand, especially with working with different mediums used with oil paints.
H: Yes.
SW: But I absolutely love how the colours just pop out and I find that working with acrylics, it doesn’t really do the same thing. And I also love when you work with oil paints, you can work with it over a long period of time.
H: Yeah, that’s true!
SW: Because it stays wet, right?
H: A week even.
SW: For weeks on end.
H: Yep.
SW: So yep.
H: Nice! Yeah, it’s interesting. They’re so different, the mediums. ‘Cause even the blending colours for example, with oils as opposed to acrylics, it’s so easy to blend with oil and come back to the piece. And you can totally just switch up the painting working with the same wet paint. Whereas acrylics, you gotta go now fast and paint over it. Or, you know, in order to really switch up the concept, if you want to take your painting this way or that way you have to work fairly quickly, unless you have some type of manipulator that keeps the paint wet. Like an oil, per se. But yeah, it’s interesting, the mediums… both the mediums, working with them and how artists use them both.
SW: Yeah.
H: I mainly work in acrylic, so I’m fascinated when people try each medium.
SW: And how long have you been working in acrylic for? How long have you been doing that?
H: How long…so I really got into painting during my stay at Centennial College. I went there and graduated this fine art studio program. That’s where I honed in on painting. I had never really done it before.
SW: Okay.
H: And I had played with both. I did oil and acrylic, but I found oil… I have a short attention span.
SW: [Laughs].
H: Seriously, I can’t do it for weeks.
SW: You have a short attention span but you’re a painter?! [Laughs].
H: Yeah. I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense but…
SW: You need to have the most ultimate patience for painting.
H: I know. I just do like a couple strokes and I’m like, “Yes! A masterpiece!” I don’t mean to boast or anything but I think my pieces are masterpieces always.
SW: Of course, of course.
H: Personally. [Laughs]. But yeah anyway, I don’t know, I’ve found the transition between acrylic paints just easier for me in that sense because I could make these pieces quickly and in an orderly fashion and I could just have a discography of work in a matter of months as opposed to oil painting. But I really love the way you can mix and manipulate oil paints, that’s my favourite part about using oils.
SW: Yeah.
H: You can just come back to it and it’s a new experience.
SW: Yeah exactly. Exactly. And then for me its like, going to the art store is like candy for me. Like that is [inaudible].
H: Ooooh, yes! Same!
SW: So one art store that I’ve been going to for years, for like 20 years has been -
H: 20 years!
SW: Yeah! [Laughs].
H: Which one? That’s a lot.
SW: Gwartzman’s.
H: Gwartzman’s! Oh, that’s a gem. Wow, nice. Not many people know about that.
SW: It’s literally the most, you know…it’s one of…yeah. They’ve been around for a long, I think the 50s. Yeah Mr. G. passed away.
H: Yeah, yeah yeah! Nice. I like that choice. Right! Oh yeah, wow.
SW: he passed away I think last year, was it?
H: Oh.
SW: He’s always been very lovely to me.
H: Aww.
SW: So it’s either Gwartzman’s or Above Ground. And usually in both those places it’s like, “Oh my gosh.” I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I get so excited!
H: Yo, straight up! Yeah! [Both Laugh]. I just walk in and I feel I need to buy something… like I don’t even need something. But yeah, I would say Above Ground, I love the variety.
SW: Yeah.
H: It’s like no other art store in this city.
SW: Yeah.
H: They just have every little brand or every little version of what you need or are looking for.
SW: Exactly. During the COVID, it was a bit of a nightmare because everything was closed and I really wanted to paint, right?
H: Yeah.
SW: I had to like wait… I mean, I could’ve ordered, you know? But that would have taken some time. So finally when I called Above Ground and I was like, “Are you guys open?” They were like, “We’re open, come in.” I was like “Yes!” So happy.
H: Yeah! Christmas came early.
SW: Yes Christmas definitely came early. Absolutely.
H: Yeah, love it! So I wanted to touch on… I was just reading up on you a little bit. And as an early artist, this is something that resonated with me. You stated in 1998, you had several mentors and teachers that really inspired you and they were just like a dynamic group –
SW: Yeah.
H: - and that resonated with me. Just I like took a time machine back to ’98, and I’m not even trying to date you or [inaudible] –
SW: [Laughs]. Do not speak my age! [Laughs].
H: I mean, ’98, that was a great year actually. That was a hell of a year for pop culture.
SW: Yeah.
H: But in ’98, I remember just being so influenced by peers around my neighbourhood. Some of them were artists, and my mother was even an artist and she was the biggest inspiration. And I would do all these crazy drawings and illustrations and I knew that I wanted to make art for life. Like, it was in my bones at that point. That was the foundation of my art career. When I was a boy in 1998, not gonna say the age but –
SW: [Laughs].
H: - that was where it all started, the trajectory of being an artist. And I’d love to hear your experience with that type of group, the dynamic. And was that a point for you where you were like, “Alright, this is for life?”
SW: Well mine started even before that, you know, the same way you stated with your, you know, being inspired by family. My mom, she used to bind books together for me but she couldn’t keep up with me because I would constantly finish them ‘cause I was drawing all the time.
H: Nice. Yes.
SW: So she would always bind these books. And one day she came home with a pack of like 20. She’s like, “There’s no way you’re gonna finish these 20 books!”
H: Oh, that’s a challenge! Okay.
SW: But I would also say my grade school teacher was one of my biggest inspirations, [inaudible] in grade two and grade six. I remember her saying to me when I was in grade eight, she said to me, “You know Suritah, if you just –, “I don’t know if she should’ve said this but she was like, “If you just want to drop out of school and paint for the rest of your life, you should just do it.”
H: Wow.
SW: I was completely shocked. I was like, “I don’t think a teacher’s supposed to say that!” [Both laugh].
H: I’ve never heard that from a teacher. Interesting.
SW: She would stay after school with me even though she had kids and she had a family, she had a husband. And when one school finished, she would stay after with me to help me with my art because she was an artist herself.
H: Oooh.
SW: She would always help me with my paintings or my drawings. We would be –
H: I love that.
SW: - in the school until like five o’clock.
H: Nice.
SW: but, you know, in the late 90s, there was… I don’t know if you were here in Toronto.
H: I was not.
SW: Okay so in Toronto there was just… the late 90s to the early 2000s there was just this vibrancy like an arts scene here, especially within the Black community of poets and artists and writers and [inaudible].
H: Mhm.
SW: It was really inspiring. And I would like to say that I was kind of a part of that, you know?
H: Ahh, beautiful.
SW: I would say I was really lucky. I had curators who really supported me, I had professors who would… they would invite me to their classes when I wasn’t in their class. They would say, “Just come to my class.”
H: Yes. No way!
SW: Or they would say, you know, a couple of students would go to their house and we would just go by their house and we would paint.
H: Wow!
SW: I feel like I was surrounded by –
H: I love this.
SW: - surrounded by teachers and professors who understood, “Okay. I’m a teacher and professor and I’m working within the system,” But they also understood the power of just creating and the love of creating and they wanted to just support the students.
H: Yes.
SW: I was really kind of lucky to have that where people just took me in and it was just like, “I’m gonna teach you this and I’m gonna teach you that.” I had one teacher teach me about oils and teach me how to put a canvas together, how to stretch my own canvas, taught me how to measure the canvas. You know, I had another amazing teacher who invited me to her studio and she gave me and my friend when I was in high school, she gave us art classes on the weekend in her studio just off of Queen street. That’s when I discovered Queen street and all the galleries there.
H: Yeah! It’s a huge hub of… for art.
SW: So it was pretty damn… yeah. Pretty damn rewarding –
H: Yeah of course! It sounds like it’s a beautiful community and very nurturing.
SW: Yeah.
H: Wow, that’s amazing. I’m glad you had something like that, that experience.
SW: Mhm, absolutely.
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H: this week’s podcast recommendation is entitled Race, Health and Happiness. Navigating professional life as a racialized person can be exhausting. Join Dr. O, a public health physician specialist in Toronto, as she interviews guests who are overcoming the obstacles of overt and institutionalized racism to achieve their professional goals while creating healthy and fulfilling lives. So she has a great episode, her latest episode rather, and her and professor Akwatu Khenti, they discuss optimism as armor and public health solutions to gun violence. Check it out.
While you’re already online, might as well head over to www.blacklivesmatter.com and from there you can find any and all types of resources for the cause as well as you can donate to the cause of Black Lives Matter.
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H: Alright, Suritah.
SW: Yeah.
H: You have a lot of accolades here, you do! And it’s inspiring, truly. Starting from the early 2000s into like 2018, it’s beautiful.
SW: Yeah.
H: Solo exhibitions, yo. I would love… I aspire to have a solo exhibition.
SW: You can do it. [Laughs]. You can most definitely do it.
H: Thank you! One day!
SW: One day you’ll definitely have it and then you’ll invite me when you have your solo exhibition right?
H: Yeah! It’ll be guest list though. It’ll be pretty high class, stush. [Laughs]. It’ll be open to the public. It’ll be free. There’ll be booze and food. I envision it, I’ve always had it envisioned in my mind how it’s gonna go. DJ set… but, you have so much experience. Can you touch on that? Like, just the start of you getting into that scene of solo work and how it was just getting everything together? Your mindset. And then how it’s been throughout the years?
SW: Phew, where do I begin? Okay, so, when I was younger, I was definitely… well I’m still young. I shouldn’t talk like I’m old.
H: Yeah girl! Black don’t crack!
SW: [Laughs]. I was kind of against going to art school and I kinda did things my way.
H: Yes.
SW: And so basically what I did was… I wanted to really just get my work out there as much as possible.
H: Mhm.
SW: And so when artists would come to town like singers -
H: Yes.
SW: - or actors even, I would put a package, like a promotional package together and send it to the promoter and, you know, design dressing rooms for artists and singers.
H: Oooh, wow!
SW: And so I ended up doing Alicia Keys, Maxwell –
H: Nice! Those are the best ever!
SW: - Erykah Badu, yeah! Floetry I did…so many different artists, you know?
H: Yes. So enriching. I can only imagine!
SW: Yeah, so in my early 20s is when I sold my first painting to a, you know, a big singer and I sold my first painting to Erykah Badu.
H: Wow.
SW: That was huge for me.
H: Tell me what was running through your mind. Were you nervous?
SW: Well it was interesting. I had designed her dressing room –
H: wow, incredible.
SW: - the guy who promoted who brought her down, he was actually the boyfriend of a girl that I was working with I think.
H: Okay.
SW: She invited me to the concert, but I had known him and we had talked a lot and he was like, and I asked him, I was like, “Hey. I know you’re bringing Erykah Badu and Jill Scott down, could I get tickets to the concert?” That’s what I asked him.
H: Woah.
SW: And he was like, “You know what?” He goes, “Suritah, you’re such a friendly sweet person, how ‘bout you design the dressing rooms for me? ‘Cause I really like your art.” I was like, “Are you kidding me?” He was like, “yeah.” And so that was kind of the start of me –
H: Incredible.
SW: - you know, designing dressing rooms and whatnot. And so when I had met her at the time, it was… she was still kind of at the beginning of her career.
H: Okay.
SW: I was blown away. I walked into the dressing room and she was like, “Hey Sis, is this your painting?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And I had kind of a ghetto portfolio [Laughs].
H: Right.
SW: ‘Cause I didn’t have a lot of money so I didn’t, you know, have a beautiful, put together portfolio but I had a kind of ghetto portfolio of my work and she looked at one of the paintings and she was like, “ I wanna buy that one.” And she gave me her contact and everything.
H: Oh, perfect.
SW: So that was kind of the start of that. And because of that experience, I just felt motivated to continue to kind of push my work as much as possible. So I participated in as many things as I possibly could, you know.
H: Mhm.
SW: Throughout the city and abroad, you know? Like sometimes me and a couple of friends would drive to… we drove to Detroit once to have a show.
H: Wow, that’s great. Like a collective? At one point did you have a collective?
SW: No, we weren’t really a collective. We were just a group of friends that all loved painting. And one of my friends at the time, he was just like, “Hey, I’ve been invited to do this show in Detroit, you wanna come?” And I was like, “Sure.” So we drove to Detroit and did this show. I can’t even remember the neighbourhood, I just know that it was in a crazy neighbourhood and we had to check on our car every 20 minutes. Nothing against Detroit, not one single bit, but we had the best time ever. The people there were so sweet and everybody was so amazing and it was such a great turnout.
H: Oh, that’s perfect.
SW: We had the greatest time.
H: Yeah. Aw, love it!
SW: Yeah.
H: And so would it be some years later, you worked with Erykah Badu once more in 2011?
SW: Yeah. So it was years later that, you know, we ended up doing the collaboration. There’s a lot behind that, you know, like, doing the –
H: Like mango.
SW: - I started a company called Sweet Like Mango. It was like my greeting cards, designs and prints and stuff like that. I had asked her if I can, you know, use her images for my next set of designs. And she was like, “You know, why don’t we collaborate.” And I was like, “Alright, cool!” You know? And so we did that collaboration. It did better in the states and in the UK.
H: Oh, okay.
SW: I felt like I got more support outside of Toronto for that, which was cool. And I connected with a lot of people outside of the city. And then there were people here that did support the project but, you know.
H: Yes.
SW: There’s still a lot to say about this project.
H: Of course, it sounds like an enriching experience I could only imagine.
SW: Yeah.
H: That’s so great. I’m so happy for you though. I really enjoyed Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, they did a Verzuz on IGTV and I felt like I was at a concert of theirs. Like I felt like I was really close. I don’t know if you’ve watched Verzuz or know about it, but it was cool.
SW: [Inaudible].
H: Oh, so basically it’s just two artists who are pretty popular. Pop culture, and they play their hits that they have throughout the years or whatever. They usually play about 20 songs each and they go head to head. It started on Instagram and now it’s just kind of blown up as… and it’s on Apple TV now you can watch it. So there’s been artists like Nelly versus Ludacris.
SW: Oh, okay.
H: There was one Erykah Badu, Jill Scott. And now there’s one coming up, Monica versus Brandy.
SW: Oh wow [Laughs].
H: Honestly I recommend anybody to check it out. It’s on Apple TV or Instagram. You can just go on, you can find each of them, the artists, on Instagram, and go to one of their lives and they’ll just have it.
SW: Okay.
H: It’s really cool.
SW: Okay, cool. I definitely need to check that out. I know there was a big one with two big reggae artists, oh my god.
H: Yes! Bounty Killer and Beenie Man.
SW: And Beenie Man. Yes! I missed that one.
H: Oh, it was so good.
SW: I need to go and check that one out. [Laughs].
H: Yes. That was one of my favourite ones.
SW: Yeah, yeah. Dope.
H: Alright so I’ve been meaning to ask you. You have applied for grants and I know you’re very… it seems as though you’re very comfortable in doing something like that and confident and I love it.
SW: Yeah.
H: Do you have any advice for emerging artists who are trying to get grants or just trying to get in the art scene and don’t really know how to get started? Can you speak on that a little bit, your experience?
SW: Yeah, so I’ve been very fortunate to get support from art councils like the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and most recently the Canada Arts Council at the beginning of the year. I’ve… I don’t know, it seems like I have a knack for writing grants.
H: Yeah! It’s a good knack.
SW: Because of the grant from, for example, Ontario Arts Council, I was able to travel to Spain. Like my first experience in Spain was funded by the OAC.
H: Wow.
SW: And that was back in 2012. And my love for flamenco singing, I got a grant to train in music for 2 months full time in the south of Spain. And then the following year, I got a grant to have my first solo exhibit in the south of Spain and that was funded again by OAC. And then the year after that, I got another grant to go back to Spain to train for a year.
H: Lots of grants!
SW: Yeah! …To train for a year, and to train with this amazing flamenco singer, her name is Lidia Montero. She’s one of my favourite singers in Sevilla. And I trained with her in flamenco singing for a year. So the thing about grants, the thing that I follow is, for me, I always speak from my heart. That’s one. And then I just follow everything that they ask, [Laughs], in the grant.
H: Yeah. Keep it simple. Straight to the point. Okay.
SW: Straight to the point. Also detailed. Also they want to know the experience that you have. And if you don’t have a lot of experience, the passion that you have in creating a project and how it will benefit your present moment and how it will help you to grow, you know?
H: Yes.
SW: How is the project you’re doing helping you to get to the next phase in your creative career, right? And also just, you know, being realistic with your project. You know, like, don’t ask for like $500,000. [Both laugh]. You know what I mean? Just being realistic of what it is that you need and not to be intimidated by it because a lot of artists from, you know, when I taught grant writing, they feel intimidated because it’s –
H: Yes.
SW: - it’s a lot of work. And it is. But I tend to think of it like a college paper. The truth is I don’t like writing grants. I just… I do it because I know the type of creative moment I want to have on a day-to-day basis. I know that I want to spend more time being creative than working for somebody else, so I just do it, you know?
H: Yes. Go getter.
SW: I know the projects that I want to work on. Another thing I would say is to utilize the grant officers. They’re there to help you, you know? To call them up and ask them questions. For the Ontario Arts Council, there’s an amazing grant called the Access and Development Grant, and that’s specifically for Black and Brown folks and people of colour. That’s one grant that I got one year to train in flamenco singing in Spain.
H: Oooh.
SW: So I’m very grateful, you know?
H: Yes. Well travelled at that.
SW: In Canada and Ontario, we’re kind of lucky with that, you know?
H: Mhm.
SW: Yeah we can say that our country has flaws, which we do, like many other places around the world.
H: Yeah.
SW: But in terms of funding and I don’t know how much longer we’re gonna have grants for [Laughs] with the way things are going…
H: Yeah. It is different. Corona has changed things.
SW: Yeah like things are changing but compared to when I was living overseas in Spain and other places, it seems like, you know, there’s a lot more funding here than other places. But you know what? I could be wrong. I’m only comparing it to where I’ve lived, you know? So [inaudible] we’re lucky here.
H: We are! Even for like free healthcare. It just makes things easier.
SW: Yeah! [Laughs]. Free healthcare, absolutely. We’re very lucky to have free healthcare. Yeah, absolutely.
H: So Suritah, where can people find your work and just get in touch with you about purchasing pieces?
SW: Okay so I have a site called suritahwignall.carbonmade.com. And also on my Instagram you can add me @suritahteresa. And you could just see the projects, the paintings and drawings that I’m working on. I tend to post those or post works that I’m working on for clients and things like that. But right now the site that I have is suritahwignall.carbonmade.com.
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H: Thanks for listening to Hopping the Fence, a podcast dedicated to the fringes of the Canadian art scene. If you know any artists that are people of colour who are artists that you’d like to hear interviewed or you just like to correct or factcheck an episode, you can email rebeccaecasalino@gmail.com. Instagram is @hoppingthefence. So do your little thang and let her know! Many thanks to OCAD for the financial support, and as always, support Black businesses! Buy Black! Support us!
SW: Yes!
H: Suritah, myself! Do it!
SW: Yes! [Laughs]. Amazing.
H: Yay, alright, that’s it!
SW: Alright, see you later!
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