Episode 4.2. In this deeply personal episode of The Rhythmic Lens, Jason, Kim, and Ron reflect on Amy Sherald’s exhibit American Sublime—a celebration of Black life through intimate, impactful portraits that radiate quiet dignity and visual power through her creative use of “Grisaille,” a form of grayscale. The hosts explore how Sherald’s work reclaims space for Black stories often overlooked in traditional portraiture and how it reclaims the everyday as extraordinary—inspiring deeper conversations about self-respect, education, and a quest for excellence in the face of the prevailing winds. A classroom story from Kim becomes the emotional and moral heart of the episode, revealing how art—and educators—must step up when prejudice surfaces early. It’s an episode about beauty, memory, visibility, and the long game of cultural truth. Transcript Jason: [00:00:00] Yo. This is the Rhythmic Lens, a podcast that explores arts and life by siping on the events, new releases and issues of the day by the editors of the Obsidian. I'm Jason. Kim: I'm Kim. Ron: And I'm Ron. Jason: That's right now. Okay. How you guys doing? It is, it is. It is great. To see you, to hear your voices. The Rhythmic Lens 2025. And you know what, we're gonna, we're gonna play with the Lens a little bit, but first I gotta ask Kim, what's in your glass? Kim: Well, oh, sorry. That was my coaster falling. Oh. In a regular old water glass. 'cause I don't have any wine glasses. I am sipping some rose today. Jason: Ooh, very nice. Yeah, [00:01:00] actually that looks like a old jar. Kim: It is actually. An old jar of raspberry jam. Ron: I was definitely gonna call that out. All that was, that is clearly a jar. That is not a, that's not even a, that is a jar. That's not even a water glass. But you got a coaster, right? Kim: I got a coaster. Ron: Classy. You got a coaster for your jar. Kim: I'm classy. Yeah. Ron: What kind of wine was that? Kim: I don't know the name, it's just Rose and I don't even really like wine that much, but it was a gift Ron: Uhhuh, Kim: and I'm trying to be a little more, uh, you know, classy, refined. Ron: Okay. Okay. Yes. That looked like you was drinking some "Beaujolais" or sumthin, Kim: I don't even know what that is. No clue. Jason: All right. What kind of refined beverage do you have? Ron: Tonight I am rocking some Gentleman's Cut, which is the Steph Curry Bourbon. Alright, figure. You know, we're talking [00:02:00] about, progressions and all that. So, support Steph. Jason: Fantastic. You're gonna have three of those. Okay. Three point. Ron: What do you, what makes you think I haven't? Jason: My bad. Alright. Kim: By the way, Jason was slurring. What do you have? Jason: Yeah, Jay. Hey. And so I got a mug and this is my, this is my Charles Lloyd bug by the way. This is, you know, the greatest living jazz saxophones around and inside I actually have some Colombian brew coffee. I'm just, just going for it like that. All right. So it's not early, so I'm a bit daring in that. Are I bringing, are you you feeling ill or Ron: something, or? No, not at all. Felt like tee totaling. Okay. It's all good. I just, just the mood, Jason: uh, it is just the mood. I I'm not trying to put any pressure on you or anything. No, [00:03:00] no, no, no. I'm awake. Which some people would say you've, you know, earlier you are. You are. Aw. Woke. Or whoa, right? It means my eyes are open and yes, I can see the cultural moment. I don't know. And I think you guys can too. Kim: Wow. You got all that from the coffee? Jason: Told you Charles Lloyd, man, if you haven't heard, you know, forest flower, go, go listen, but okay. You know, and it, this moment is isn't just about politics, but the future is now. Right. And things are shifting and in a way that we don't know where it's gonna end up. And I'm being very general here at this moment, but there are people who have a strategy. On how to move through the moment [00:04:00] and they're already doing it. And sometimes we just have to open our eyes or shift the perspective of the lens and point it in a direction that gives you vision, that tells the story that you know the path that you've tread and The Rhythmic Lens is gonna focus on that. Ron, what do you say? Ron: Yeah, definitely, man. I think we're definitely in a moment here. With the folks that give themselves these four letter acronyms the MAGA and the Doge, they're definitely feeling it right now, right? They just going with reckless abandon and they're doing their thing. And basically what they're trying to do is crush DEI wherever they can, and that like, [00:05:00] that's become a demonic word. They're trying to root it out everywhere. But you think about what is DEI? It's diversity, equity, and inclusion, which are virtues, which are words that shouldn't be controversial at all. If you are against diversity, equity, and inclusion, I guess you're for homogeneity, which means everything is the same and you're for privilege. 'cause that's the opposite of equity and you're for exclusion and let's exclude people. And you know, by the people that are doing it, you know, who they're trying to exclude. So that's our environment. But what we've always known here at the Lens, we've always said that the arts and life are one. And we know that the culture is gonna point the way in a lot of ways, and that's where we're gonna keep the Lens focused. We believe that culture is going to point, the way forward is the culture in our [00:06:00] music and in our art and in our literature is going to inspire new leadership because we need some new leadership. Y'all, I don't care what side of the spectrum you are on, this can't be it. And so, we are definitely looking forward to pointing out how the art is going to lead us. And, Kim can tell best. About the artist that we're going to start out with on in this episode. But that's what we're gonna be doing with the Lens. We're just gonna keep looking at the artists and the musicians and the writers and all that that is leading the way for us. What do you think, Kim? Kim: I think it sounds amazing, and we decided to kick this off with an artist by the name of Amy. Sherrold, and why we're starting with Amy. One of the reasons [00:07:00] is that she recently had a exhibit at the SF, MOMA which we'll get to more on that later. And I went to see the exhibit. And was absolutely blown away. And then I said to Jason, Ron, we should go check this out. And so we did. So a little bit about Amy. Her work embodies exactly what we were talking about. She takes the everyday black experience. She kind of strips away the distortion of the white gaze. It's just intermingled forcibly into the fabric of our lives, unfortunately. So she strips that away and presents us. Black people in a way that is dignified, that is visually stunning. I consider it to be of genius level skillset, yet it's also somehow uncomplicated and is quietly incredibly powerful. The name of her current tour, that recently just [00:08:00] left the SF MOMA is American Sublime, and I feel like it couldn't be more perfect because her portraits are absolutely the embodiment of both of those words, and she's been doing it a long time, long before she gained recognition as Michelle Obama's official portrait artist in 2018. So she was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1973, and she, if you don't know her work, she works mostly as a portraitist. Depicting African Americans in everyday settings, but very intimately. And she challenges the traditional representation of black identity. Her style is simplified realism. It involves stage photographs of her subject, but she actually calls, she'll stop people on the street and say, Hey, will you model for me? And she said that actually only one person has ever said no. So here I am, like I wanna go. I wanna go to, I think she's in Atlanta now, and just walk around where she. Works and hope. She'll be like, Hey, would you be, I would love to be, I wanna a model for her. That'd be amazing. Mm-hmm. [00:09:00] But she just picks people off the street and brings them in, dresses them up in whatever she has in envisioned in her mind, and takes a bunch of photos of them. And then she'll use those photos side by side on her canvases to, um, create her beautiful portraits using everyday people, literally everyday people. And she uses a signature gray scale technique. It's called "Grisaille", which is a French, it's a, it's for her subject skin tones and just for the skin tone. So the skin tones and hair are in this Grisaille technique, and her aim in that is to focus the attention on their interior lives rather than their outwards identities or race. By the way, Grisaille is a 16th century technique that was actually used for underpainting and now she's taken it and made it like the feature of her pieces. Ron: So when you say underpainting, you mean like they would start how By painting it Grisaille and they would color it after. Kim: Yes. So a lot of 16th century artists, they would put the [00:10:00] Grisaille underneath and then they would add layers of color on top of it. And that allowed them to have like more translucent layers to build and it made it more of a three-dimensional effect. But it wasn't underpainting, it wasn't like the focus. And she's taken that technique and made it like the focus. And that's kind of what she's known for now. So since 2012, she's used shades of gray her choice to portray skin tones, and she describes it as a choice that is intended to challenge conventions about skin color and race. And her portraits are absolutely stunning. Ron: Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead, but I would just say that technique, it really grabs you, really grabs you. Kim: For sure. Jason: Mm. No. And that is in a lot of ways the experience that we had. 'cause Kim said, look y'all, we gotta go and mm-hmm. So we did a field trip and the SF MOMA is a special [00:11:00] place. It's
