FINDING EMPATHY
JAYVN SOLOMON IS AN ARTIST AND VISIONARY ARCHITECT LIVING IN ST. LOUIS, USA. WE INTERVIEWED JAYVN FOR OUR MAKE CHEER ZINE IN APRIL 2021, AND RECENTLY CAUGHT UP WITH HIM TO SEE WHERE HE’S AT NOW.
JAYVN, FOR PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT KNOW YOU, GIVE US A QUICK INTRO.
I’m in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m an artist. I’m a designer. I’m everything outside and in between, including a human being. I do a lot of things, all with the intent of using art, design and creativity to leave this world better than we came to it. So for me, I focus on the city that I live in, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be duplicated elsewhere. I matter because I want to make stuff better, and I’m working to do so.
WHAT DID YOUR CHILDHOOD SMELL LIKE, SOUND LIKE AND TASTE LIKE?
When I think of my childhood, I think of Forest Park in St. Louis. I can smell cut grass, trees which reminds me of rolling around and just fooling about, having fun. It sounded like cicadas and laughter. It tasted like my family’s cooking. Primarily my grandmother’s cooking, but I’ve got to give credit to some other family members too, so I won’t get too specific. It felt good, a bit dicey at times, and a bit scary at times. But overall good.
THAT SAFE BUBBLE THAT SURROUNDED YOU, THAT HELD YOU, DID IT LIFT YOU HIGHER AS WELL?
That safe bubble for me has always been and primarily will be my family, But these days, my safe bubble is sort of St. Louis as a city as well. I know a few more folks now than I did when I was a kid. St. Louis is a very interesting place. But at the same time, sometimes circumstances here are just not ideal. I know this can be said in every city, town, village and neighbourhood. We have the same types of problems that every big city has to deal with in the U.S. And probably then some.
HOW DID YOU NAVIGATE THROUGH LIFE AS A TEENAGER?
I was a hard headed teenager. I didn’t get into too much trouble. My parents were really good at keeping myself busy. I’ve been an artist my whole life. My default has always been to grab a sketchbook and take it somewhere. That was always really stabilising and calming for me. In my teen years I walked a lot, because I got my driver’s license late. So a lot of hanging out, fooling around and a lot of high school sports.
OUR TEENAGE YEARS ARE EITHER WHERE WE FIND OUR VOICE, OR WHERE WE HIDE IT. WE GO BIG OR WE BECOME SMALL. WAS ART A SAFE PLACE FOR YOU TO GO WHEN TIMES WERE TOUGH, OR WAS IT A PLACE YOU WENT TO TO IMAGINE A BETTER WORLD?
A bit of both. Art has always been everything to me. And by that I specifically mean creating. I’ve never really been much for the traditional format of viewing art per se. But it’s interesting looking back at it now - I’m 29, I’ll be 30 this year. Folks my age have been around just long enough to see almost all of the modern technologies at their peak. So Betamax, VHS, cassettes, vinyls. In all of those moments, my thing has always been to put on headphones regardless of what they look like at the time, turn on the radio, and just draw. From when I was a kid all the way through now. I made art my own space. Nowadays, we have the language to call it a safe place. But at the time it just felt like the natural thing for me to do, and it really did feel like my own little world. But I never really started thinking about the world I wanted to actually live in and how art relates to that until fairly recently.
I call myself an artist now, reluctantly. I went to school for graphic design and paid all this money to go to university. So I believe have quite truly earned that title. Titles and labels have been a challenge of mine ever since I started venturing into the world of creativity. What does a title mean if you enjoy multiple things? I’m a graphic designer, an artist, a part-time animator and I make a little bit of music. I like to combine a bunch of things with my work these days. So most of the time, I genuinely don’t know what to call myself. My main thing has always been to demonstrate whatever it is that I am passionate about through my work. Whatever medium that is, it doesn’t matter. The intent is to connect with folks at a very human level. Art does that. Art has always has done that. So, I just figured I’m an artist, and that’ll work for me.
WHAT ROLE DID YOUR PARENTS OR GRANDPARENTS PLAY IN SHAPING YOUR LOVE OF PLAY, CURIOSITY AND ART?
My maternal grandmother directed music and has been involved with music for almost 70 years. So music has always been very much ingrained in my family. I chose to work more towards the visual creatives. My grandparents didn’t have a huge role in that directly, but my parents did for sure. My dad showed me everything I know about any digital illustration and creative opportunities. Whenever I’d draw at home, my parents would say things like, “have you tried drawing it this way?” They always encouraged me to experiment as much as possible. They were both very much a huge part of my creative process.
I’m the oldest of five. Whenever things were settled, I’d be in my own zone, drawing or creating. Being the oldest had its own set of responsibilities and pressures. I’m pretty sure I was a bit of an asshole to my younger siblings. I often had to watch them, make sure they’re not getting in trouble and make sure I didn't get in trouble by making sure that they’re not getting in trouble!
TALK TO US ABOUT LOUTOPIA.
I started Loutopia almost three years ago, mid 2019. We spoke of art transporting me somewhere to a safer place or a world that I dream of. In this case, I was in my mid twenties and I had learned as much about the world I was entering as I wanted to. To put it simply, I just didn’t want to read anymore. I didn’t want to know anymore. Some things I wish I didn’t know. One of those things was the effects of climate change. Thinking about that issue in itself is a huge thing. It’s obviously sparked a ton of debate globally for the last 50 years.I just started thinking to myself, I can’t do anything about the world, or not nearly as much as I want to. But I can maybe influence a little bit of my local community, which is St. Louis.
I started taking photographs of buildings and spaces around where I would work in downtown St. Louis, and started thinking, what would it look like if we incorporated more nature into this space, and how would that affect how we live our daily lives here? This isn’t complex stuff. This is right here. This is what it could look like. This is where we could live. I began combining my interest and skills in illustration, digital rendering, animation a little bit here and there, to dream and, in a sense, escape to these places that could be in St. Louis.
I know that one person can’t sell a dream of a new future, but I was just doing what I felt was right. What I felt we all needed. I hadn’t planned on it going anywhere necessarily. But here we are three years later and I’ve been offered all different types of mural opportunities because of this. My work currently is very much focused on how we can work together in different ways that are as beneficial as possible for as many of us as possible. And how we can do that in a way that’s authentic, that works for us. It’s led to a lot of conversations in all types of demographics.
Another part of this is, I’m a black man. St. Louis is split in terms of peoples backgrounds. That is very much represented in the way our neighbourhoods are set up. I’ve had the honour and privilege to be able to navigate all types of different circles and, to get straight to it, tax brackets, here in St. Louis, which is something not many of us get to do. In getting to know a lot of different folks, I have a good understanding of how a lot of us feel about things. There are 300,000 people here in the city itself and a couple of million in the surrounding metropolitan area, but we all complain about the same stuff. So what I, and other creatives here, am trying to do is just make stuff different.
I LOVE THAT YOU SPARKED A CONVERSATION AROUND HOW YOU COULD REIMAGINE NOT JUST YOUR CITY, BUT YOUR COMMUNITY TOO.
I didn’t necessarily do that on purpose, but one of the things that I like to live by and that I was taught by my family, was to be myself and be the very best version of myself that I can, when I can. We’re not always going to hit the top tier mark that we want to for ourselves every single day, but we can try. So I make sure to do that. Whenever I speak to folks, whenever I talk about my work, whenever I create my work, I’m trying to be my best self in that moment. I would attribute it to a combination of just being able to connect with folks and I suppose, put that into a creative conduit.
NOW YOU’VE OPENED THE DOORS, PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO SEE A DIFFERENT CITY. THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE GIVEN THEM. HOW DO WE DO THAT SOCIOECONOMICALLY? HOW DO WE IMAGINE A CITY WHERE EVERYONE WAS TREATED FAIRLY?
This is a question I have been asking myself for a very long time. Because if you ask me, we can do all of these things. As artists, as designers, as developers and property owners and legislators, but also on a basic level, it’s about understanding people. Something that I’ve observed, and often think about, is stories. Every single car that I drive past on the street or every single person that I walk past in a store is on their way to somewhere else. It’s a lot to think about, but I wish more people would think about it. Everyone is living their own life, on their own journey and everyone is really just trying to make the best out of this life, this human experience that we all have.
So that's where my work is going. I’m diving into a lot of story-oriented work with all different types of individuals, to explore what it is that we need to understand about each other? Is it hope? Is it love? Is it happiness? Is it all of these things? Is it something that I haven’t described? And then, how can I represent that? How can I display or show off this story to other folks unfiltered and uncensored by my own agenda, because that’s also really important to me. And how can I also create something that I just enjoy? Not necessarily for anyone else. I’m learning to deeply cherish the conversations that I’m able to have with folks.
I don’t have an answer to all those questions, but I do believe that it starts with just listening to and understanding people. For example, me talking to you. After this conversation I will probably have an understanding of how you feel, how you operate, how you choose to make decisions and ultimately maybe even how you choose to live your life. I essentially just described empathy. I feel that so many of us, and I’ve been guilty of this myself, say you should have empathy, you should be empathetic, but I don’t know that I’m seeing enough folks actually demonstrate it. It's not necessarily always a tangible thing you can just package up and show to folks, because everyone’s different. Talking to everyone looks very different, and the resulting empathy will feel different too. So that’s what I’m working on right now. Finding empathy.