Black Power Lunch Hour

Kimberly Drew w/ Maurice Harris

Writer and curator Kimberly Drew talks to floral artist and founder of Bloom & Plume, Maurice Harris, for her ongoing series, Black Power Lunch Hour.

Kimberly Drew: Hello, hello, hello, my name is Kimberly Drew and I’m the host of Black Power Lunch Hour being powered this week by Social Studies. I am so excited to have this conversation with Maurice of Bloom & Plume. Um, but before we get started uh just for accessibility, Maurice, I haven't prepped you on this yet but we're just going to start with descriptions of where we are, um for those who might be low vision who are tuning in. So I'm a Black woman, I'm wearing a red bandanna, gold hoop earring, a blue jumpsuit, in front of a bookshelf, and on occasion a cat might pop into the video. Um, Maurice would you like to describe where you are?

Maurice: Um, you forgot that pop color on your lip and you forgot your pearls.

Kimberly Drew: Oh I'm so sorry. Yes, a pearl necklace, green lips.

Maurice: [Laughs] I am in my dining room. There is a beautiful um drippy floral um painting behind my head. I am wearing a coral jacket from Union, I am wearing a bandanna and um a green shirt. And I am, yeah you might hear a little construction next door, they're building a 6-story um apartment complex next door to my little duplex, so that's great.

Kimberly Drew: Mm.

Maurice: And you might - probably not - because my puppy sleeps most of the time, but Leroy, might pop his little poodle head in here once in a while and there's the kitty.

Kimberly Drew: Yes, yes. So for anyone who's watching who isn't already familiar with your work, can you give us just a little bit of background about who you are and what you do?

Maurice: Um yeah. I am an artist. I predominantly am known for working in flowers, I have a flower business, I treat it more like an art practice so everything is very sculptural, has lots of movement, has lots of drama, we use lots of color um but hopefully in a more of a kind of sophisticated way. Um the flowers have personalities, the arrangements are very drama if you will um like um we-we call it natural opulence in a way. Um and then I also um work in photography a little bit. I am -- I've really been trying to use my platform and my voice as a Black gay man and creative that works in predominantly white spaces with a medium that is predominantly dominated by white hands and white voices, and kind of like just negotiating that like intersection. Um, and um I do that through my photography, I also do that through the coffee shop that I own which is by the same name Bloom & Plume Coffee.

Kimberly Drew: So what came first for you, was it image making or was it floral work, and could you just talk to me a little bit about like your origin story as an artist?

Maurice: Yeah, I went to art school um, I mean I guess I've always been an artist but um I never thought that like that was a viable um path forward to take care of myself, I didn't really have that um bohemian um confidence to just like go out and like try to explore and make it work. My parents were very clear that there was no um safety net and that like once you leave this house [laughs] don’t come back. So I was -- I've always been a very creative person but I wanted to figure out a sustainable way to be creative. So I went down the more commercial route. So I wanted to be a fashion designer at first and then I went into window display um and I just felt like this is ways that in my career I could be very creative but also not be next to homeless. Um ironically, um keeping this business alive on um dental floss thong is wild. Um [laughs] so um so you kind of end up in the same place. But um I've been um just, I've always had a little knack for flowers and playing with things. My grandmother is a florist um and a hat maker, she makes like church lady hats and they are like phenomenal and I just used to love watching her make.

And so um I-I've always kind of avoided trying to be just a straight up artist because it felt too dangerous to me, um and I just didn't have that luxury to be an artist. I think the art world is filled with privilege because it really takes exceptional privilege to be able to like sip coffee and reflect on life and to like really think critically on what's going on in the world and be thoughtful about it and also like most of my life has been trying to figure out how to survive, how I'm going to make my rent, how am I going to pay back my student loans, how am I going to pay back my Old Navy credit card that went into collections, you know like just young dumb mistakes that like I didn't know any better, nobody was teaching me these things. And so um I didn’t have that luxury but um I-I went to Otis, never made art after I like or never made art after I graduated. But um one of the talks that we had was um Mark Bradford did a talk, I graduated in 2005, so this was like 2004 or something like that. Um he did a talk at our school and he owned a hair salon and like did his art practice. And I was like if I were to ever be an artist that would be the way that I would do it, because I've always felt like as a-as a marginalized person, I didn't come out to my parents until I was financially independent which was my senior year in high school. So I just didn't, I never wanted to depend on anybody to be able to share my voice the way that I felt like it was necessary to do so.

So I never wanted to fully operate in the gallery system because I didn't want a gallerist telling me what kind of work I needed to make and what that needed to look like or sound like. So I was just like, well I'll create my own path, I’ll do my own thing and when I have access then I'll do it slash I'll probably never make art. But when Black people started dying at the hands of police, my god, that was like so complicated and so weird for me and like, this is like the first round, the Trayvon Martin times um where again I'm in these very white spaces, these very um elite spaces where my work is like I’m an exception to the rule. And I'm like -- but I had low-key for like The Butler starring Forest Whitaker [laughs] starring Maurice Harris because people still say crazy stuff but like forgot that I was in the room because you just disappear once you are like in people's homes and -- it was just wild. And so I didn't know how to negotiate that so that's when I started making work in putting um Black bodies next to flowers and like um looking specifically men because I know I like struggled with like loving myself and figuring out like what imagery that I see that I don't feel like I live up to when I look at um black mountain imagery, whoa, okay I am like rambling.

But um I -- that was definitely a-a tipping point for me um where I was just like oh, I have something to say and I feel like art should exist in a gallery, art should exist in the world. I think everybody should make art, I think people should be creative all the time but where it should be, this is my own little humble really bold opinion um is in a gallery context or in uh a public sphere is when it’s forwarding the conversation. So I feel like artists are critical of the world and break down really complicated ideas in simplistic ways that the masses are supposed to better -- have a better understanding right, that's why Michelangelo was painting the scenes of like the Bible because people could follow that because they couldn't read or because they did -- like the visual aid is how the artist really interprets these-interprets these really complex ideas into ways that people can understand them. And so um we feel differently like see different as artists and I just felt like it almost felt like an obligation, it was my job then to start to process and share my work in that way.

Kimberly Drew: Hmm, in the wide scope, I mean you do so many different things and I'm so impressed by any artist who also can like publicly hold down the logistics because I think oftentimes we underestimate the amount of business that goes into being an artist. Um I think many times even if you go to like a traditional art school pass, there's not a lot of education on business management or what it means to become a part of a market. And then of course you know with other layers of identity around that, what does it mean to market and sell one’s ideas and even maybe one’s likeness or identity. And I wonder for you how you manage or what the preservation looks like to hold both of those things at the same time, the logistic side and the creative side? Because I'm sure there's a lot of logistics that goes into the staging of your work and maybe if you want to talk about a specific work for anyone who isn't familiar with your work already, but how do you-how do you manage you know what we see as this “false binary” but how do you bring those two things together because they're so intrinsic to any artist's success?

Maurice: I love this question so much because it's not talked about enough. And I think that my number one thing at the moment is I'm only one person. I only have one brain and as much as I understand the full scope of all of it, um it takes an army and it takes a village to make these things happen. And even when I -- and to be quite honest with you for so long I thought it all relied on my shoulders until I started doing weird partnerships with like um Mini Cooper or Jaguar or whatever and um Microsoft and there's like between 6 and 15 people that show up to a meeting to discuss what I'm going to do at an activation and I am like it takes that many people to figure this out? And I was like, oh it kind of does because [laughs] I'm trying to wear 15 different hats and I'm only one person and my brother who is my business partner in the coffee shop said to me you know, if you really want to grow your business, if you really want to express yourself fully, you have to work on your business, not in your business.

Kimberly Drew: Hmm.

Maurice: And that was really liberating because the idea that I make every arrangement that comes out of my studio is ludicrous because I only have two hands, I can only make probably, I don't know five to seven amazing arrangements a day and that is like a lot, really I want to make two. Well, I-I can't sustain a business–

Kimberly Drew: I’m sorry, I thought you rather say a week, a day? Okay, okay, all right, go on.

Maurice: Yeah. [laughs] But I can't, that's unsustainable you know. And so for me and I'm setting this all up to say like know your strengths and find people around you to fill in the gaps i.e., like one of my um proudest accomplishments is my um show that I created for failed network Quibi, um I know so sad but like come on, literally play the tiniest violin because how did they get that much money and how did they throw it in the toilet that fast, I don't know. How did I not get really any of it? I don't know um with one of the best shows on the network that's just my tea but –

Kimberly Drew: And that’s period, that’s a period, it’s so special.

Maurice: [laughs] But there was so many people that worked on that show, that is like the baby out of my brain like essentially so many people, my writing partner helped um distill the essence of like all of the crazy things that I was thinking about and synthesize it in a way that like tells a very cohesive linear story where my ass was all over the place right, my director also helped like rein that in. My sister would come on set just to like hold space for me so that I could like she's like a spiritual leader and healer and all that stuff. And so she would just like come and hold space for me just so like I could be calm and relax and then like double check the makeup, then like make sure my hair was on point and then make sure that like you know we could have fun on camera together. Like there were just so many, my staff like while I'm on camera they are behind the scenes on the next part of the set, building the insulation. So like there are so many moving pieces. And the more you realize that like for me at least, to do grander projects um I can't do every aspect and that’s okay, that does not diminish the work that I'm doing.

Um in fact it would be impossible for me to accomplish without it, um so you know I rely on my accounting, I rely on my bookkeeper like I encourage any artist who is in the beginning that does not think that those things are worth it, it is because I am still paying in weird back taxes, I am paying in weird sales tax stuff that I filed incorrectly that I didn't even know that I thought because I was Black, I didn't have to pay it because [laughs] I just like I got nothing but like you know sales tax is not looking at my color, they're just looking at the fact that they didn’t get their money. Um and so that kind of stuff is so important to keep in order from the beginning so that as you grow and as you build your brand or build your practice or whatever, you have that stuff on lock. My brother told me that in the beginning and I low-key didn’t listen to him and then he had to come and save me when I basically lost my business almost. And it was a hot ass mess, and I wish that was one aspect I would have taken a lot more seriously and gotten the help that I needed because it wasn't me, I couldn't do it on my own.

Kimberly Drew: I really appreciate that because I think in -- on a macro level, I think oftentimes there is this myth of the magical Negro in general where there is expectation that we can do anything, we can be anywhere, we you know our ancestors died for this and so we have to show up and we have to drr-rap. But at the end of the day it really can so deeply impede our ability to do the work that we do logistic or creative and also the person that we are that we wake up in the morning, the person we go to bed, the person that shows up for brunch with friends, the person who's on the family Zoom call. There has to be something that's left over for ourself that's not just the run-around because at the end of the day it's so beautiful, I think for myself I'm like a very type A person, I love to have my hands on everything but that's not actually the path toward everything, that’s not like the be all, end all. And I think that there so many justice movements that really insist upon kind of culture of co-dependency um because it’s singularity that kind of I don't know it's like you want to have also the people that are there with you at the rap party and like you know you toast a champagne because you can afford champagne um because you've all been working collectively, um can you talk a bit more, you were talking about your brother but are there other creatives that you feel that you know personally or otherwise that you feel really influenced by that you wished more people knew about?

Maurice: Um well, as I mentioned Mark Bradford I think he's like an excellent example of how he's negotiated like creating his own career path. I think Calo Joseph does that really well and with the work that they're doing with the underground museum, I think is really interesting. Um I think that um my homie Detrick Brackins is doing really interesting work and um has really -- I really felt myself not purchasing one of those um beautiful um tapestries [laughs] 10 years ago but um brother was broke, um still kind of broke but like now it's definitely way too far for me, I love you Detrick.

Kimberly Drew: [laughs].

Maurice: Um but um I think the way that like and I use these examples because these are all people that have um stayed the course like you put in your time, I think what-what we're experiencing now in 2020 is um a results driven culture where we only see the results. We don't see you know the 10 years that Britney Spears went around the world or the country like playing little gigs here and there and whatnot or you know Beyoncé running around the lake in high heels like singing scales for years before like you just saw Hit Me Baby One More Time, I was like who's this random lady that was like famous out of nowhere right um. And I think if you look back and you are like, oh she was on the Mickey Mouse club, oh she was on this, oh she did this, I just didn't necessarily know her path but people that like have stayed the course and just kept chugging away at it. I think um that's where you succeed. You-you got to wear like you actually get to do the things that you want to be doing. I mean I am a person that like it's always moving the needle, so as soon as I accomplish something, I like to push it further away from where I want to be. Um but I think that like I put in the work, um I watch the Vidal Sassoon documentary that I'd actually recommend to all creatives, all artists that are like really trying to shape whatever they're doing.

And he's like you know I never thought I was going to have a flower business, I never thought I would own a coffee shop, I never thought I would own or have my own show, I just think all those things are just like that's nonsense, that's magical things talking but when the opportunity showed up or like when it was like oh, I need to be doing this, it's like oh okay, I need to make artwork because like this needs to happen, like this voice needs to be heard. Like my neighborhood is changing like crazy, somebody's going to open up a coffee shop, it’s going to annoy me, I've lived in my neighborhood for 16 years, well, bet you're doing, be the change you want to see in the world, okay fine. And so I just take those opportunities and I speak to them, I think what Vidal Sassoon did so beautifully is he talks about how like he didn’t necessarily want to be a hairdresser, it was just like his mom was like oh just do this thing like you need a skill or whatever, and he was like okay, but if like if I'm going to do it I'm really just going to like work at it. And it took him I think 10 years to like from doing buffonts and like that old '60s, like '50s like set it and forget-it-hair, um to like the 5-point Bob and like really coming up with that insane modern aesthetic and all that, that literally revolutionized the way that we look at hair still today and -- but he just kept cutting hair, he kept working at it.

It's not like this master idea came in even year 5, like he was just doing hair but because he was interested and being good at his craft and knowing that there was something-there was something to discover, he kept at it. And I think when you keep at it, if you look at -- I keep up everything that I've ever done basically on the internet, if you go all the way back to the beginning of my Instagram and you look at some of the arrangements are just like grow please, like [laughs] it is not great but it was a journey. It's like I stayed on the course, I kept doing the work so that I could be the person that I am today and continue to evolve and change because I stay inspired, I stay creative and I stay doing those things.

Kimberly Drew: I love that and if I can borrow that I feel that this moment that's been kind of my inner mantra, especially as a Black creative because this moment especially the summer like I was thinking about the end of the year and I just kind of almost shut everything down because there were so many calls and so many asks and so many ways that either we have to show up on an emotional level just because I mean even this week, there’s so much that’s coming down on us and with the election da-ra-ra, there’s so much that’s really pushing all of our buttons much less these companies or infrastructure that are suddenly looking to us as these great messiahs. And want us to reflect back on their you know their good values as a company what so have you, but I think that the most important piece of agency that we have is what you're talking about and it's our steadfastness. You know, it's like you don't want to blow up for the thing that's not your thing you know. So like if you are invested in floral arrangements or you invested in doing hair or you're invested in Black art and culture and writing and all these things like hone your craft because the call will come and the call can be cue and the call can be juicy and make sure you get in your coin um but there is such an importance on continuing for yourself and maybe even for your community um to continue to sharpen your oyster knife, because there's no time limit on that, there's no um -- I mean resources are complicated but there's so much personal resource and investment in the vision that you want to create um-

Maurice: Well, what I want to say to that really quickly is I think the thing that has given me a lot of success in the area that I -- in the areas that I work in is because I am always treated -- I've always allowed them to nurture themselves. So I've never relied on until flowers demanded that I quit all my other jobs, I always had other things that I was doing like.

Kimberly Drew: Hmm.

Maurice: I was either freelancing or I had a corporate job like I just had like because I wanted my voice in the way that I wanted to tell it to be heard in that way. And in order to be able to do that, you have to supplement it other ways, right. So if a person goes you know, classically in Los Angeles if you're a waiter, you're an actor. If you are like which I'm a waiter and I act on the side, I imagine you're going to probably book more jobs because you're not thirsty for it, like you love what you do and you get to be a little bit more strategic in how you want to cultivate your career because your bread and butter and how you survive isn't something that like is completely different, right. So now that flowers is my bread and butter I have to always have something that I'm doing to stay creative on my own. So I create my own projects and different things just so that I can stay connected, because as a creative person I think that everyone hear this loud and clear, as a creative person you being fulfilled creatively by a job, key word job, is impossible. Money is being exchanged so something is being compromised, someone is paying you for a service. And so the more you can remove yourself outside of that just to show up to do your J-O-B, the more free you're going to be to do your own projects.

And to do you'll have more bandwidth to do that. And so as opposed -- and I learned this so early where I was just like oh, this job I thought it was going to fulfill me creatively because I have a creative job. I met Bart, he’s just running around and like making creative displays and doing all this stuff, but then I didn't even make enough money, did I like really like sustain my life. And then when I went corporate and I made a ton of money just as saving my life, my boss was so mean and so like awful to me that it was awful. So it's like you have to do shit for yourself, period, and if you can separate those things and not put everything of your soul into your job like your job should take a 30% of your bandwidth so that you have 70% to like grow, learn, evolve, focus on who you are and taking care of yourself. We're in this country we are so dedicated to making that back because we have to survive because value and cost of living is so disproportionate um but if you can kind of figure out little ways to like start to separate that, you don't take it personally when somebody doesn't like your flower design or when somebody doesn’t like the graph that you presented, it’s like okay, well it’s not their vibe, it has literally nothing to do with you, anyways.

Kimberly Drew: I mean-I mean I was going to say, I was going to like say, I had two more questions now I only have one but as I was like what is -- because you have your Sara Davis Marshall jacket and I can't be Kerry without thinking of mastery and I feel like that was just a very beautiful short master class on how to hold it down, because I being up until like 3 years ago I had a job that supported all the other fun stuff I did, and now my fun stuff is my job and it’s not so fun anymore, and so there is this like incredible need to figure out ways you could just employ, because our productivity cannot -- you know all of our productivity because there's so many, you can't always decide the commerce because that’s just not it. Um, so my last question for you or if you want to go on?

Maurice: Well okay, so this is what's interesting is like but the other crazy part is if like you know your own creative endeavors like can have some sort of ROI, well I - the more you just like I love that you said that because it's so true like as soon as you do something you love and now you're getting paid for it, it becomes annoying after a certain point, right. If one more person asks oh my God, you must love playing in flowers every day, I’m like no, all-- right, all I do is well emails, all I am doing is figuring out how I am going to make payroll, how I'm going to make rent like what flowers can we get for the best price that has the best quality. It’s like so less creative as you can see I got really turned up on this because the idea that like it's so romantic is not. It turns into a job, well that's where like I have like my calendar projects or I have like things where I am just like this is something that I think is important for me to say like does it cost me a ton of money that I don't necessarily have? Yes, but like if I don't do it I'm going to explode, I'm going to implode because I'm at the mercy of everyone else as opposed to like putting my voice forward.

And the more like you know like what you see on my gram is not what we do like it is what we do but like it's like I very much curate what I put up there right, if we're putting out you know anywhere from 10 to 50 arrangements a week and I'm posting once a month or you know 4 times a week, you're not seeing the mass of all the stuff but like I put all the aspirational things or the things that I really want to afford my conversation and I think that that’s like an important balance that, anyways you-you get it right? I mean you-

Kimberly Drew: I'm getting what you're saying for sure, I mean I think it circles back to where we started our conversation and I feel like it's such an important one to talk about because it's such an honor and privilege to do work that you love, yes it is such an honor and privilege to be a part of creative community yes but also at the same time we have to hold the labor and work that goes into it because um because that what continue to support us and make us available to do these things and separately from that, we do need the time and space to be able to ideate and to dream and maybe make a risky financial decision speaking of I bought a poster today. But there is -- it’s just so much more than I think we're sold, and I think especially Instagram can really tell fibs on what it means to be a part of this world and the incredible sacrifices that you have to make and the incredible dilemmas that we are faced with all the time, I wouldn't trade it for the world. But I feel like as creators we have to continue to have these conversations or you feel like I don't know, I ask for myself sometimes I feel like I'm failing because I'm not ideating enough or I don't feel creative enough or I don't have enough like whatever. Um there's so many ways that we can get trapped um because of what the object of what we see, from our peers or from people we inspire to be like um and so because we have strict time limits, I could talk to you all day.

Maurice: Same.

Kimberly Drew: I know.

Maurice: Like I want to give you like the biggest hug right now, it's like too much but you’re too far away.

Kimberly Drew: I know, I know um but anyways it’s so sad. Um so I ask this in all my guests when I remember to ask as part of Black Power Lunch Hour which is a series I do on Instagram live which I never say um but what-what do you dream about which could be like dreams or can be dreamed hope, aspiration?

Maurice: Um I dream about um being free.

Kimberly Drew: Hmm.

Maurice: Um I think that um just piggybacking off of what you just said, I think that um this country was built on free labor and we still have a very um tumultuous relationship with labor, we love paying for objects and things but we do not love paying for the hands that make or create or bring those things to life. Um it's a constant negotiation that I'm having um in my own work right, people want to pay tons of money for flowers but for me to pick them out, order them, pick them up, process them, put them in and arrange, pack them up again and deliver them is you know 7, 8, 9, 10 steps and it's just a single flower but like we have to do that and I think and to prove that like my time is worth it, has been like this interesting thing. And so I dream constantly about actually just being free to create, free to um travel and free to actually ideate and dream the way that I think I serve the world best. Um my therapist said to me um who just thought it was so beautiful um every time Jesus was -- after Jesus performed a miracle in the Bible, um he was found in nature by himself and so there's just something so beautiful about being able to connect with the Earth, connect with the world, connect in a way that like you're finding your divine connection on how.

So that then you can be an effective communicator on whatever you're into right, um so I dream about being free one day because I definitely um in 2020 still feel very much like a prisoner, a slave to the system and um I don't know genuinely not in a like super depressing way, but I genuinely don't know when that's going to change because people don't -- people in power truly do not want to look at their privilege and do not want to look at making their lives a little bit uncomfortable to make it more comfortable for everybody else. So no one changes until it's painful enough and trust and belief, I know. [Laughs] So yeah.

Kimberly Drew: Well, thank you so much for being here with me in this way and for all of the work that you do and all of the hours that you put in, it’s so appreciated.