Thought Paper 5: Emory Douglas

            Meeting Emory Douglas was a really inspiring and intellectually stimulating experience. During our intimate class lunch with him, he really seemed to know a lot about the world and the history of events that has affected the black communities. I reckon his vast sense of knowledge comes from being a member of the Black Panther Party, but I was so amazed at how he could bring so much history into a conversation. The things that he mentioned also were interesting themselves. Usually I am not a huge fan of the regular history, but hearing the specific stories he told and the way he eloquently told them kept me intrigued. Then when we got to the lecture part, I was also impressed at how much he had to say. I think he could go on for days! It’s so interesting to see how much he has taken in over the span of his life and how many works he produced! It’s amazing and makes me want to always have projects going on.

            Being a designer, we get caught up in the computer realm of things that sometimes that takes away from our creative juices. I think that his simple yet effective and well thought-out way of creating art is something that I want to always be doing throughout my career. I think that it will keep me in check with my artistic abilities. It will challenge me to not always depend on the computer and also allow my artistic abilities to run free. I think that this experience was very rewarding as not a designer, but rather as an artist.

            His techniques and skills seem so simple, yet when you think about it, much thinking and strategizing has to go through it. In his artwork, he had to think about the audience as well because the purposes of his pieces were to inform people and influence them in a certain way. That being said, he could not just make something for the sake of making it; he had to put a lot of thought into how he created his work. Meeting Emory Douglas has definitely re-opened my creative mind as sometimes the design world can suck you in so deep that you forget about the bigger picture.