Interview: Kraig Blue, “A Beautiful Protest Against The Status Quo”

By Madeline Trice

Kraig Blue is a NYC native born and raised in the Bronx. Blue is an artist, educator, and musician whose practice includes illustration, photography, painting, drawing, musical performance, and his sculptural “assemblages” made of found materials. He takes bones, antique and second hand items, and other found materials to assemble foreboding altars intended to be a platform for contemplation and dialogue. Blue says, “My work is a direct conversation with an audience about issues that still affect my community, specifically the African-American community. The work is a reflection of personal and observed instances throughout my artistic career, and teaching practice, that begs the question, ‘Is the idea of diversity and inclusion a reality or is it a goal within American society we seek but have not truly achieved?’” (Blue). Kraig Blue has been an artist and educator for twenty five years and his work has been in exhibitions in New York, Washington DC, New Orleans, Vermont, and Southern California. This past year, Blue was selected by AnkhLave Arts Alliance to be their 2024 Public Artist in Residence, a multi-year program where his work will be exhibited in numerous public locations. You can read more about the fellowship by visiting AnkhLaveArts.org, or learn more about Kraig Blue and his work on his personal website.

(Trice) You were born and raised in the Bronx, and it looks like you’ve come back to the city, but you also lived in Los Angeles for about a decade and, according to your website bio, you split your time between the two cities. What drew you to LA and what brought you back home to NYC? Did you pick up surfing while living on the west coast or was that one of the reasons you moved out there to begin with?

(Blue) I've lived in New York City all of my life and I thought it was time for me to explore the rest of the country, and if I truly wanted to be bi-coastal, then I had to actually live and experience the place for a period of time. I was also doing what the Australian Aborigines would call a walkabout, where a young man ventures out into the bush and deals with life experiences and challenges to return back to his tribe with a more profound and gracious respect for his tribe and his life. Interestingly I became a fan of Henry Miller and the Tropic of Cancer was a book I reread throughout my LA experience. So that's what California was to me, in particular Los Angeles. I became a professional percussionist in Los Angeles and my art took on a different light and perspective than when I lived in New York. Surfing was not my impetus to move to California, but while I was there I gave myself a mental note that if there was a way for me to learn I was going to find it, and at least try it to see what it was like. Somehow through the people that I met and in particular my ex-girlfriend who was a native of Los Angeles, she just happened to know the ex-president of the black surfers collective and she made an introduction, he told me where to meet them at Dockweiler Beach, and that's where I got on my first surfboard and I really haven't wanted to do anything else. What brought me back to New York City was my father and his request that I return to continue my education by getting my masters in studio art. I was glad that I accepted his proposal and request, because he got a chance to see the new work that I had embarked on for my thesis show and about a year and a half later he passed away at the age of 90 years old. I had achieved more than I had intended and I have been grateful ever since. I continue to visit LA to surf and jam out with my friends.

(Trice) Your assemblages use a lot of found materials, many of which appear to show signs of aging and use. What is your process like for acquiring materials? Do you use antiques or do you have methods of artificially aging the items you use in your assemblages? 

(Blue) Most of the materials I find are discarded objects from all across the city. So I have to restore, and others come almost brand new. People donate bones and objects, some sentimental or they just want to get rid of something, and so this provides me with a lot of material to work with. While getting my masters I learned from my professor Colin Chase the Japanese wood burning technique of shou-sugi-ban. It is a Japanese wood charring and preservation technique specifically for home building but I really like the idea of the chemical changes that happen when you add fire to something which adds another layer of process to my pieces. I sometimes have to disassemble objects that I've found and reassemble them using new material or new nuts or bolts. And sometimes I just use the pieces as is and let them speak to the narrative of the entire piece as they come. So my practice is a lot of fun for me, because it provides me a challenge of relating all of these found objects to one singular narrative, and that keeps me excited about working.


(Trice) You also use a lot of bones, particularly skulls, and in one case what appears to be human hair in your work. Is there a particular significance to using these kinds of bodily elements for you?

​(Blue) Family and friends have donated different types of skulls and bones, you'd be surprised what people choose to collect. So I found some similar spirits who have seen my work and said, “Well hey would you like this…?” and of course I take everything for the most part. So I've been donated deer skulls from North Carolina, a bull's horn from Mexico and someone found an intact raccoon or gopher skull that I'm bleaching as we speak. So I like the idea of using bones, hair, urine and sometimes even my own blood, which a lot of times is done unintentionally because I forgot to put on my gloves and scraped my hand or my forearm against some metal or wood and ultimately that blood becomes part of my piece. While getting my masters I became very interested in African religious practices like Santeria and Voodoo, while researching these practices I came to the realization that body fluids, hair and bones of animals were often used in their altar making, so I Incorporated this practice into my work.

Portrait of Jeremiah Hosea Landess (creator of Earth Driver) 2001

(Trice) Music and performance seem to be an important part of your practice. Not only do you play the congas with your band, The Enlightenment Crew, you also do live paintings of musicians. Could you speak more on your band, the live paintings, and the broader importance of music to your art?

(Blue) Music has been part of my life since I learned to play guitar, unsuccessfully, but when I was a child about 9 or 10 years old. Then I played the trumpet for six-seven years during junior high school into college, and then began playing the Djembe and congas in the early 90s. I became a semi-professional musician here in New York City playing with house music DJs at different clubs in New York and Brooklyn, but I really honed my craft and skill when I lived in California because many bands wanted a live percussion aspect to their either funk, punk, jazz or hybrid music. So I've been playing music all my life. In California I played with several bands, I played with the Pretentious Pidgeons for about 5 years and then after we broke up I played with funk bands, hip hop bands, punk bands and eventually with my girlfriend, the jazz singer Waberi Jordan. Unfortunately the Enlightenment Crew is now defunct, but we had a good run in New York City playing a few local Harlem clubs. 

I started live painting with my comrade and friend Jeremiah Hosea Landess who is a world-class professional bass player. In the mid-90s he created a band called Earth Driver and as part of the show he invited me to do live paintings of the band members and that started an interesting aspect to my artistic career as a live painter for bands. 

Music is an integral part of my process not only listening to it as I create like many artists, but in a certain way some of my pieces are musical, they have a rhythm and a cadence in their visual element that reflects the music that may be going on internally while I create the piece. When I teach art to my students there will always be music playing, in particular jazz so their pieces can invite a rhythm the same way that I use in my own practice.

(Trice) Photography, sculptures, paintings, assemblages, illustrations, music, and education; your practice as an artist is quite broad. Are there particular themes or ideas that you find yourself often returning to regardless of what medium you’re working in?

​(Blue) That's a great question. I love portraiture. I love to draw and paint people's portraits. That is one recurring theme in all of my work. But then on the other hand I became politically minded at 19- 20 years old and that led to doing political activists work all throughout the 90s and the early 2000s until today. There will always be a political theme in my work even in the portraits. I think the more portraits done by people of color is a political act within itself that defies the traditional aspects of so-called European classical art. My work is and has been political from my portraiture to my assemblages, and even my surfing, although a transcendent practice for me, in essence for African Americans to surf is a political act considering that research has brought to light that surfing was practice by Africans and Polynesians prior to Europeans learning the art of surfing. So my art, music and surfing in essence is a beautiful protest against the status quo, racism, elitism, inequality and the lack of justice for all people.

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