Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Turns out, Detroit is as cold as it is cool. 
After following Jamea’s recommendation to shoot our film in the depths of a freezing mid-January midwest winter, I found myself back in her city for the first time in 20 years.  Stepping into her impossibly bright white studio, the contrast between the physically blank room and her work was astounding.  The plain walls juxtaposed against the foreground of massive canvases covered in every color and every shape imaginable. The light grey flooring similarly decorated with a beautiful explosion of paper scraps, glitter and bits of fabric that, for the duration of my trip, I tried desperately to avoid stepping on when staring into my camera.

For five soul-enriching days, Jamea and I would meet at her studio, catch up on our evenings, and then — the music would start.  If I had to summarize my time with Jamea Richmond-Edwards in one word, theme or descriptor, it would no doubt be “musical”.  Jamea’s creative process is much like my own - which is to say, musically loud.  For countless hours every day, Jamea would blast (and I do mean blast) an ever-changing playlist that spanned genres and time – hitting on notes of hip hop, jazz, punk, techno, classical and much, much more – while she focused on the canvas and I focused on my camera.  Between songs we would geek out together about music history, our own history with music and philosophical deep dives that came to mind. During the tracks, we both (figuratively and literally) danced around the studio in our respective creative flow states until the next organic break presented itself.

Outside of the studio, Jamea showed me a side of Detroit that I had never experienced before. Hanging out with her at The Shepherd, a massive century-plus old, once Romanesque-style church turned beautiful arts event space, I began to understand how expansive, yet intimate, of an art scene Detroit has.  Against the backdrop of vibrantly diverse works of artists who all seemed in community with one another, were even more vibrantly dressed people, artists and enjoyers of art, dawned in fashion that was unlike anything I had ever seen come together in one room. Jamea was no exception.  My own solo time around the city felt no different, with massive stunning murals spanning buildings in every direction I ever found myself looking.

The city and its art were inseparable, which began to give me a deeper context and understanding of Jamea’s place in it.  That the work itself stood in space and time on its own, but to become more familiar with her surroundings handed me a privilege of experiencing her work in an even deeper way I otherwise may have missed.  And as someone who was already a fan, this was just a frozen cherry on top of the whole thing.

I was genuinely sad to leave Detroit, but was comforted by the chance to revisit the energy in the footage, to listen to the tracks we had shared with each other, and to not take for granted (for at least a little while) my temperate, Los Angeles winters.

- Brett Novak

Click Here to watch the exhibition video.