Episode 177 | Amos Kennedy Jr.

Published February 14, 2023

Transcript

Miranda Metcalf  00:27

Hello, Print Friends, and welcome. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. This is a bilingual podcast. So if you subscribe to us, you'll be getting episodes in English with me, as well as in Spanish with Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. Together, we speak to people from around the globe about their practice and passions in the fields of print media and multiples. Hello, Print Friend is brought to you by Speedball Art Products, who have been a leading innovator and manufacturer of printmaking products for over 50 years. Speedball Speed Screens answer the call to have an easy-to-use way to screenprint no matter what your experience level. Whether you're printing at home, in studio, or a classroom, these ready-to-use mesh screens allow you to create permanent photographic stencils without the need to mix emulsions or coat a screen. All you need is your design and you're ready to print. Pick up the Speed Screens kit for the most affordable way to get all the materials needed to print your next masterpiece. There's a link in the show notes. My guest this week is Amos Kennedy. And let me tell you, print friends, you are in for a treat. Amos is a living print legend. We talk about his time being employed, not working, at AT&T while making and giving away prints; hanging art shows like it's a crime; and his exciting new project in a pile of bricks in Detroit. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and... I can't even think of anything clever to say on this one. It's just too good. Just enjoy talking with Amos. Hi, Amos. How's it going?

Amos Kennedy  02:02

It's going very well, Miranda, how are things with you?

Miranda Metcalf  02:05

They're really good. They're really good. I'm really excited to talk with you. I've known your work for a long time. And I just kind of threw an email out in hopes that you'd be okay with joining me, and I was thrilled to see that you've picked a spot on my roster today. And we're here to chat now.

Amos Kennedy  02:23

Well, I'm always appreciative of people who want to reach out to me and join me in my insanity.

Miranda Metcalf  02:33

Let's see if we can foster some of that insanity together here today. This is great. Well, before we dive into my questions, would you introduce yourself and let people know who you are, where you are, what you do?

Amos Kennedy  02:48

I am Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., the second son, third child of Amos Paul Kennedy Sr. and Helen Augustus Davis Kennedy. I now live in Detroit, Michigan. And what do I do? I ask myself that a lot. Because for so many years, I was employed in corporate America. So "what did I do" was defined by them. But when you leave it, it's exactly what - you do everything when you're out on your own. I make my principal amounts of money being a printer, but that encompasses being a janitor, being a mechanic, being a bookkeeper, all these things that they don't teach you when you're in college that are ancillary, but are needed for you to spend that two hours a day actually printing.

Miranda Metcalf  03:51

Absolutely, absolutely. And so, for your story of coming to printmaking, it's a bit of an unusual one. Because as you said, you were in corporate America, you were a programmer, you were doing something in tech. And you sort of stumbled across a printing press and it changed your life. Can you tell us that story?

Amos Kennedy  04:12

Well, the story is a little more complex than that, as I look back over it. When I was a small lad, my mother was the den mother for our Cub Scouts. And she did take us to the local newspaper, so I was exposed in an hour, maybe an hour and a half tour of letterpress printing and the workings of a newspaper. And then when I was in college, I discovered that there was a print shop on campus that did internal printing for Grambling College. And also, my neighbor ran the print shop, and he had gotten his degree from Southern University. Because up until like, maybe the late '70s, a lot of colleges had printing programs, because they needed printers in communities. And men - primarily young men, but there were a lot of young women at some of them - would go there and learn to become printers. And then they would go out and become printers at newspapers, or at institutions such as universities. So I had a little bit of exposure to printing before I got to Williamsburg. But I think the big thing is that I spent about five years of my life trying to learn calligraphy. So I had this affinity to words and letterforms that I enjoyed. But in 1988, I think, I took my sons to Williamsburg. And there, I saw letterpress printing again, being demoed at the print shop there. And I thought how cool it was, because if you made a mistake, you didn't have to start all over again. You just had to take out a couple of characters and correct the mistake. And you could keep printing.

Miranda Metcalf  06:06

Very different from calligraphy, hey? Where it's just one little shaky hand, and it all goes out.

Amos Kennedy  06:11

Yeah, and you have to start all over again. So I thought that that was really nice. And then I was living in Chicago, and I got back to Chicago, and I took a course at Artists Book Works, which was a community Book Art Center in Chicago. And I enjoyed it. And then I took another course, I enjoyed that even more. And then a series of events happened that really altered my life. An older printer gave me his print shop, essentially. Someone else gave me a printing press, which was a big deal, because I had a friend who had bought the same model of press a couple of weeks earlier for $500. Which was a lot of money in '88, '89. But then I got it for free. And I'm like, oh! And I put it in my basement, and I just started printing. And one of the things I like about printing is that you make multiples, so you can distribute them. Because at the time I was employed at AT&T, so I wasn't printing for money, but printing because I enjoyed it. So at the end of the day, things I printed, I could simply distribute to coworkers or people on the street.

Miranda Metcalf  07:28

What were those early compositions like, the early messages that you were making?

Amos Kennedy  07:34

My earliest messages have always been - were, and continue to be my message - is always related to Black culture, or Negro culture. Because when I started printing, it turned out that many of the people in the first and second class were English majors. Because if you learn how to print, you can print your own poems, or you can make a chapbook. And then you will be published, which, when you're 22, 23 years old, you have a lot of time on your hands. So it's a good way, if you want to get published and get your work out there, it's a good way of doing that. And I was a math major. And so during the setting up and working, they would have these conversations about poets. And I felt so out of it, because I didn't know any of the names and the authors. And then one night driving back home, it hit me. Authors, you know names, but they're all Black.

Miranda Metcalf  08:38

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  08:39

And this is a voice that has been underrepresented in letterpress printing, the voice of the Black community. And so at that point, I decided to make it my intent to put the Black voice out there. And so from the very beginning, it was Negro aphorisms, poets that are Black, such as Dunbar, Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and so forth. Aphorisms from Africa, short story myths from Africa. So it was always about Black culture.

Miranda Metcalf  09:18

Yeah. And so when you were growing up, what role did art play in that part of your life? You know, you talked about this exposure to the newspaper and sort of seeing that, but in terms of what we would call quote-unquote "fine art," did you go to museums? Did you have someone in the family who was a painter, anything like that?

Amos Kennedy  09:36

No, I didn't. My father was a scientist and my mother was an accountant. So art was not a part of my daily routine. We did have a few pictures around the house, I had a cousin who did ceramics and also sculpture, but I really wasn't that close to them. I was in a college town, so there was an art department, so there were the student exhibitions that I could go to. I was fortunate, because I lived in a time when art was still being funded for the public school system. So we did have art in the high school, which I didn't take. But the state had an art contest, where art students from all over the state would submit on a district level. And then those that won went to the state level, and then they were judged by practicing artists and professors of art. And so we were exposed to art that way. Because we would see that exhibition, state and district exhibition, when it came to be judged in either in our high school or a high school close by, we could go and see that. But our visual arts were basically... there were visual arts, but it wasn't what you would consider the visual arts that you find in a museum. It was the visual arts that, for lack of a better term, it's sometimes been referred to as outsider art, primitive art, things of that nature. But that was there. And there was the decoration of houses with cut tires, painted, things of that nature that existed.

Miranda Metcalf  11:36

Yeah. And then, so you're working at AT&T, printing in your basement in your spare time and distributing these works. At what point does this start to transition, where you're thinking, I'm not gonna work at AT&T full time. I'm going to move into this space of being an artist and being someone who's working with words and being this creative person.

Amos Kennedy  11:59

Well, I really didn't work at AT&T. I was employed.

Miranda Metcalf  12:00

Oh! Uh-huh!

Amos Kennedy  12:00

There's a huge difference. What people don't realize is that when I was first employed with AT&T, it was a monopoly. And it was regulated by the government. So they could only make so much money. But no matter how much money they were allowed to make, they always made more. So what they would do is that they would hire people rather than pay the taxes or the fines.

Miranda Metcalf  12:37

Oh, my gosh.

Amos Kennedy  12:38

So at AT&T, you had a lot of people that were employed doing redundant work.

Miranda Metcalf  12:46

Wow.

Amos Kennedy  12:47

Yes, they made goo-gobs of money. The government said, 'You can only make this much money.' And there was nothing they could do not to make more than that.

Amos Kennedy  12:57

You know, the business plan was to stay within the boundaries of the government. But they just couldn't do that. And so what happened was, AT&T had a massive workforce. A huge number of employees. But in '84, I think, they deregulated AT&T. And that's when AT&T separated from the Bell system. Michigan Bell, Wisconsin Bell, New York Bell, all these places. And at that point, they were no longer under the regulations that they had to keep their earnings at a certain level, because suddenly, they were in what they called the free market, or the marketplace. So the first thing they had to do was to reduce their workforce. Because as I said, a lot of things were redundant. And so it was a perfect storm. I had been employed and bored. You remember when you were in school, and it'd be like, 2:30, and you got out at 3:00, and 3:00 never came?

Miranda Metcalf  12:57

Yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  14:06

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  14:07

Yeah, that's what it was like.

Miranda Metcalf  14:08

Yeah, I bet!

Amos Kennedy  14:10

Because you had to be there until 5:00, even if you didn't have anything to do.

Miranda Metcalf  14:14

Oh, my gosh, yeah.

Amos Kennedy  14:15

This was a different era. You know, you showed up at 8:00, and you stayed until 5:00.

Miranda Metcalf  14:20

And you didn't even have your smartphone that you could kill time on.

Amos Kennedy  14:24

You didn't even have a computer attached to something that you could go someplace else. The computer, the terminal was attached to the internal computer, and all you could do was computations. So you couldn't go anyplace. It was a big deal when suddenly, you could send a little text message about 100 characters to someone else in the office.

Miranda Metcalf  14:47

That's crazy.

Amos Kennedy  14:50

So it just happened that they were downsizing, and I was ready to be downsized. So I just left. One day, it was more than I could take. And I was printing, so I said, okay. And I was fortunate that at the time, my wife had a job that could support a family of four. And so I started off on my own printing.

Miranda Metcalf  15:15

Beautiful.

Amos Kennedy  15:16

In my basement.

Miranda Metcalf  15:17

Yeah, yeah. And so at this point, had you shown your work anywhere, had you had any gallery exhibitions, cafes, anything like that? Or was it more just making and giving and distributing and getting your message out in that form?

Amos Kennedy  15:34

It was more making and distributing. I did do an exhibition at Kroch's & Brentano's, which was the premier bookstore in Chicago at the time. It's no longer in business. I did an exhibition there, and I also did an exhibition at... I think the W. E. B. Du Bois branch of the Gary Library. But those were the only two exhibitions I did up into probably the '90s, the early '90s. And I never really did that many exhibitions. It was more word of mouth and giving things away, and just printing. And I was doing books at the time more so than the printing that I do now. So I had a small group of libraries that were collecting my books, because again, I was one of the first people to bring the voice of the Black culture into fine printing, letterpress printing, that sort of thing. On a regular basis.

Miranda Metcalf  16:32

Yeah, absolutely. And I think letterpress does have that role, where it sort of lives in book arts, it lives in, as you say, bookstores, libraries, and then also the fine art world. It really sort of walks this line, for sure. And I see that in the span of your career, sort of where you started, and now having exhibitions at galleries. Yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  16:57

And so at what point do you decide to go back to school, and you go to UW Madison, the premier printmaking school in this country? How did that happen?

Amos Kennedy  16:57

Yes.

Amos Kennedy  17:08

Well, that happened because, again, I was more in the book arts arena. And everyone had said, 'If you want to study book arts, you should study with Walter Hamady.' At that time, there was a very strong book arts program at the University of Alabama, and that program still exists. But the person in charge of that was a student of Walter's. And I made a decision that if you must study, and you can study under the master, study under the master, not the student.

Miranda Metcalf  17:41

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  17:42

And I was living in Illinois, so it was closer than Alabama. So I applied to go to graduate school. And oddly enough, I was accepted. And so off I went, completely unaware of what I was getting into. I just wanted to study, of course, with Walter Hamady. And let me just say that after I completed everything, one of the people who encouraged me to study under him, it became apparently clear to me - it may have been mentioned in passing in several conversations - but she had gone to Madison, and she had only like taken, say, two courses under Walter, and then left. Because she got her degree someplace else. And I wasn't aware that you could go to graduate school, take a couple of courses, and leave, you know? I thought if you went to graduate school, you're supposed to get a graduate degree. But I could have, if I had known better, I could have just enrolled in his class, gotten his approval, and just taken six hours under him and said, 'Well, I've studied with Walter, let me go do my thing.' But I ended up being awarded a Masters of Fine Arts and Graphic Design after about three and a half years.

Miranda Metcalf  18:55

Yeah. And so -

Amos Kennedy  18:56

With no debt! No debt, no debt, no debt!

Miranda Metcalf  18:59

Yeah yeah yeah! That's the way to do it!

Amos Kennedy  19:02

And that wasn't that long ago, so we need to change that.

Miranda Metcalf  19:05

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, the whole system of these poor kids coming out with their MFAs with six figures in debt, it's just... it's criminal. But that's another podcast. So while you're at Madison, your family's back in Chicago during that time, or did they come with you?

Amos Kennedy  19:24

Oh, see, there's forces in the universe that take care of small people, little people, people with issues, and I'm one of those people. I say there's a God in the universe, and she takes care of fools and babies. And I change my diaper regularly. Because after my first year there, my wife got a position in Wisconsin. So we were forced to move, so suddenly I was an in-state resident.

Miranda Metcalf  19:57

Beautiful.

Amos Kennedy  19:58

And tuition went down by two-thirds.

Miranda Metcalf  20:01

Yeah. Oh, that's great! And then so did you then stay on in Wisconsin because your wife had this job there?

Amos Kennedy  20:10

And then I finished my degree. And after I finished my degree -  I wasn't gonna finish my degree. I was just gonna leave. And then my last semester, about three weeks before the end of the semester, I got a call saying they needed a visiting professor at Indiana University, and did I have my degree? So I spent the next three weeks scrambling around...

Miranda Metcalf  20:34

You were like, uh, yes! Of course I have my degree!

Amos Kennedy  20:45

And I was successful at that. And then I went down to Indiana for three and a half years. I had an encounter with the educational institution on the other side of the desk, which did not look really interesting when I was on the student side of the desk. But when I got on the professor side of the desk, it looks even messier.

Miranda Metcalf  21:08

Oh, yeah. I bet.

Amos Kennedy  21:09

So after three and a half years, I realized that I just couldn't - it took too much energy for me to correct all of the issues at Indiana University. And so I decided that I would spend more of my time, or devote more of my time, to printing. So I gave up that dream of correcting a small institution and I went off and started printing on my own.

Miranda Metcalf  21:33

That's great. And so at that point, are you starting to develop your style [that you have] now? With these layers, and the inkiness, and the objects that are staying wet for years after you make them, and the unique - is this developing at this time for Amos?

Amos Kennedy  21:54

This stuff is supposed to dry? I didn't know that!

Miranda Metcalf  22:01

I'm sorry to break it to you here, live on the podcast. Most prints are sold dry!

Amos Kennedy  22:07

Oh! I'll try that in the future.

Miranda Metcalf  22:12

Yeah, get a hairdryer, you know?

Amos Kennedy  22:16

Yes, that was. So I left Indiana University with absolutely nothing, and no idea where I was going. But I was very fortunate, because I had met a dear friend of mine, Tut Riddick, out of Mobile, Alabama. She took a course under me when I taught at Penland in 1995. And she had been wanting me to come to Alabama, to a little community art center that she helped start in York, Alabama, a town of about 1600 people. And I went down there, and I just had a splendid time. And the board approached me and said, 'We'd like for you to come down and bring your print shop and work here.' And I said, 'Okay...' And they said, 'Well, we can give you free rent and an apartment for six months.' And I said, 'Okay!' And so I moved down there, and I started my shop. And let's face reality, if you don't have to pay rent, you don't have a lot of expenses in the world.

Miranda Metcalf  23:23

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  23:23

Unless, of course, you have college debt, which I didn't have. So I was in a pretty good situation for someone with no means of income. Because the principal thing, rent, not just for me, an apartment to stay in, but my shop, was taken care of. And after six months, the board met and they said, 'Well, we like what you're doing. So you can just stay here for as long as you want to rent free.' And I said, 'Okay!' I was printing things that I wanted, but I had... when I was at Indiana, I spent a week at Hatch Show Print, because I love the posters that they do. And I said, well, I can do event posters down here and make a little bit of money, and then provide a service to the town. And the first poster, one of the first posters that I did, I didn't have a lot of paper. But I messed up the whole edition because I misspelled a word.

Miranda Metcalf  24:23

Oh, no!

Amos Kennedy  24:24

And I'm like, 'Damn, what am I gonna do? Because I don't have any more paper.' And so I just printed some stuff on top of the mistake until you couldn't see the mistake. And then I put the final text on it. And that's how I came up with this idea of layering. It was to bury a mistake that I made the first time and I had no more paper to print with.

Miranda Metcalf  24:48

Oh, my god. Do you have any of those those posters left? Are they in your archive? Because I feel like that's a seminal moment.

Amos Kennedy  24:56

I think that probably - I did it for Emory, so Emory University may have one in their archives someplace, if they kept that sort of thing. And they may have, because I was doing it for their special collections, and for a librarian who was interested in my work, so he probably kept two or three copies for it. But that's when I realized that, oh yeah, I can cover up the mistake, and added color and added the layers. And that was just something that happened spontaneously, and then I gave some consideration to it. And I started doing layers, and the layers would reinforce the text that was on top of it. And then that just continued to grow and to evolve into what you have now, which, now when I do pieces, especially if I'm doing a big series, there may be three layers of text. And each layer has different information about what - say it's about coffee, one layer may have all the countries where coffee is grown, another layer may have all the different coffee drinks you have, another layer may have some important dates to coffee in western civilization, and then the quote about coffee on top of it. And so that's where that started. And then the randomness of colors happened because I'm not really a good printer. A good printer can take a white sheet of paper, black ink, and a form, and print something that has the most beautiful impression. The most beautiful color page. The right lane of the ink on it with no smudges. I can't do that.

Miranda Metcalf  26:57

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  26:57

So what do I do to compensate? I make a mess, and I make a really good mess.

Miranda Metcalf  27:03

An intentional mess.

Amos Kennedy  27:05

An intentional mess. And one of the ways I make an intentional mess is that I mix up colors with no rhyme or reason. It's just that that's the way that they randomly landed in the pile. So sometimes I have things that work spectacularly well, and other times I have things that, eh, that color combination does not go with it. But I say, just because I don't like it, that means there's probably 6.5 billion people in the world who do. You know? So I'm not gonna buy it, they will. So I'm covered. In the world, there's somebody that likes every possible color combination you could think of.

Miranda Metcalf  27:50

It's really true, it's really true. And I experienced that, I think, in curating shows, which I do sometimes, where the piece that got in by the skin of its teeth for you is the one that everybody's talking about. And you're just like, 'Well, I'm just one person!' You know? And I'm creating something that's consumed by many people. And I think that's the beauty of having the experiences with other humans who aren't like you and respond to different things. It's really interesting.

Amos Kennedy  28:20

One of the things I jokingly used to say is that everyone hears the story about the painter who has a big show, and goes back to the gallery, and the gallery owner says, 'I almost had someone to buy that painting, but they said it didn't go with their couch.' With my posters, I got something that goes with every couch. What color's your couch? I've got something to match it!

Miranda Metcalf  28:47

Exactly. Yeah. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about your research process. You know, you talked about it with the example of the coffee and how you're getting these data points from different places, [like] with the quote and the dates. But you make work about all kinds of things, and you incorporate proverbs from Africa and quotes and, I mean, do you just have a board behind your computer that looks like one of the crime shows where everything's connected to everything? How do you keep it all straight? Do you work on one thing at a time? What's the process?

Amos Kennedy  29:27

Well, let me begin by saying that, contrary to what most people believe, people who practice the arts and crafts spend a lot of time intellectually researching what they're going to do. It is not what you see on TV or in the movies, just this sudden inspiration and they just run off and do it. But most of the time is spent reading, figuring out, trying to understand your subject matter, so you can better interpret the idea you have in your head in the physical world. And that's one thing that I don't think people - people think, 'Oh, art! All you do is just sit there one day and you just start to draw!'

Miranda Metcalf  30:15

Yeah, it's fully formed in your heart, and it's just your job to put it on a canvas. Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  30:22

But when you listen to people who practice these things, they have done a lot of study, they have read a lot, they become experts on the topics that they engage in. And so that is basically what I do. I must confess that the internet and web has made it a lot easier. Because suddenly, you can sit at home and begin the research as opposed to going off to a library and getting a pile of books and having your little desk assigned to you and going every day and photocopying things. But now, I can just pick up whatever I want to do, and just start the research. So I would encourage people who want to do this to look at how research is done. Look at research in the writing realm, look at research in the scientific realm, and study it and find out what you can incorporate or what you can take from that to develop your own practice of research. And so basically, I take a subject - right now, I want to do a series of quotes by Frederick Douglass. So I'm reading about his life and finding out dates that are important. I'm reading some of his speeches in conjunction to what I'm doing. I'm also reading about the history of the time so I can see major events that were happening, things that were occurring, and looking for something that is not readily available when someone looks up Douglass or that time period, to show that there's a connection. And once I get all that information, then I figure out how the layers are gonna play together. And then I will start the process. So there is a lot of research going on beforehand, before the actual execution. And the same thing with, if I do something about books or authors, I will - because again, my focus - I will just make a list of Black authors that will be in the background. And it may be chronological, it may be by gender, it could be by the subject matter of the novels, or whatever.

Miranda Metcalf  32:54

And then, in terms of when you start actually making, how do you organize this wealth of information that you've collected and decide what's going to shake down, what needs to go on the paper, after all this time collecting the raw material?

Amos Kennedy  33:12

Well, I will know the quotes exactly. And that is the last layer that goes on. The underbelly... I am still working on that. And that is, how do I put down - normally I put down four layers before I put the text that I want to print. The first layer is what I call just the big flat, which is just a flat color a certain size that creates a border around the sheet of paper. Because my work is informed by show card posters. And most show card posters had a border around it. And then a lot of them had a big flat, or they had a rainbow flat, that defined the text area. So I continue to use this. And then once I have the flat down, then I try to figure out, like, what words are going to be on the next three layers? And what is the type size in relationship to each layer? Because I don't want it to get too muddled. I want it to be certain - kind of distinct. So do I want to do one layer in all really big type and then the next layer in medium size and the last one is small, or do I want to mix up? So there's some big type and small type in that. And I also try to do some positioning of the text before I print it. However, I will change things in the middle of a run. And I just change it because I'm doing it and I can do it. You know, that's one reason why I change colors, because I can do it. I'm doing it. I can do it. So I can take a word out and put a new word in. And I know that. Very few other people do. But I imagine one day, a scholar will be looking at one poster in a library and see the word, I don't know, see the word Massachusetts. And then when he looks at it in the London library, it's not Massachusetts, it's New York. So this guy changed stuff right in the - what kind of person does that?! You know? You're consistent, or either you've done it a second time, and so you change things, but not the first time. But I can do that! Because the thing is once I start to print, you print one, and it looks good. But if you print ten, and you lay them out and look at them for an hour or two, you're like, 'Ah, that doesn't look right. I should move that over just a little bit.' And so you change it. And so that's the way that I go about doing this. It is all organic. I was once asked, how do I design my work? And I had a blank sheet of paper, and I drew a rectangle. And then I said, 'I put ink inside the rectangle.' Because a lot of it just happens when I'm at the press.

Miranda Metcalf  36:24

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  36:24

I do not do a lot of upfront design work. It happens when it's at the press. I don't like the way that looks, I don't like that "O," so I'm gonna go get a bigger "O" that will spread out and give more space and will let the overlapping show more, that sort of thing. So I enjoy doing that. Because, I don't know, maybe that's the only way I can work. So I enjoy it.

Miranda Metcalf  36:53

Yeah. Well, and I think it leads into other aspects of your practice, for instance, the hanging the work with staples on the gallery wall, or keeping the work accessibly priced. It's like you're working in printmaking with total disregard for the sort of white-knuckled preciousness that people can have about printmaking. And I just think that's such a wonderful aspect of what you do.

Amos Kennedy  36:54

Yeah, there are people that subscribe to that, and they are excellent at it. But homie don't do that. You know? I'm sorry, I wish I could. It would be beautiful. I mean, these work for some people. But I remember one year, two people who were hanging my show - well, I was having two shows, and the person I was in contact with for both of them called me up and said, 'Now exactly how are we supposed to hang the show?' I said, 'You tell them to hang the show like they have 15 minutes before the police come and arrest them. They're outside on the street, and they got to put this stuff up in 15 minutes or they're gonna go to jail.' And both of them called me back twice to verify that I said that. And I said, 'Yeah, staples are good.' Because again, staples, that's what was used for the show cards.

Miranda Metcalf  38:34

Oh, yeah.

Amos Kennedy  38:35

And so I'm paying homage to that, so to speak. Also, I'm lazy, and staples are easy, and they're easy to come off and sell them. Because one of the things I like to do when I do a show is sell the stuff right off the wall when you buy it. You don't come back at the end of the show and get it. And my dream is to fill up a gallery space, or some space, and the first night everything is sold. So the next two weeks, people come in and it's just a blank wall. They're like, 'What happened?' Hey, everything got sold the first night. So next time maybe come to the show on the first night.

Amos Kennedy  39:22

And I've done things where people have really organized the images on the wall. As a matter of fact, one of the best shows I had was at the University of Akron. And that was an insane show. It consisted of close to 6000 six by eight cards. And the curator gave people a... I'm gonna say a four foot by sixteen foot section, and enough cards to fill that section. And then they could do whatever design they wanted. One person made a design that looked like Tetris. Another person did two, one was a pink background with a blue arrow going down, the other one was a blue background with a pink arrow going up. And so he recruited people from all over the campus to participate in this project. And they just filled, massively filled, this space. It used to be a Cadillac dealership, so it was the space that the cars were in. So it was huge.

Miranda Metcalf  39:31

Yeah, it's just the holes in the wall. That's the exhibition.

Amos Kennedy  39:36

Yeah, it's just the holes! You know, because I think people should take things with them.

Miranda Metcalf  40:25

Yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  40:32

Yeah. Beautiful. I want to make sure we've got time to talk about the printing plant, The Printery of the Americas, this ongoing project that you have. And I'm hoping you can tell us about it. But then also, I would love to give you the opportunity to let the audience know, how can they help? How can they help you make this into fruition? Because I know it's been an ongoing thing, you've been doing it in COVID, all kinds of stuff.

Amos Kennedy  41:01

Yes, it is an ongoing project. I must confess that The Printery of the Americas I have shut down, because that was a 501(c)(3), and that took too much energy. But the purpose of that still exists, and that is to foster a relationship between printmakers in what we call the Western Hemisphere. Because what I discovered three or four years ago is that in the United States, we have a tendency to look to Europe for everything.

Amos Kennedy  41:31

But in Canada and Mexico and South America, there's this magnificent work that is going on by printmakers and by visual artists everywhere that we do not give the same amount of attention to. And so that's what that project will continue to do. I continue to correspond and visit with printers in South America and in Canada. And so it's an ongoing thing. The Pile of Bricks, which is the project that was going to house all the equipment, is coming along very well.

Miranda Metcalf  41:31

Yes, absolutely.

Miranda Metcalf  42:07

Oh, good.

Amos Kennedy  42:08

As a matter of fact, I am now avoiding the powers that be so I can continue to print. Because by April of next year, I should be fully moved into the building. And hopefully by August, all my equipment will be up and running. Because I have three new printing presses that have to be installed.

Miranda Metcalf  42:41

Beautiful.

Amos Kennedy  42:42

Yes. And basically, this institution will be for people who want to print big, who want to do posters as opposed to doing books, chapbooks. Because many of the programs that we have in the United States are geared more to broadsides and books, and not to posters. So I will have presses that will be able to print... you know, a VanderCook SP-15, which is 15 by 20, then I have one that will print 16 by 24, and then I will have a press that will be able to print 28 by 40. And I will have wood type that will be big enough to accommodate all of those. And so by August, I hope to have that up and running. And then I start on my next project.

Miranda Metcalf  43:37

That's not enough for you?

Amos Kennedy  43:38

No, because see, the thing is, having access to a print shop is great. But they still have to live somewhere.

Miranda Metcalf  43:46

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  43:47

And the wonderful thing about Detroit when I came here, it was possible to buy real estate with little money. And so I bought a house for about $5,000. And I put a roof on it for about another $10,000. And it's just been sitting there waiting for me to gut - well, I gutted it. So it's sitting there waiting for me to put it back together. And this house can serve as a living space for those printers who need to come, for even a night, but most people want to be there for a week, two weeks, maybe a month. And that costs money. But if they have a place where they can sleep and then all they have to do is provide their own food, then you know, it becomes something that's doable. Because when students leave universities and art schools, there's no place for them to really go and practice. And if there is, it's a big urban area where the cost of living is astronomical. So I would like to be able to afford somebody at least a month to say, yeah, I can go there. All I got to do is find myself some food, because I can walk down to the shop, because it's only... I think it's like three blocks from the house. I can walk to the shop, and I can print all day. And I tell you, if you're going to use chipboard, you can print all day, because I buy chipboard in the pallets.

Miranda Metcalf  45:32

Yeah, I bet you do!

Amos Kennedy  45:35

So if you're going to print the size that I'm printing, just go over there and get some, because I can go buy - and it's not that expensive. So don't, like, 'Oh, my God, isn't this wonderful that he's doing this?' Chipboard is really inexpensive. So you know, it can be done. And that's the other thing, is that people need to realize that it isn't necessarily a great and grand event that you do that will change someone's life. It could be the smallest thing. When I was in graduate school, one of my professors would always tell a story. And the moral of the story was, you never know when you make a memory.

Miranda Metcalf  46:17

Oh, that's beautiful.

Amos Kennedy  46:19

I thought it was beautiful, too. But about 10 years ago I realized, you always make a memory. So you should always make a good memory. You know, you should always make a positive memory for yourself, and for the other people that are at that time in your life around you. So it's like, yeah, it's kind of nice. But when I look back at my life, somebody gave me a print shop. For seven years, I lived in Alabama and paid no rent. So I have benefited from the generosity and the kindness of people. And the least I can do is attempt to be generous and kind.

Miranda Metcalf  46:42

Yeah, that's lovely. That's so exciting that it's coming up just, as you say, in Spring 2023, that this is going to be coming to fruition. And I noticed that you didn't use the word residency. Are you not thinking of it as kind of a formal residency?

Amos Kennedy  47:29

That's the term that's out there, but even when I was in Alabama, people would just show up and [say], 'I want to print.' And they would stay a week, two weeks with me, they may come for a day. And that's basically what it is. It's just people who are curious, and who reach out to me and say, 'Hey, Amos, I want to print.' 'Well, nobody's here the first week in June, the first two weeks in June, if you want to come. Come on over.'

Amos Kennedy  47:53

You know, it's not like, do I have to apply to it? No, you have to have the initiative to come and say you want to do this. Because again, when I started printing... I tell the joke that I went to a meeting of old printers, it was a flea market. A swap. And I walked in with two of my friends. And I jokingly say, a guy jumped up and slammed the door behind us, because it was one black guy and two white women. And they were so excited that somebody under 50 had shown up. They thought that we were in the wrong place. 'We got some young people! Oh, shit!'

Miranda Metcalf  47:53

Yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  48:39

'Don't let them leave!' Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  48:42

But at the end of the day, they gave us advice, and they gave us stuff. Because they wanted to share the love that they had for this discipline. And I think that if you are true to the discipline, to the craft, to the art that you practice, then the number one thing you want to do is share it and make sure that it continues. That is the number one thing you want to do. And so that's what I want - this is what The Pile of Bricks, as I call it, it is about sharing with people who are less fortunate than me, that they don't have seven printing presses.

Miranda Metcalf  49:24

Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  49:26

You know, and they don't have seven because I got them. But let me just say, moving a printing press is difficult, okay?

Miranda Metcalf  49:34

Yeah, that's an understatement.

Amos Kennedy  49:36

Yeah. So it's better that you can go someplace and borrow one until you have a permanent location to store one or to use one, than to haul it around for 10 years... I mean, 20 years I hauled them around.

Miranda Metcalf  49:53

And now they have their home in the pile of bricks.

Amos Kennedy  49:55

Yes. And technically I had to knock a wall out to put a double door in to get the presses in. And as that hole was there, I said, 'I should just put a regular door in.' So people say, 'Well, how are they gonna get them out? How are you gonna get them out, Amos?' That's not gonna be my problem. I'm gonna be dead. That's the next person's problem. So they'll just stay there.

Miranda Metcalf  50:19

They're like princesses in the tower, right? That get bricked in in the fairy tale.

Amos Kennedy  50:28

Right. You can come come visit, but they can't leave.

Miranda Metcalf  50:30

Exactly. I love that. And so where is this in Detroit? So if people are interested, once it's up and running, if they want to come say hi, where can they find The Pile of Bricks?

Amos Kennedy  50:42

It is on the East side of Detroit, in a neighborhood called McDougall-Hunt, and it's South of Poletown East, which is a neighborhood most people know. I'm on East Forest, but there are no doors on East Forest. There's a door on Aaron. So you have to go around. But basically I tell people, call me up. Yeah, call me up, write me, and we'll work it out from there.

Miranda Metcalf  50:45

Awesome.

Amos Kennedy  50:46

And I think that people who are letterpress printers, that's what they will do. They will say, 'Hey, I'm coming to town, how can I get in touch with you?' And I say, 'Well, come on by, I'm always there.' I try to always be there. I'm trying to cut down on my travel and my teaching, because now there are younger people out there who need those positions. So I would much rather have them, because they may have families to support or bills to pay, and I don't have all that weight. Because that's one of the things about getting older, a lot of the responsibility of living becomes a lot easier, because suddenly you don't... you find that I don't really need that, or I can get away with not having that, or I don't have children that I have to put through college. So I don't have that debt, that expense, on me. But younger people - when I say younger people, I mean in their 30s, 40s - are trying to make a career or trying to get themselves known. And that's one reason why I am not really going to be doing - I don't actively go after institutions to show my work. Galleries, things of that nature. I don't apply for fellowships or grants or anything of that nature. Also, I'm a sore loser. It really crushes me not to get it. And also, I want to, in 2024, I want most of my exhibitions to be in public libraries, because more people will see them than in a museum or in a gallery. I want my work to be there. And then they can also distribute it at the end of the event. Because that's one of the problems that you have when you print a lot of stuff. So you have a big pile of unprinted paper and you print it, you know what you have? A big pile of printed paper. The volume hasn't changed! So you still gotta get rid of it. So I'm going to, in 2024, I'm going to actively look for libraries that especially serve what what is known as marginal communities, and put exhibitions up there about reading and other civic issues. So that they can have, if they want to have an exhibition of my work, I can send them a box and then they can put it up.

Miranda Metcalf  53:43

That's beautiful, I love what you're saying about showing it in the public library. I'm the daughter of two librarians, so my love for libraries runs very deep. And I understand what an incredible resource, and something that's completely inconceivable of something that happens in the USA now. You know, this idea of, how about a free resource to educate people? That people can come in when it's cold, and they just have access to the most beautiful poets and engineering books. I mean, they're remarkable things, and the people who come in to them, it is people who are marginalized. It's people who are in danger sometimes. It's young mothers, it's... this is an audience that is not the people walking through the white sterile walls of traditional art institutions.

Amos Kennedy  54:38

Yes. And that is one of the things that I think what we call "art," that we have to... I would like to see them rethink. To say, I believe that all human beings love beautification. They love things of beauty. It's different for each one, but they should have access to that at all times. We should attempt to beautify our environment as much as possible. We should have, in coffee shops, in barber shops, wherever there is a space, an artist should say, 'Yeah, I can put something up there. I can put my work there.' So it will bring joy to someone, maybe not to everyone. But sometimes you only need to change one life. [Without it] being your own. You need to change from thinking about "I" to thinking about "we." You need to think about us, our civilization. One of the things I like about libraries is that it is the last of the public commons. As you said, anybody can go there, you don't need a card. In a museum, you have to have a membership, you have to show, at the least, you have to show that you are a citizen of that municipality so you have access to it. But that same municipality doesn't ask that when you go into a library. You can walk into library, you can pick up a book, you can sit down, use a computer now, you can read, you can read a magazine. And if you are a citizen of that political entity, you can check a book out. And if you're not, and you're a member of another one, you can probably check that book out on Interlibrary Loan. Which is beautiful.

Miranda Metcalf  56:45

Yep. Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  56:46

And it's one of the last institutions like that in this civilization.

Miranda Metcalf  56:50

Yeah, I completely agree. And that's sort of what I mean, when I was saying, like, it would never get started now. No one would ever say, 'Oh, yeah, we should put a bunch of public funding into the access of information for everybody, regardless of their social status.'

Amos Kennedy  57:10

I am going to disagree with you there.

Miranda Metcalf  57:13

Oh, good!

Amos Kennedy  57:15

I think that most people would say that. But the politicians that we elect to represent us won't say that.

Miranda Metcalf  57:23

Yeah, yeah. Good distinction.

Amos Kennedy  57:25

Because... before I came to Detroit, there was a measure on the ballot to increase the taxes by just a little bit in the three counties, Wayne County and two counties surrounding Detroit, so everybody could go to the DIA [Detroit Institute of Arts] who lived in those counties for free. And it overwhelmingly passed.

Miranda Metcalf  57:27

Oh, great.

Amos Kennedy  57:27

But the legislature, it would have never passed in the legislature. So if the people are allowed to speak, if the people say, 'You are not representing us, you are not giving us what we want, because here's what we want,' then that will happen. With the issue of student debt, I don't think there's a parent out there who is excited that their child may end up with $40,000 of debt. But the legislature, the powers that we call the powers that be, find it very comfortable. But nobody wants their child in debt. Most people would much rather say, 'I can pay for my kid to go to school!' Or, 'My kid can work the summer and at least pay their tuition.' But now, most students can't work a summer job and pay their tuition. And things have just gotten out of hand because our elected officials are deaf to the cries of the public.

Miranda Metcalf  59:04

Yeah, absolutely. In the time we have left, I want to make sure I get a chance to ask you about your trademark personal style. I wore the only pink top that I have today in honor of you, because I don't think I've ever seen you not in the overalls, pink t-shirt, or a layer - you've got the pink beanie on. When did that start for you? And how does that manifest as an element of your personal expression and your creativity?

Amos Kennedy  59:41

Well, I've always worn overalls off and on during my printing career, and more off than on, but there are images of me with overalls on. But it did not really manifest itself - it probably manifested itself in about 2005, when I was in Alabama. And I was doing research on civil rights, and there was a moment that bib overalls were adapted and worn by everybody. Even Martin Luther King, there's an image of Martin Luther King in bib overalls. And I realized that it was  the clothes worn by farmers, by the people of the earth. And also, they're damn comfortable. They stay up on you, they don't fall off. And I like the pockets. Yeah, they have lots of pockets. I mean, there's a pocket on the right hand side that is ideal for putting a pica ruler in. And so it kind of replaced the apron that most printers will have. And when the documentary - when Laura Zinger was filming her documentary that I'm in, she interviewed my mother, and my mother has this line: 'What's his latest thing? Pink shirts and overalls? If he's okay with it, I'm okay with it.' I saw that and I said, 'Okay, Helen, I'll wear pink shirts and overalls until I die!' I've been wearing them definitely since 2008. And here's the thing. Just last year, I went and I got some shirts done. And so I have this logo which has this African drummer on it that some people find very racist. And so I sent it to the screenprinter. And his first reaction was, 'I'm not gonna print this, because this is racist.' And somebody who knew me said, 'Well, he's a black guy.' And so he said, 'Okay, well, I guess I will.' And then I went to pick him up, and he was like, 'Well, what are you gonna do with this dozen t-hirts and dozen button down Oxford shirts that have this logo on the sleeve? You're selling them?' I said, 'No, I'm just going to wear them.' He said, 'What?' I said, 'Yeah, this is what I wear every day.' So every 5 or 10 years, I just go get a dozen, two dozen shirts. And every three years, I buy three pair of overalls. And it makes life so much easier.

Miranda Metcalf  1:00:01

I bet.

Amos Kennedy  1:00:12

As a matter of fact, I did a video call - before COVID, this was long before COVID - with a middle school. And one of the students asked me the same question. And my response to that student was, 'Because I can't go around nekkid.' And that ended the phone call. That was it. Teacher had no more control over the class.

Miranda Metcalf  1:02:47

Oh, Amos, that's beautiful. I feel like that's the perfect note to wrap up on. Can you please tell people where they can find you and follow you and purchase your work? Where are you out on the internet?

Amos Kennedy  1:02:59

Oh, on the internet, I'm really nowhere. My website, I brought my website down, because I don't want to sell on the internet anymore. I want to sell through stores, because stores pay taxes and taxes go to assist in some institutions that are very vital to our civilization. Also, I think people need to support those young people and middle aged people who want to start a store in their town. So that is where you'll be able to find me in 2023. When COVID hit, I basically shut down everything except my subscription, I have a monthly subscription where people will get a 6 by 8 card once a month from me. I kept that going. But sales have basically gone flat. But in 2023, I'm going to revitalize the stores and find out how many want to continue to carry my work. And I'm going to inform them that they carry my work as a loss leader so that it gets other people in and buys things. Because that's one of the problems, I think, with what the general public thinks about art and what art really is. They think art is $100,000 to $1,000,000. But no, art can be a $10 piece. And just for the people who listen to you, you should have things that sell for under $50. Because if a parent shows up at an event with their child, you can rest assured that that parent has spent probably $100 on a pair of fashionable tennis shoes or $60 on a video game.

Miranda Metcalf  1:04:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amos Kennedy  1:04:46

So if that child sees a $20 poster or $20 print, that parent will probably say yes. And if that child buys that, then you look that child in the eye and you say, 'Thank you, and you are now a patron of the arts. I hope you buy something every year from an artist.' Because that's the way people buy art, they have to be trained, they have to have the opportunity. And again, I tell people, if you were to spend $50 when you're 20, on a piece of art, and say, 'Every year I'm gonna spend at least $50 on art,' maybe after five years, you find yourself spending $200. And maybe after 10 years, maybe $2,000. But one thing is for sure, after 20 years, you have 20 pieces of art in your house, and you have an appreciation, and you may buy a $5,000 piece of art. But very few people start out buying $5,000 pieces of art.

Amos Kennedy  1:04:46

Yeah, absolutely. And so if people want to get in touch with you, if they're interested in coming to The Pile of Bricks or getting involved in the subscription program, what's the best way to do that?

Amos Kennedy  1:06:02

The best way to do that is to send me an email at kennedyprints@protonmail.com. And then we'll go from there.

Miranda Metcalf  1:06:22

Beautiful. And are you on Instagram or social media?

Amos Kennedy  1:06:25

I am on Instagram. And you can follow me on Instagram @kennedyprints. I don't post that frequently. But I do post occasionally. So I'm out there on Instagram. And I hope to get a website, my website hasn't been changed in 20 years, 25 years. So I hope to get a new website.

Miranda Metcalf  1:06:45

It's vintage now.

Amos Kennedy  1:06:46

Yeah, a vintage website! I like that. And yeah, just get in touch with me via email. And we'll go from there. You know, I'll get in touch with you. Normally I like to talk to people on the phone, because I forget more when I talk on the phone. And I get back to them. But yeah, I will be, as I said, once this is up and running, I just think it'll just be a word of mouth thing. And people just show up. Because that's the way it was before I moved to Detroit. People just showed up, called me up and said, 'Can I come over?' And I'm like, 'Yeah!' I had an extra room that people could stay in. So it worked out.

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:24

That's great. Well, thank you so much. This has been so fun.

Amos Kennedy  1:07:27

Well, thank you for including me in this podcast. I look forward to hearing it and sharing it. I will put information of this up on Instagram.

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:35

Oh, good. I'll send you some graphics and that kind of thing. And I'll let you know when it's coming out. Yeah. Okay. Thanks so much, Amos.

Amos Kennedy  1:07:43

Okay, Miranda, thank you, and tell everyone I said hello.

Miranda Metcalf  1:07:46

I will. If you liked today's episode, we have a Patreon where you can help us keep the lights on and get bonus content, like Shoptalk Shorts, where our editor Timothy Pauszek digs deep on materials, processes, and techniques with past guests. Also, if monetary support isn't in the cards right now, you can leave a review for us on your podcast listening app of choice or buy something from one of our sponsors and tell them Hello, Print Friend sent you. But as always, the very, very best thing you can do to support this podcast is by listening and sharing with your fellow print friends around the world. And that's our show for this week. Join me again next week, when my guest will be Dewey Tafoya, Master Printer and Assistant Director of the Professional Printmaking Program at Self Help Graphics. We talk about growing up in LA in the '70s and '80s and being exposed to the incredible Chicano murals growing up at that time, how Self Help was started by a nun and two queer Mexican artists, bringing art to the people through the pandemic, and what Self Help is going to do to celebrate its 50 year anniversary. You won't want to miss it. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing by Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you next week.