Ricardo Levins Morales describes himself as a “healer and trickster organizer disguised as an artist.” The social justice artist is celebrating 50 years of artistry and activism, and he’s visiting Portland in November to attend Portland Jobs With Justice’s annual dinner as the keynote speaker.
Morales was born in Puerto Rico during the anti-colonial movement and spent his teenage years delving into the world of organized activism and protests in Chicago with visionary groups such as the Young Lords and the Black Panthers. He sees his art as “medicinal,” as a way to address trauma individually, collectively and historically.
Morales’ current organizing efforts beyond the art studio include workshops on trauma and resilience for organizers, creative and strategic training for organizing, sustainable activism, and mentoring young activists in his community and nationally.
SEE MORE: Look at more of Morales' artwork on his website
Casey Miller: What do you believe makes a social protest effective – and how is this seen in your artwork?
Ricardo Levins Morales: It really depends. What are the conditions? What’s the balance of power for a protest in a concentration camp? It’s a lot different than a protest in a workplace. It depends on how much leeway you have, and how much organization you have. So there’s no single answer to that. It’s like saying asking what kind of medicine is most effective? What’s the condition of the patient, you know?
Miller: What artists and activists have influenced you over the years?
Morales: Oh my gosh. Well, I learned to do art by copying art. I dropped out of high school, so I never had any formal education in it. One of the main influences on me was one of the Puerto Rican screen printing masters. Screen printing is a highly advanced art in Puerto Rico, where I’m from. So, he was a major influence there. Also, cartoon artists, caricature artists, because I started out doing a lot of political caricatures.
In terms of activism, there’s a long line of political ancestors. My parents were both involved in the anti-colonial movement in Puerto Rico. When we moved to the States, when I was an adolescent, a major influence was Fred Hampton, who was the leader of the local chapter of the Black Panther Party. We did very creative coalition-building work across racial boundaries. That has still left an imprint on how I think about organizing.
Miller: Did these two cross when you were younger – activism and art? Had you met people like yourself where you purposely make art about social justice issues you’re passionate about?
Morales: When I was young in Puerto Rico, I wasn’t really much aware of other artists. It was drawing, it was just something I did as a little kid, inserting myself, making up stories. I didn’t really have anything that you could call media access up in the mountains – no TV or magazines.
I think the real key for me is not that I (purposely) connect the two, but more that I’ve always drawn what’s important to me. And when I was 5 years old, that was chicken. When I was 8, it was pilots. Now, it’s resilience in the face of oppression. But there was never a moment where I said, “Well, I’m going to connect these two separate things.” It just came up through the roots, the things I cared about at different times in my life. So that’s what’s reflected in my art.
Miller: Can you describe your first real encounter with social justice movements? Was it when you moved to Chicago?
Morales: In Puerto Rico when I was young, we would sometimes go to protests and nationalist events and things like that. As I wasn’t directly exposed to organizing or protest building there, I would have to say yes, it was probably when we moved to the States. That was in 1967, to Chicago. There was a lot going on and a lot of protests, whether it was an anti-war, second-wave feminism, the black power movement– especially the Panthers gaining a presence. There was a Puerto Rican version called the Young Lords organization active in Chicago. So it was really an environment of turmoil.
Miller: How has activism changed since you were younger and first started to participate in social justice causes?
Morales: A number of ways. I mean, certainly the technology has changed for the better and for worse. When I was first organizing movements, our version of the internet was telephones, leaflets, handouts, papers and bulletin boards. Now, of course, you have various social media networks, though most of them are controlled by hostile corporations, so it’s a little bit vulnerable.
Another way – my initial experiences in organizing were with people engaged in a lot of different kinds of organizing work, but they all considered it to be part of one current called “The Movement.” Nowadays, it’s more people considering themselves part of the immigrant rights movement or civil rights movement or gay rights movement; they’re thought of as different movements. And that’s probably the legacy of 40 years of a nonprofit system that really funds people according to rather narrow definitions of their needs rather than a broad narrative of social change. So, that’s one of the major differences.
Another more positive one is that I see young activists coming into movements as they emerge engaging in art and creativity, like having “art builds” where everyone gets together and makes signs or banners or whatever it is that they need. In earlier periods, it was a real battle to get organizers to understand how useful art could be.
Miller: So, you’d say that protesting has become a lot more creative?
Morales: I’d say that the importance of creativity is a lot more widely accepted.
Miller: You host workshops on trauma and resilience for organizers. How does grouping with others help solve individual traumas?
Morales: A lot depends on the health of the organizing effort. If you just sort of step back and look at what a social movement is, the purpose of it really is to restore power to people whose power has been taken away. And that’s also kind of your elevator definition of trauma healing, because trauma is about the loss of power and you need to restore that and restore a healthy narrative about what your experience meant, which gets scrambled when you become traumatized. That’s also the process of an entire people reclaiming their identity, reclaiming their history. They’re really essentially the same process but happening in different scales.
Miller: Can you explain why you call your art “medicinal”?
Morales: If I am involved with, say, a local or community group or some group that is trying to organize, the first question – kind of my doctor question, my diagnostic question – is what is keeping this group of people feeling powerless? (What is keeping them) from tapping in and understanding how powerful they are? Not what is the external force that they’re facing, but what about what’s internal? What is it people believe that keeps them from understanding how powerful they really are? Because the enemies of justice are very well aware of how much power poor people, working people have. We ourselves tend to forget it, right? So then the art that I create is meant to counter whatever that story is, which is as widely varied as any kind of cultural identity can be.
Organizing is really a question of shifting people’s stories. And what is your story about yourself? That’s something you can see very clearly with the current president. For example, the way he tries to achieve policies is to first convince people about stories. If he can convince people that immigrants are dangerous, then the policies follow that.
And that’s equally true with struggling for justice. You need to create a narrative that really allows people to organize and gain support. For example, if everybody in the community believes that school teachers are lazy, apathetic, greedy, and don’t care about kids, you’re going to have a hard time when you need good contracts for teachers.
My basic mantra with organizing is that the soil is more important than the seeds. The stories that people believe is what determines whether your organizing seeds, your projects, your initiatives are going to take root.
Miller: Can you tell me about the process of creating your art, from conception to final touches?
Morales: Conception can really come from any place. Inspiration can be that I run across a quote or I want to depict a certain issue or there’s a story that feels compelling that I want people to know about in terms of history. Or I feel like, oh, I haven’t used charcoal or I haven’t done crosshatch for a while. So the spark can come from all kinds of different directions.
When I’ve decided to make a piece, then it comes down to sketching initially, or researching if it’s something that requires historical or cultural accuracy. Then I look up the information that I need in order to make it recognizable to the people most directly affected by it so that it feels authentic.
Then the material I use is called scratch board, which is a clay surface on a wood backing. I brush onto it with ink, with black ink usually, scrape it with knife plates to get the textures, and then add watercolor over that. I come out of a printmaking tradition and my art really has that aesthetic to it, but it’s not actually printmaking form.
Miller: Finally, do you have a favorite piece, and why?
Morales: Um, no. (Laughs.) I just finished opening an exhibit of 50 years of my work. The first pieces I had were done as a teenager, and looking at that range, there are posters that were just perfect for a particular moment but really don’t necessarily have much relevance now except as a piece of history. But they’re all my children. They were right for what they were. There’s some that I use more than others. There’s some that I use in organizing workshops frequently, but the posters are really only meant for a small group; it’s only a small group of people it’s going to be meaningful to. But to them, it’s going to be very meaningful.