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912 Preinterview: Jeff Donaldson
by Katy Mostoller
10/3/97

KM: I wanted to talk to you about how you became an artist and also about your scholarship about the Harlem arts community in the 30's and then about how you came to found Africobra in relation to Augusta Savage's... if they had similar meanings. So I guess I'll just start off, when did you first know that you wanted to be an artist?

JD: I started making images when I was about three.

KM: Three?

JD: Uh huh.

KM: Wow. What kind of images?

JD: Drawings. I was mimicking my older brother who was going through a phase.

KM: A phase?

JD: Yeah. All kids go through a phase of drawing a lot.

KM: Did he end up being an artist?

JD: No, no, no. He was going through a phase.

KM: He didn't end up being a musician or anything, did he?

JD: Well he was a singer, but he didn't make his living at it.

KM: Ah. Did your parents encourage you?

JD: Not actually, no because it was detracting from my schoolwork. And there was no art in the schools that I went to in Arkansas at that time for black kids.

KM: There were no black children?

JD: No art for black children. No access to art.

KM: When was the first time that you...

JD: When I went to college.

KM: Where did you go to college?

JD: Uh, first time to Arkansas: AM & N; it's now called the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

KM: And then, you went to...?

JD: Illinois Institute of Technology for the Master's and Northwestern for the Ph.D.

KM: Did you give up on art for a while?