The Art of Radical Appreciation
Ugandan Artist Leilah Babirye, Mother's Day, and the merits of kissing our artwork
Hello wonderful GUT/DrawTogether friends.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate. The holiday is a joyful day of gratitude for many of us. It can also bring up complicated feelings for some, and grief for others. Or all of the above! Whatever you’re feeling today, I hope we all take the opportunity to appreciate someone who took care of us and loved us into becoming who we are — and appreciate how that helped us learn to love, too. Past, and present.❤️❤️
Spoiler alert: this is the theme with our drawing assignment this week.
Let’s start off this very special Sunday off with a few exciting GUT news alerts:
GUT hits the Road
GUT member
is taking DrawTogether ON THE ROAD!! She’s travelling across the west in her sprinter van, meeting up with DrawTogether GUT members around the U.S. to draw together!! First stop: Albuquerque, New Mexico, where GUT members Catherine and Tanya Mueller met up to draw. (I die from happiness.) If you are between Santa Fe and Boulder and want to meet up to DrawTogether IRL, DM ! Bonus: Catherine will have some rad DrawTogether hats to give away soon... Swag + real life GUT friends? 🥹❤️✏️
“DrawTogether Strangers” in the wild!
GUT members @Jo and
hosted a DrawTogether Strangers event at New Haven, CT’s ArtWalk and it was a hit! If you’re interested in hosting DTS, you can download the free toolkit here, complete with instructions, scripts and suggestions. An easy, fun way to use drawing to build community, care, and hilarity.
Caroline’s Paperback Giveaway & Maira’s Netflix titles!
A little GUT-visiting artist news, too: This week, former GUT visiting artist, writer extraordinaire, Caroline Paul launches not one but TWO paperbacks on May 13: Tough Broad extols the benefits of outdoor activity on women 50 and over, and Gutsy Girl, a YA book that encourages girls to practice bravery (which I proudly illustrated.) GUT Members: leave a brief comment and tell us about someone who inspired you to be brave and creative (indoors or out.) A randomly-selected GUT member will receive a gift set of BOTH books, and a set of DT x de Young pencils!
Finally, did anyone see that GUT visiting artist, Maira Kalman, drew the title sequence for the new Shonda Rhimes/Netflix murder mystery The Residence? Love seeing drawings appear in unexpected places. So inspiring.
Alright, on with the DT GUT show!
de Young, part 2: Leilah Babirye
This week we continue our series based on the little sketchbook/scavenger hunt I made for the de Young museum. This week, it takes us upstairs to the Art of Africa galleries to check out the work of featured artist Leilah Babirye.
Walk into the de Young’s upstairs gallery and you can’t help but be immediately struck by Babirye’s sculptures’ bold, formidable and uncompromising forms. They are complex, layered, visually interesting. You can’t look away. Then, once you start reading about Babirye’s story, you can’t help but become even more invested in her art. More than just spectacular work, it reflects her activism and personal journey. A true DrawTogether GUT artist.
Born in Uganda, Leilah Babirye creates artwork that celebrates queer identities. She confronts the harsh oppression of LGBTQIA+ people in Western and Central Africa by reclaiming the regions’ artistic traditions for her own queer community.
Babirye started drawing in high school. She wanted to continue studying art in college, but her parents refused, insisting she focus her efforts on law. But the law school and art school were right next to each other at Makerere University, and one day she saw a woman, Lilian Nabulime, carving a giant tree stump by hand. Babirye recalled, "When I saw Dr. Lilian doing something I thought was supposed to be done by men, I said, ‘Could I do this?’”
Babirye eventually convinced her parents to let her join the art school and she began studying with Nabulime and other women artists.
“That’s when I started making real art.”
Babirye’s art took a turn in 2011 when Ugandan educator and LGBTQ-activist David Kato was assassinated in his home. Being Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer and/or Trans is illegal in Uganda, and as the LGBTQIA+ community publicly mourned and protested his murder, they wore masks to hide their identities. Babirye decided masks would be the focal point of her work, as a way of exploring and representing the lived experiences of queer people in a homophobic society. She said, “That’s when I started making real art.”
Her conservative professors were not supportive, but she pressed on.
Babirye began experimenting and expanding the idea of these masks, adding found materials to her ceramic and wood sculptures. She considered this making beauty from “trash” — a layered concept, as the word for “trash” in the Lugandan language is used as a common homophobic slur. In interviews, she has also talked about finishing her sculptures’ hair as “taking them to the salon,” contextualizing the salon not just as a place of beautification but as a joyful, safe space where people can gather.
The titles she chooses for her artworks are based on different clans from the region. Naming them after clans is her way of asserting belonging when so many queer Ugandans experience rejection from their families. Uganda’s homophobia can be traced back to British colonialism, so these names also are a reminder that Ugandans have their own cultural history of greater freedom and acceptance.
My work has changed a lot. When you look at my earlier works, even way back home in Uganda, they are about pain. … We’ve been in too much pain as gay people. We’ve been arrested too much. We’re crying. But at the end of the day, I’m like: When are we going to stop lamenting? When are we going to stop crying? How can we fight back and say we’re done? So my work has come from pain to adjusting it to things that I feel like, “Okay, this is us. We are beautiful. We are good.” Just giving my works beautiful names is reclaiming our history.
— Leilah Babirye, interviewed by Ksenia M. Soboleva in The Brooklyn Rail
After being publicly outed in Uganda, she received the Fire Island Artist Residency and applied for asylum in the United States. Now based out of New York, Babirye also celebrates the beauty of Black American culture and continues to address LGBTQIA+ issues and lift up queer communities through her art.
Give our artwork a kiss
Watch the video below from the de Young Museum of Babirye at work. I love how she talks about the importance of listening to the material she works with, and how she often gives her sculptures a kiss.
Thank you Leilah Babirye for your incredible work. Your work inspired the drawing exercise in the de Young’s kids sketchbook, and this week’s Grown-Ups Table drawing assignment this week: drawing appreciation for the people who have helped us rethink what is possible, and loved us into being who we are.
Grab your pen, pencil, chainsaw, and let’s do this together:
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