That’s not a typo: it’s just travis, with a small t. travis is unclassifiable: painter, performance artist, noise punk rock front man, urban gardener, world traveler, speed-demon of a typist. We met up in April in Backstory Café and talked about his current work, his travels, his experiences with Rainbow PUSH and Johnson Publishing, and how, one sultry summer in the 70s, as a young Vietnam vet on his way to New Mexico to become a Kundalini sikh, he was seduced by the varied pleasures of the City of Big Shoulders. He joined a noise punk performance collective called ONO (short for onomatopoeia), wrote a master’s thesis on shotgun shacks, and continues to make art that responds to the pressing realities of his neighborhood.  

Those realities are black men in prison, black men in wheelchairs, surveillance cameras, backyard flora and fauna, urban detritus, the old folks and kids on his block. He’s comfortable working at a tiny scale or with expansive grandiosity. His response to gallery rejections has become a vehement performance art piece in its own right: this is what he means (the commercial demand for brightly-colored, decorative, representational works) when he talks about “painting flowers” with scorn. Though he does, also, paint flowers. This is an edited version of a few fragments of our conversation.

Originally published in Proximity, no. 5, Fall 2009, pp. 70–76.

Rebecca: Can you talk about your neighborhood and how it affects your art?

travis: I’m a South Side Chicagoan, two and a half miles from Indiana. Living where I do I can’t not rethink ideas about art. My values cannot be the same as an Englishman’s, a Dutchman’s or anyone from Europe. You’ve seen the stones and the detritus. For me that is even more legitimate than oil painting. For instance, it is important to include burnt rubber because there are rubber factories nearby producing detritus that companies just discard. And you see me frame paintings with carpet tacks, my “crown of thorns,” which people dump along the roadway. That is my landscape.

Rebecca: It’s about what gets thrown away, but also what grows, right?

travis: Absolutely.  Often the things we plant, even grass planted in gardens, overlays local biota. But for me it is important that the local biota be allowed to live. And not just live but also to thrive. I get really concerned about how that can be juxtaposed against people, like Native Americans. Well, where are they now? There is a relationship. People and plants and animals aren’t that far removed from each other. I planted a vegetable garden. That produced a bumper crop of squirrels, raccoons and possums and other wildlife that do not play. These are frightening animals. So nature is doing what she does best; that’s fun watching, but I’ve also learned to deal with snakes in my house.

Rebecca: Snakes in the house?

travis: When I bought my house, I let local grasses grow in the back garden. They grew so tall people asked, do you need to use my lawnmower? I was given a lawnmower. My 96-year-old neighbor understood: “oh, you like the look of the thing.” I said yes. And I slept in it some nights because the lights go out down there, gets really dark. And then my neighbor two doors down saw a snake in her basement. That terrified me. The idea of snakes in my house is even worse than water coming in. Then the very next spring, lo and behold I came down to the basement and there’s a snake. I said no! I’m just imagining this because I’ve heard it. But it was, and then there was a second snake. I’ve never seen them outside the basement, so they don’t come upstairs, like “snake ascending the stairs.”

Rebecca: That’d be a good painting! So what kinds of things are you working on now?

travis: Okay, what am I up to? Well the world gets smaller and smaller in my heart, which is good for me — very portable. Lately I’ve been working on ideas about invisibility, portability and prisons.

Rebecca: And surveillance.

travis: I’m amazed at the number of cameras up and down Stony Island. The number of cameras impacts property values so it’s interesting to observe where the cameras are and where they are not. And how that relates to what is and what is not happening in terms of antisocial behavior. What types of antisocial behavior require cameras versus behaviors that do not. And what is the impact upon politics, economics and the environment.

Rebecca: And there’s also the question, if the cameras are in a certain place, does that mean people will just go where the cameras are not to do their business?

travis: No. Alderman Sandi Jackson talks about that — I love it — she brings the police with her sometimes, and she says, okay folks — it’s not that she’s against them, by any means — we have these cameras, watch the behavior around the cameras. The cameras, yes, do photograph, but they circulate. The camera circulates inside the frame and the kids — people, not just kids, grown-ups too — they’ve been able to discover when the camera is not on them, do whatever they have to do, and you can’t prove that they’ve done the deed because you haven’t caught them in the act.

Rebecca: So what do you think your relationship is, with these paintings, to representation and bright colors?

travis: I’m falling further and further away from any acceptance by gallerists who have already denied me. In fact I think denial emboldens me, because my images are no more pleasant than they ever were. And I’m far more interested in representing Black teen pregnancy and young Black males in wheelchairs than exhibiting airport art in Gallery Guichard, the U. of I. or Nicole Smith Gallery. I’d like to think that someday, poetic justice being what it is, kids studying Black art will ask “what were you doing in your time about the issues of your day?” Answer: “I was painting flowers!”?

Rebecca: I guess the thing I wanted to ask, though, is — I mean, it’s clear you’re dealing with some tough issues here, you’re representing issues of the day and thinking about prisons and surveillance but you do have some brilliant colors and you do have representational images. Is that an ironic approach to those things — a response to those gallerists?

travis: Brilliant color has always existed in my paintings, but often I overlay cemetery soil, snakeskin, broken glass. In the end what started as blood red is now soot, or radically textured tonalities. What’s on my mind with the brilliant stuff is that it’s vibrant red, blue and yellow for a purpose.

Rebecca: With the ones that focus on invisibility, it seems like you’re offering a representational image but withdrawing it at the same time. Does that make sense?

travis: Um, it makes sense but it wasn’t on my mind when I was creating. I do have series in which that very idea was on my mind, but then they turned into lynching paintings. The trees and flowers are incredibly beautiful and perfectly represented in natural colors. Black gallerists say, “paint flowers,” but conflict is the heart of all art.  Lynchings were generally committed in nature — surrounded by medicinal plants and flowers. And so I look at nature, this natural environment, and I took the story of Laura Nelson and followed her death. In Oklahoma where she and her son were hanged from Okemah bridge, river banks lush with local biota. In Money, Mississippi, the Tallahatchie River overflows with both wildflowers and diamondback rattlesnakes. There’s nature, and the death of nature as well.

Rebecca: Nature by itself doesn’t save you.

travis: I’m 63 years old and I haven’t lived 63 years just to paint you a flower. Time is very valuable to me. I’m a Native American/Black male from Itawamba, Mississippi. I’m not supposed to be here now. I’ve overspent my time. How valuable is the time that I spend doing “Art”? Art for Art sake is not a value in Itawamba. Maybe later, when I am old, I will enjoy that luxury. Right now I don’t have that luxury.

Rebecca: Is part of what motivates the gallerists’ desire for paintings of flowers the idea of “positive images”?

travis: Black galleries are filled with flowers, promoting Black self-loathing and self-hatred. Big houses full of dead flowers. And I can’t say that I understand that, especially since the artists, and I’ve asked a few of them, have never grown a flower and would not know how to tend to one in a garden. They don’t even know CPR if I were a flower dying! … Sorry about that.

Rebecca: No that’s ok. That’ll make good copy.

travis: For me, “positive images” is about Bayard Rustin. Whenever Martin Luther King Jr’s name is mentioned Rustin’s should appear in the same sentence. It was Rustin who introduced King to the idea of nonviolent resistance. Do the people who run galleries think the revolution is over? I mean when the children ask them “what were you doing for me in 2009?” It was Rustin who organized the March on Washington, identified with MLK, and he, Bayard, who took the guns out of King’s house, was forced to carry a gun by Black, sexist preachers who still cannot deal with human sexuality. That God is not big enough to define masculinity – that nature is not big enough — for me, that artificiality – I’m getting warm.

Rebecca: What artificiality?

travis: There are many different layers of artificiality. Art, of course, is artificial. But my life is an artificial life. I’m many people in the course of the day. I’m a Black male having a conversation with you, a White woman, in Backstory Café. I’m a very different person job hunting. I am roots-less, even though I’m Native American. I am fragmented upon Eurocentrism, to which I must defer, refer and confer. My ego has to be strong enough to repeatedly annihilate itself, and deconstruct post-modern America. Otherwise, I don’t know how Black men on the street can possibly live a normal life.

Rebecca: Can you talk more about the street — your experience in the community?

travis: I spend a lot of time watching, listening and driving. Winter, streets get quiet and then suddenly springtime, you notice a difference in the tenor of the voices and what people are doing. And there are so many difficulties finding jobs, or maintaining interest in finding jobs — and that’s something Blacks haven’t dealt with. What kinds of employment would make Black youth want to work? And are those jobs available? Is it not possible to create more interesting work, for youth especially? When I installed my show at the South Side Community Art Center people walking past me on the street asked, what can I do? I felt bad because I had nothing for them to do. They were genuinely interested in what these weird paintings looked like. These people were not at the opening, never been inside the gallery, and they have no relationship to it. You’ve got one community inside the SSCAC, but one block east there’s a huge housing complex so that there are enough people – in summer it’d be really fun to promote art series involving non-art people. I did this on my block and it was great.

Rebecca: What did you do on your block?

travis: It was really fun. Seniors said “we’re going to have a block party” and I said great! The city sent a fire engine; the alderman sent an inflatable moonwalk; one neighbor played dance music all day long; women cooked and baked. I bought paint, brushes and canvas board, and worked in the middle of the road with old folks who admired the large paintings on my lawn.  We played. Immediately, kids started experimenting too. People hung their original work in their houses. They’d never created an art object with their own hands that they felt was as important as the pictures of flowers they buy in malls and furniture stores. The kids built travismobiles and space packs out of large cereal boxes.  Wearable space packs, with rocket firing devices on them. That’s what I’d like to see gallerists who talk about flowers do. You don’t have to worry about what the images look like, you can see it in the face of the kids, what more positive image than THAT.

Rebecca: Is that the kind of thing you’re going to do at the South Side Community Art Center?

travis: Not yet. I’m collaborating with 12 artists, and I want them to choose first. Like, if nobody has decided that they will deal with the entrance to the center, because this is a HUGE installation project, I want to cover the entire entrance to the SSCAC with white pillowcases, advertising sleeping pills.

Rebecca: Can you tell me more about the performance work you’re doing now?

travis: Recently, I did a performance here, at Backstory [café at the Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone in Chicago], called Colored Noise.  Negro Noise:Volume 1. I recorded colors of noise, and their frequencies (white, pink, red, blue, violet and gray), and I put them together. Of course, the intellectuals here had a good time debating emotional frequencies. The next show I do in this area will tackle black noise: Computer generated noise. ONO will play. My lips move, but no sound will come out of my mouth. Black invisibility: You can talk all day long — nothing comes out of your mouth.

Rebecca: When you perform solo, is that also ONO, or is that only when you’re with the group?

travis: Alone I am travis.

Rebecca: It seems like ONO is performing a lot more lately than you did for a while.

travis: We’re performing now more than ever. Since January 5, 1980. In fact, we’ve never played all winter before, but we played all winter this year. It’s been a lot of fun. P. Michael, the leader of ONO, insists on revisiting songs I wrote long ago. He remembers lyrics I wrote in 1980 that I’ve forgotten. He’s brilliant on guitar, bass, and keyboards. He writes performances that surprise me to high heaven because they are highly dramatic pieces and they are always issue-oriented. It’s not “here’s like a little ditty, and here’s our second little ditty”– NO, no. Everything springs from a well-defined premise and you can actually hear and feel the movement from beginning to denouement, an incredibly noisy experience. I used to tell audiences, if you came expecting music, I will give you your money back. Why? Because I want to be able to use detritus, metal, broken glass. I bring bags of street glass and amplify it, because it’s what I know. And it gives me a sense of connectedness, that what I’m doing has a value that isn’t just paying the mortgage. I’m not suggesting that’s a bad thing either, but if I can meet mortgage and still create work that’s relevant to my personal ideas about community, that’s Mississippi activism. Now they want us to do noise festivals. That will be fun!

Rebecca: How did you get into performance?

travis: I arrived in Chicago summer 1976 on my way to New Mexico to become a Kundalini Sikh. I’d already published poetry. Curiously enough, Johnson Publications would not hire me, even as a typist. All I wanted was a summer job, because I was just driving through. After Michigan, I decided to take a diversion, drove up Lake Shore Drive, and I was convinced to stay for the summer. I submitted job applications, and one of the places was Johnson Publications. I said well, I type 95 words a minute, I take shorthand at 140 words a minute, somebody should be willing to give me a job. A woman named LaDoris Foster gave me a typing exam and I’m sitting there taking it — and people would come by, peek in and sneer.

Rebecca: Was it — did you look like a hippie?

travis: I’m sure that I looked like a hippie to them. Like a punk/gay hippie. (In the Black community, their behavior is called signifying.) Because I was wearing my Kundalini garb.

Rebecca: Ah.

travis: Two pieces all white, 100% cotton. Sikhs wear white, a turban, the whole 9 yards.

Rebecca: And you still wear white.

travis: Yes. White extends your auric presence. And so your pure energies are more clearly projected…. So I don’t get that job, but Northwestern University offered me a job at the Law School, and that turned into an incredible experience. I met Amanda Wallace Brooks, and her insanely brilliant daughter Cathy, a Shakespearean actor, loved reading my poetry. So Cathy’s friend, P. Michael, hears my work and wants to create sounds for a piece called “The Nigger Queen,” which still isn’t finished, but he wanted to do it, and Cathy would be involved, and the three of us would perform my work. Well, Cathy disappears and Michael starts writing spectacular sounds to accompany my words. He called me one day and said, “go to Clark Pawners and buy this lap steel guitar and do not get lessons.”I experimented.  P.Michael liked the noise. It’s been that way until now. In 1980, well, a few years later, we formally involved other performers interested in sonics, NOT music. On the CTA, Dean Louise Love introduced herself, then led me through both NU Undergraduate and Graduate School, then to Dr. Dwight Conquergood.

Rebecca: You were doing drawings a long time before you started painting?

travis: Yes. I started painting on April 1, 2001, after visiting museums in Paris. My friends Conor and Elizabeth regularly said “fly to Brussels for your birthday,” or “fly to France,” and gave me flight tickets.  Off I go! Germany:  Took the train — and that’s another story — to Prague, and I’m there admiring the Opera House. It’s surreal, so I go in.  Instead of entering the Opera House, I accidentally enter an art school next door.  On the third level there’s all these students and a security guard and this kid, behind a steel screen — nobody speaks English. Everybody speaks German, Russian and Czech – the kid looks down, sees me and throws his bookbag to the floor, “my friend from America!”

Rebecca: He just knew?

travis: I don’t know! I became completely unhinged. The kid rushes over and grabs me with a big hug, “my friend from America, come!” Frenetically, he introduces me to security, friends, teachers, international artists, everyone!  An hour later, he says, “come! We go to my father’s.” As we jog, he’s talking nonstop! We meet his father, who it turns out is the Czech poet of the year that year, and very well-known. For days we are inseparable, until I’m invited to go away with him and his activist friends to Spain to protest. “No, I’m an American. I did not come to Prague to get arrested protesting. … I agree with your sentiment, but No….” We’re still best friends. Even wilder was the train getting there. The Orient Express, I take from Germany to Prague, in frigid cold. I choose a car containing a football team. I thought okay, this is the car for me. Outside there’s just nothing as far as you can see but snow and ice. And the train would turn and you could still see nothing. And all the cars are painted matte black. It was very foreboding. Eventually the lights go out, the footballers start lighting candles. Beer carts come through, but they’ve got their own beer. Then out comes these big blood sausages. And then they invite me right into the madness. In no time at all I was staggeringly drunk! I was as drunk as when I was a sailor. Mind you, I understand none of what they’re yelling and singing. Hooting.  Howling.  Cheering.  They won the championship. They are PUMPED! They take their pants off, flying clothing up and down the aisle. Then they insist I sing with them. I am deeply embarrassed to admit this, but what do you think I sang? “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland.” Me!

Rebecca: You sang THAT?

travis: Yes!  Drunk off my ass singing “Dixieland” in Germany.

Rebecca: It just came out? Unconscious?

travis: Yes! And they sang with me. This went on for hours. One guy phoned his girlfriend who translated back and forth. She eventually asked for a copy of the tape. I sent all the raw footage.

Rebecca: Wait, you were filming?

travis: Yes. Everybody was. They wanted to try out my Camcorder because it was the big new Sony, and they had the previous version. This was camaraderie I haven’t known since the military, which was the first time that I’d actually been around men in my entire life. The footballers were in this place that sailors and other men in hyper-masculine environments know so well; cuttin’ up, actin’ ugly! Then came checkpoints where you present your passport, I think there were three of them, and each time the train was held up because I have one name. Police called in armed security teams. I’m not named for a saint.  That was an issue. Then, I have only one name. All these security people come, and they would stand there, puzzled. And each time — I was so amazed by this — the footballers would start their chant and encircle the armed police. Imagine me amid two or three security people with guns, and then slowly ALL the football team members, the whole car!, would gather around, chanting:  “tra-veese, tra-veese, tra-veese,” louder!  Louder! Eventually the security people would just cave. Each time they just gave up.

Rebecca: So wait, does your passport just say travis?

travis: Absolutely.

Rebecca: So you legally changed it.

travis: Yes.  That’s another story. Ooooh. “Your honor, I am a bastard.” The whole courtroom got quiet. They freaked. You can’t say that in good company. The judge asked me why would I want to change my name. Why would I want one name? And, mind you these were all lawyers taking care of land deals, and so they don’t have to stop while one case is going on. But, clearly the lawyers hear everything. My case is called, and I answer the judge’s question:  “Well, first, your honor, I am a bastard.” BOOM!  Briefs dropped. People stopped in their tracks, some mid-stride. I turned back and looked at the courtroom, there are people standing stunned, mouths gaping. Although I was telling the truth, it was like the end of civilization. So the judge looks out over his courtroom and says, “I am NOT going to challenge that. You can have whatever name….” And he signed. Judge O’Neil. The eleventh of February, effective 11AUG87.