The
“Southern Gothic” Interview
with
Kam Williams
Alexander's
Candor!
Born
in Chicago, Illinois on September 21, 1965, Bridgette R Alexander is
a 19th
Century French Art Historian specializing in the racial and sexuality
construction during the development of modern Parisian culture,
singling out one artist, Edouard Manet, for deeper focus. She’s
also an independent curator and an art advisor.
Over
a twenty-year period, Bridgette devoted her attention to the art
worlds of New York City, Paris and Berlin, parlaying that experience
into a second career as the author of a young adult book series, the
Celine Caldwell Mysteries. Here, she talks about her latest novel.
"Southern Gothic."
Kam
Williams: Hi
Bridgette, thanks for the interview.
Bridgette
Alexander:
Hi
Kam, I am so pleased to talk with you.
KW:
What whetted your interest in writing, what whetted your interest in
art history, and how did you come to combine the two?
BA:
When
I started studying art history, I hoped to become an historian of
ancient Egyptian art and an archaeologist. I’d spent most of my
weekends as a teen at the Oriental Institute in the Education
Department and in the archives reading and studying in an unofficial
capacity with the Director of Education at that time. I would go to
the Field Museum and study there as well. Much, much later, long
after college, I returned to the Field Museum and taught Egyptian
Hieroglyphics to groups of children as an overnight workshop. I’d
teach them the Ancient Alphabet and then instruct them on creating
their own cartouche with their names. And then we’d spend the night
near, or sometimes for the daring ones, in an exhibit area of the
tombs.
But,
back to the point. It was much later when I changed my major to
Modern Art. I was living in NYC and started studying at Columbia
University. I learned I couldn’t actually major in ancient Egyptian
art history in that department. I was taking a number of modern art
courses, one particular course with Rosalind Krauss, and in her slide
presentation of modern masterpieces she introduced the class to
Edouard Manet’s Olympia, a painting of a reclining nude white woman
and standing right next her a clothed black woman. After that course,
I took about six more classes in modern art ranging from feminism to
theoretical constructs in modernity and, each time, Manet’s
painting kept coming back to me. It happened so often, I knew it was
telling me something…something more than the mere analysis the
professors were so brilliantly laying out. For one thing, I couldn’t
understand why so much had been written and discussed about Olympia,
Edouard Manet's seminal work, a painting so important it is what led
him to be known as the father of modern art. Thousands of gallons of
ink have been spilled about that painting and yet not one, real,
honest mention of the black woman standing in it. Years later, at the
University of Chicago, I centered much of my graduate study around
not only Manet and that painting, but around the life and world of
the standing black woman, whose name was Laure, and around the
thousands of African, Jewish and Arab female artists' models in Paris
during the Second Empire, which made up 60% of female artists' models
in Paris. I still want to write that story.
KW:
How did
you develop the confidence to pursue your dream of a writing career?
BA:
I have
written and told stories since I received my first diary as a young
child. Writing was a refuge for me, and a way to put my thoughts in
front of myself. Writing never challenged my confidence, but was
something I always needed to do, just as I live to tell stories.
Before I was 23 and working at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a
trader assistant, I already had the vivid sense that my life and work
were my own. When my grandparents died and left me alone as a young
adult, I was confident in my own decisions. I don’t mean to say
that the path was clear to me. It wasn’t until much later, when I
was a scholar of 19th
Century French Art History living in Paris that I finally awoke to
the art of writing as something I could pursue professionally. And it
wasn’t until a few years after that that I realized that my writing
had always been storytelling.
KW:
How did
you come to settle on young adult readers as your target demographic?
BA:
I
don’t think I’ve ever left my own young adult stage of life. It
is such an incredibly beautiful, complicated and amazing time for
most of us. We’re no longer a child that really needs momma and
daddy, but also not quite a full-on grown person. It’s probably,
and certainly it was that way for me, a sort of delicious purgatory.
KW:
How
would you describe your new novel, “Southern Gothic,” in 25 words
or less?
BA:
Lady
Macbeth meets the Gossip Girls for
a day of art, crime and culture.
KW:
What
was the source of inspiration for the book?
BA:
"Southern
Gothic" has many sources of inspiration. The book and the series
represent a revisiting of my experiences in the art world. The
historical material in "Southern Gothic" has a distant
source in my husband’s old Scottish Presbyterian family in North
Carolina. Religious groups and cultural sects in North Carolina
during the 19th
Century, like the Quakers, provided inspiration, too. And raising my
daughter helped me re-think daughters and mothers. The protagonist
Celine and her mother Julia are one result of that.
KW:
How did
you go about writing it? Did you create an outline to follow, or did
it come to you as you went along?
BA:
I
don’t create an outline per se, however, I do have to create what I
call “beats.” Writing to beats was not my creation, but a method
I picked up from another writer, and I love it. I go through each
action in the story and just write out the entire plot, subplot,
character arc, everything… It all just gets laid out so splendidly.
Even before I do that, the story starts to unfold in my mind as I
create scenarios for Celine Caldwell to inhabit. Of course, the story
sometimes changes when characters or plots refuse to go along with my
plan. Eventually, I give up and let them live their own lives.
KW:
Your
heroine, Celine Caldwell, is biracial and the plot involves a
lynching by the Ku Klux Klan. Did you consciously decide to have a
non-white protagonist and to explore sensitive subject-matter?
BA:
Yes,
I did. I wanted her to be absolutely different from me. I thought
about her as I rocked my own bi-racial daughter to sleep for
afternoon naps. I thought about what her life could look like – a
life of privilege, a life traveling the world at such a young age; a
life navigating through social circles that I didn’t and couldn’t
enter and, to a certain extent, didn’t want to engage with…I
created a girl that could go in and out of that world of privilege
and own it and see a lot of its ugliness. On the other hand, Celine’s
contact with the KKK is through reading old diary entries from a girl
her own age who lived in the 19th Century American South. I wanted
Celine to see her life juxtaposed with that of someone living in
dramatically different social conditions. I myself wanted to somehow
experience a life that extreme right along with Celine. And
throughout the book series, I attempt to continue that process. In
the second book, "Sons Of Liberty," scheduled for release
in the spring 2017, we’ll find Celine tackling a right-wing
political organization as it’s tentacles reach into her private
school while locking itself in a wing of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, creating total disruption in the name of “returning our
country to its greatness”. In book three, "Pasha," a
former arms dealer-turned-art patron is being honored by the
establishment of the art world but, unfortunately, Celine Caldwell
intercepts a fatwa that has been issued against the newly-reformed
art benefactor. Each of the twelve books in the series examines
social and political issues, without being preachy or didactic. And
the art, oh my God, I am so excited and thrilled about the art that’s
featured in the series. The art takes the reader through centuries of
visual culture from American portraiture, French Heroism and French
Orientalism to Modern and Contemporary Islamic Art. The series is a
beautiful journey through art history that is both sexy and
informative. I think that’s why my retail partners, Henri Bendel
and Clarins, are excited – developing and reaching new readers in
the way Celine Caldwell does is very appealing to them! So, through
this year, Henri Bendel and Clarins has partnered with Celine
Caldwell Mystery Series to present fun and exciting book launch
events at their stores across the nation. We’ve held a couple at
the Chicago flagship for a packed house. People are falling in love
with Celine Caldwell! If I may add, for more information on events
and locations, please visit http://celinecaldwell.com.
There,
you’ll also find our secret razzmatazz button for giveaways.We
also have original music created for each book in the series. The
music was created by Francisco Dean, a music teacher at the
University of Chicago Laboratory School. You can hear the music by
watching the "Southern Gothic" book trailer at
celinecaldwell.com. We’re also looking to option the series for
television.
KW:
Does
“Southern Gothic” have a message you want people to take away
from it?
BA:
I hope
the experience is as meaningful to others as I felt it, but no, I do
not have a message to convey.
KW:
How is
the progress coming with see your next book about prominent
African-American art collectors.
BA:
Wow!
The book is entitled "Black Market." It is a close
examination of prominent African-American art collectors and whites
who collect modern and contemporary art created by African-American
and/or artists of African descent. This book was alive and had a
publisher until the economic crash in 2008 threw the book market into
a tailspin that changed publishing forever. I interviewed over 150
black collectors and a few prominent white collectors. With Goldman
Sachs as a partner, I staged events called the Collector’s Circle
that included a few of the collectors featured in Black Market. The
events were held in art museums in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York
City. I completed all of the interviews around 2009 and photographed
close to a third of the interviewees. However, in light of our
post-2008 economy, which has brought a lot of amazingly new essence
to collecting art as a cultural custodian, I am interested in
interviewing a new crop of collectors, before finalizing the project
and getting it published.
KW:
Who are
some of the celebrities participating in the project?
BA:
I
talked
to Wall Street executives, prominent businessmen, such as Raymond
McGuire and Rodney Miller; museum directors like Maxwell Anderson;
and academics. Television and motion picture actors like CCH Pounder;
authors such as Terry McMillan, and Maya Angelou; Hip-Hop mogul
Russell Simmons and his artist older brother, Danny Simmons. Hotelier
and major art collectors Don and Mera Rubel; several well-known
sports legends such as Calvin and Grant Hill, State Supreme Court
Justice Alan Page, Darryl Walker and Elliot Perry, and many
powerhouse women, such as Dr. Joy Simmons, Eileen Harris Norton and
Vivian Hewitt who comes with an incredibly exquisite history in art,
including hosting salons for her friends, “Jake” Lawrence and
Romi Bearden. There are also plenty of wonderful, extraordinary
everyday people in the book. I collected some amazing stories about
fathers and sons, and about the connection between a man and woman
and how they became husband and wife; and the chilling story of art
lost under the weight of Hurricane Katrina. That particular story is
heartbreaking.
KW:
Who are
some of the artists whose works will be featured in the book?
BA:
You
know, a lot of the usual suspects for some of the older and/or
traditional art collectors: Lawrence, Bearden, Catlett, Gordon Parks,
Henry O. Tanner, and Harold Woodruff. However, for the contemporary
art collector, the more cutting edge or avant-garde collector, those
collections hold the likes of: David Hammons, Mark Bradford, Basquiat
and Warhol collaborative works, Rashid Johnson, Mickalene Thomas and
others. The list is utterly amazing.
KW:
AALBC.com
founder Troy Johnson asks: What was the last book you read?
BA:
"Pudd'nhead
Wilson" by Mark Twain. I read it for school when I was in the
7th
grade and have been dying to introduce the story to my daughter. She
and I just finished it.
KW:
Ling-Ju Yen asks: What
is your earliest childhood memory?
BA:
It’s
vivid, because it’s shrouded in trauma. I was 2 years-old and being
admitted into the Bethany Brothers Hospital to have my tonsils
removed. My grandmother bought me a little yellow pajama set with
white polka dots, something that I would wear after the operation.
She didn’t come with me; my mother did. I was really frightened
because my Madear wasn’t there. I was in the intake room, got my
temperature taken, had a little hospital gown placed on me…and was
then weighed, placed on a gurney, and rolled into the operating room.
Once inside, the sea foam blue room, a black oxygen mask was placed
over my face and the attending physician told me to start counting.
The next thing I remember was waking up en route to my hospital room
where a silver baby bed was waiting for me. I spent the night in the
hospital alone. The next morning, after screaming in pain from the
surgery, the nurses carried me around the hospital to meet some of
the other patients. One patient was a pregnant African-American
woman. I can see her so clearly right now. She was really cute and
her stomach was ginormous. Later that same day, there was some
terrible construction accident and some of the construction workers
were sent to Bethany Brothers Hospital. I shared my room with one of
the construction workers. I bet that wouldn’t happen today. Truly,
I was two and this did happen.
KW:
Who
loved you unconditionally during your formative years in Chicago?
BA:
My
grandparents--John and Bertha Talley. No one else, I think. They
loved me and made me believe in my own ability to be loved and take
that love out into the world and let it be my companion on my life’s
journey. So, because of them, I have lived and traveled everywhere
almost, by myself with no fears... because they loved me.
KW:
Was
there a meaningful spiritual component to your childhood?
BA:
Yes,
when I was around 4 or 5 and my grandmother read the story of King
David to me and talked about him all the time. I somehow loved David
and became jealous of him at the same time. I wanted the same kind of
relationship he had with God
KW:
What is your favorite dish to cook?
BA:
Midnight
pasta with a glass of Malbec. I learned this recipe while spending a
summer learning French technique at the French Culinary Institute in
Soho. I didn’t exactly learn it in class, but the kitchen staff
taught me after restaurant hours ended. You need a super good,
California extra-virgin olive oil, about five to seven garlic cloves,
red pepper flakes and several other ingredients.
KW:
What
was your very first job?
BA:
I
dressed
as one of five Mrs. Santa Claus selling summer sausages at the
Brickyard Shopping Mall for Christmas Holiday in Chicago. It sounds
messed up, but it was one of the best times I ever had on a job. The
Santa was drunk for most of the season; and fired because he pinched
a kid. The Santa who replaced him was even worse. And every time I
walked up to shoppers with a 15-inch sausage in one hand and a little
knife to cut a slice in the other, the comebacks I received from men
and some women were priceless. It was awesome!
KW:
When
you look in the mirror, what do you see?
BA:
A
dark skinned, shaved-head version of my mother, grandmother,
great-grandmother and aunt. Only I’m a little more fearless and
absolutely driven to be out and about in the world.
KW:
If you
could have one wish instantly granted, what would that be for?
BA:
Continued
vibrantly good health, and living on the Central Coast of California
in a beautiful Richard Meier modern home with a pool and guesthouse
with my hubby David and daughter Chloe.
KW:
What is
your guiltiest pleasure?
BA:
I don’t
feel guilt over things that I take pleasure in. If you’re asking
about unusual things that I take pleasure in that other people may
not, well…I have skincare. It’s been my indulgence since I was a
teenager.
KW:
Is there any question no one ever asks you, that you wish someone
would?
BA:
Yes,
what
was the true impact your grandparents, John and Bertha Talley, aka
June and Madear, had on you? Answer: They saved my life. Their
pragmatism kept me living right at my means; their drive and desires
for me allowed me to reach for the seemingly unreachable and then
push myself further. Without them, I would have never had the nerve
to leave Chicago on a Greyhound bus for NYC with $20 in my pocket and
relocate to Manhattan with no place to stay. They gave me the
composure to find a job as an usher for Radio City Music Hall and
eventually get a first-class education.
KW:
Judyth
Piazza asks: What key quality do you believe all successful people
share?
BA:
The
ones I have known are driven, focused, and doggedly committed to
their goals. They definitely do not take their business or
professional setbacks personally or allow emotions to cloud their
judgment. I love them and I envy them, like I did with King David.
KW:
What advice do you have for anyone who wants to follow in your
footsteps?
BA:
You
better love who you are, because you are going to spend so much of
your time alone with yourself, you better be happy with yourself. If
not, fix it.
KW:
Thanks
again for the time, Bridgette, and best of luck with "Southern
Gothic."
BA:
Thank
you, Kam.
To
order a copy of "Southern Gothic," visit:
