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New York archive event
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The National Conference of Artist, the Center for Black
Literature of Medgar Evers College, Friends & Family of Tom Feelings,
will celebrate his life and legacy with a 2-day memorial, Friday,
February 27 and 28,
2004. Our dear brother, master illustrator, sculptor and very popular nice
guy, made his transition on August
25 after recently learning that he had cancer. Family and friends joined
him in his fight of this dreaded disease, and held a 70th birthday party
for him on May
18 (the day before his birthday) in his longtime community
of Brooklyn, NY. He had never had a birthday party prior to this, and
wanted to celebrate with his friends, not knowing how bad the condition
was.
Friends started a fundraising drive to send him to a
facility in Germany that specialized in cancer patients, but he became too
weak to travel and was hospitalized in South Carolina until he got strong
enough to travel. Tom traveled to a similar facility in Mexico, but the
cancer had spread too far, and time was not on his side.
The first memorial tribute, sponsored by The Center for
Black Literature of Medgar Evers College, will take place at Medgar Evers’
Founder’s Auditorium, 1650 Bedford Avenue, followed the
next day with a memorial service and salute sponsored by Rev. Johnny Ray
Youngblood’s St. Paul’s Baptist
Church, 859 Hendrix St., where Tom suggested as his choice of place for
celebrating his homegoing.
Both tributes will be held in his beloved Brooklyn. A partial list of invited guests include, Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka,
Jim Barnes, Elombe Brath, Ernie Crichlow, Errol
Doris, Cy Edwards, Paul Goodnight, Rev. Marshall Hatch, Eli Kince, Atiba
Kwabena, Sylvia Huen, Abbey Lincoln,
George Edward Tait, Quincy Troupe, Randy
Weston, Louis Reyes Rivera, Camille Yarbrough,
Bunch Washington, Askia Muhammad Toure, Chairman Silas H. Rhodes of the
School of Visual Art, The Putnam Avenue Group, Imani Dancers, Drummers and
Singers and the St. Paul’s Community praise ministries.
Many of Tom’s lifelong friends, and some new ones have
pitched in to form a committee and production team headed by Co-chairs,
Kwame Brathwaite, NCA president and Dr. Brenda Greene, Director of The
Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers.
Committee members and friends, Richard Barclift, Gloria C.
Thomas, Gertrude Harvey, Khaliyah Washington-Seely, Gwendolyn Wilson,
Lillian Harvey, Lafayette Robinson, Grant Spears, Surya Peterson, Izell Glover, Jimmie
Mannas, Emmett Wigglesworth, Kitty Chavis, Betty Thomas, Abdul Aziz,
Miriam Francis, Brenda Mattingly, Otto Neals, Pat Cummings, Ruth Edwards,
Joan Banks and Matthew Meade, have put together a program that includes
friends from all over the U.S. This tribute is endorsed by Kamili
Feelings, Tom’s youngest son and executor of his estate.
Copies of many of Tom’s books, The Middle Passage: White
Ships, Black Cargo; Jambo Means Hello; Moja Means One; and others will
be on sale by Nubian Heritage Bookstore at both venues.
 | Tom Feelings
His mighty pen connected continents of Africans
from Ghana to Guyana to Haiti and Gullahland
griot of the Middle Passage
the triangular trade of human flesh and souls
he gave the blueprint of remembrance
for those suffering amnesia and passivity
a quiet giant whose brush was razor sharp
whipping and stirring broken souls into shape
if they only looked at his canvas
a mirror for millions in the Diaspora
a map of the past, present and future
describing the happy times and mournful moments
in our daily round
Tom made us not forget the bigger picture
called humanity and eternity.
--marvin x
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| Tom Feelings
Tom Feelings is a legend. I met Tom when I attended my first NCA
Conference. I was a college student, not too long out of Vietnam. It
was a very confusing time and I needed clarity to develop structure in
my life. I met some incredible people such as Jon Onye Lockard, Samella
Lewis, John Biggers – too many to list here. Tom impressed me by what
he said, changing my view completely on art and its contribution to
society. He simply told me to be responsible for being an
image-maker. It was the first time I heard passion used in the same
sentence as substance. Clearly, I was moved and realized that life has
an order to it, and for each stage of growth there is rite of passage.
Tom quoted “Each rite requires sacrifice blessed with insightful gains,
wisdom being one of them.”
People like Tom have made great sacrifices because their contributions
are enormous. Tom has used miles of conté crayon and graphite to
develop some of the most powerful images about our history that I have
ever seen anywhere. I often ask myself where did he find the time to do
all that work and how did he do it so well. He did not concern himself
with this. His only concern was how much time he had left and that the
work had to be done.
Tom was always reassuring me that what we are doing as artists is a
necessary reminder of our humane existence in the world today. Without
Tom’s positive influence and people like him, we can become very
vulnerable where greed and jealousy becomes normal conversation. Lazy
stylists are thought of as nobility and mediocre talent is considered
genius.
Tom could not afford to be lazy and mediocrity is not a consideration.
Mr. Feelings moved in a direction that lifted our spirits, brought
meaning to our lives and showered us with unforgettable messages of
hope. This hope is a train, a train moving with the colorful sounds of
Duke Ellington -- a train moving with the powerful pen of Langston
Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. When we look from the window of this
train the landscape is changed by the magnificent power of Richard
Hunt’s and Augusta Savage’s sculpture strewn throughout this earth from
coast to coast. Moreover, the inside of the train is covered with the
collage mastery of Romare Bearden. This train is covered with integrity
and truth, which shines like a prism, shooting its light in every
direction on all coasts from the incredible image that lies within the
pages of the book called the “Middle Passage”. This book taught us how
to mourn and to celebrate ourselves. A book of no words to show us that
truly a picture is worth a thousand words. It taught me that every
race, creed and religion was involved with the slaughter of a trusting
and thriving civilization for capital gain. Tom reminded me the only
true victim was the African woman. She gained an inner spirit, an
energy that fortified us beyond our own comprehension.
This book was more powerful than the man who created it. Nevertheless,
it could only take a person with inner resolve and a strong sense of
history to manifest such a visual piece of literature. This is genius.
Thanks Tom for your sense of humor and I thank the Creator for you.
Paul T. Goodnight
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| Tom was one of my best teachers, my biggest fan, and
my greatest support. I take solace in the fact that his work will live
on and in knowing that few other people have ever enriched and educated
the world to the extent that Tom did.
Ruth Edwards, book artist
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| The passing of award winning illustrator, painter and
visual artist Tom Feelings on August 25, 2003 was a tremendous loss to
the African-American art world in particular and, as quite as it is
kept, the art world in general. Recognized by most of his peers in the
craft of illustration he had achieved and outstanding measure of success
in a career, which spanned from at least the late 1950s until his death
last month. It was a career where Tom sought to graphically erase the
stereotypical depiction of African people who had been far too often
made the subject of burlesque and ridicule by non-African artists by
replacing their decadent and derogatory images with his depictions of
our people in their historic and everyday occurrences. Where others
sought to denigrate and defame African people throughout the world Tom
would illustrate their humanity and their beauty during common
historical experiences and in the contemporary period, which he
witnessed with an incomparable insight.
From his early comic strips featuring Tommy Traveler, who traveled
through time and space to recapture our history, to his sketches in his
beloved BedStuy, Ghana and Guyana and the American south to his
masterpiece, "The Middle Passage: White Ships Black Cargo" Tom
Feelings painstakingly portrayed Black people all over the world with
his exquisite artistic skills guided by an unsurpassed expression of
love. In my humble view, his "Middle Passage" helped set a visual
background for many to understand and appreciate the growing clamoring
demand and movement for reparations.
A devotee to the creed of "Black is Beautiful", Tom stayed the course in
using his splendid talents to advance the liberation struggle of African
people all over the world. He was a role model who truly understood that
those who have been blessed to have received distinguished skills from
our ancestors to make our lives more comfortable should not at the same
time opportunistically enrich themselves at the expense of dehumanizing
their people. And during a time when far too many pretentiously proclaim
their newly founded Afrocentricity, he quietly but steadfastly
maintained his dedication to projecting a graphic profile of Black
people's deeds and accomplishments with his revolutionary love for
Africa and its toiling masses. Indeed, ironically, perhaps the only
contradictions that he had during his life with life, was with his name,
for he definitely didn't have any Tom feelings.
Elombe Brath
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| I went to visit Tom in Guyana 1971 (or so!) But he
wasn't home! When I finally got to meet him stateside we laughed about
that for years. He was a wonderful human being and an artist who
inspired me to never give up. I remember him showing me his early
drawings for the middle passage. He had been working for about five
years on it at that point. He told me it would probably take ten or
twenty more but he was going to do it anyway, it needed to be done. I
told him being possessed by projects like that, you won't have a life
for ten or twenty years. S'pose you wanna get married or something. He
laughed. "Dindga, I'm already married to my art. "Uh, huh." I said and I
knew he was right, I felt the same way about my work. I'll always
remember him, his big smile, and his incredible art.
Dindga McCannon, artist, fashion designer
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| Dear Friends, NCA GHANA CHAPTER sends her
sympathies and condolences to NCA USA and the bereaved family on the
death of TOM FEELINGS. MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE.
B. OFFEI - NYAKO (BON), Chairman NCA Ghana Chapter
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| Tom Feelings was always one to probe and look beneath
the surface for new meanings regarding people and events. He once told
me that my weekly columns in a local NY Black newspaper were much too
timid. He was right. He seemed to love truth, art, and his Africanness.
Cultural historian, teacher, citizen of the world, especially the east
and west borders of the Almighty Atlantic, Feelings was in many ways
Joyce's portrait of an artist as a young man and beyond. What do you say
about a Taurus man named Feelings with whom ladies loved to love? His
name speaks volumes in trying to understand him. Wise men say that a
life is measured by what you do between birth and death. Feelings did a
lot to make the world of his family circle of friends and art
enthusiasts, a better, prettier place through his art, as one of the
architects of a 20th Century African Diaspora aesthetic. The epicenter
of his universe, his art flowed from his feelings and perceptions. After
talking with him, I always learned something new about people.
At one with Spirit, Feelings lives through his fine art, which dons the
walls of so many homes on all sides of the Atlantic.
Victoria Horsford
New York based writer
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| I loved his parties in the loft space in Manhattan.
He was always warm and friendly.
Fikisha Cumbo Photographer/writer
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| Tom Feelings’ art was in the tradition of Charles
White and John Biggers. He committed his talents to expressing our truth
and beauty, and celebrating the spirit of our Black nation. He was my
hero and I’m privileged that he considered me his friend. I love him.
Ted Ponteflet
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| Matthew Meade,
longtime friend, and neighbor on Brooklyn’s Putnam Avenue writes from
Brazil. In 1962, I received a scholarship to
the Ivory Coast, from Operation Crossroads Africa. Upon my return, I
approached Tom and several other young friends about organizing a
creative educational response to the distortion of African history being
produced by non-Africans. Tom, who until this time was earning a living
producing commercial art as well as drawing images of the beauty and
creativity of our people, readily agreed. Our cultural and education
project would consist of a series of illustrated, well-designed and
written, biographies of little known (in the West) African heroes and
heroines. The first publication was a brief history of the life and
times of Samory Toure (1963). Samory
Toure was chosen because of the distorted image given to him by a French
author, I
had read while coming back from my three months in the Ivory Coast and
Ghana. To my mind, Samory Toure was the beginning of Tom's epic, The
Middle Passage.
I shall never forget the dedication of the group to the project and that
of Tom in particular. On one occasion, I asked Tom to redo an
illustration twice. Imbued with his search for excellence the burgeoning
master artist did so without rancor. Such was the character of the man
and artist that ego had no place in, as he always said, "getting the
work done".
At times during his struggles with the Middle Passage we discussed the
work at his loft in Manhattan. Strangely, the Middle Passage seems not
yet complete despite it’s publishing and world-wide acclaim-Tom was the
consummate perfectionist.
Tom accompanied me to Brazil in the last days of the previous decade.
Everywhere, he gave copies of the Middle Passage to the people. Tom
left us not yet having reached the pinnacle of his potential
greatness. A large void has been left by his passing, but thankfully we
have his prolific body of art to mark his passing.
Fellow artist and lifelong friend Richard Barclift writes, “Tom Feelings
honored us with his awesome talent. In one stroke of his skillful pen
the beauty that was submerged as a result of hundreds of years of
self-negation and self-hatred could be freed up for our embracing and
healing. We thank him for allowing the creator to have used him so
masterfully in our psychological spiritual and esthetic liberation. So
take your place with those great ancestors, we will continue the work on
this plane. To our beloved brother, we love you, we honor you, we
celebrate you.”
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| Tom Feelings honored us with his awesome talent. In
one stroke of his skillful pen the beauty that was submerged as a result
of hundreds of years of self-negation and self-hatred could be freed up
for our embracing and healing. We thank him for allowing the creator to
have used him so masterfully in our psychological spiritual and esthetic
liberation. So take your place with those great ancestors, we will
continue the work on this plane. To our beloved brother, we love you, we
honor you, we celebrate you.
Richard Barclift
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Working with Tom as Art Director for Dial Books for Young Readers -- and
sometimes as designer -- was to work with an artist who had his own
vision of the total: the result of the art, the design and the
reproduction. From TO BE A SLAVE to MOJA MEANS ONE, and throughout the
process of creating Tom's books including THE MIDDLE PASSAGE: WHITE
SHIPS BLACK CARGO, we aimed to carry out his vision.
Well into work on THE MIDDLE PASSAGE, we listened to Tom's
dissatisfaction with the complete set of full-color proofs of the art,
and started over with a completely different method of reproduction and
printing. The result is unique, beautiful and strong -- as Tom had
wanted it. The message of the book is overwhelming and universal.
I am grateful to have worked with Tom on his books, and particularly
remember how eloquently he spoke at the opening of his exhibition at the
Schomburg, and how he chuckled when he arrived at Dial one day to repair
the adhesion of some rice-paper layers of art, with his old handed-down
electric iron, handle wrapped in cloth, ready to work.
Atha Tehon
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| Tom Feelings was truly an extraordinary man, both
because of his personal attributes and the depth of his talent and
sensibility about the enslavement of his forbears.
I was the publisher and editor of all of Tom's books beginning in 1966
when I asked him to illustrate a book I was going to publish -- To Be A
Slave by Julius Lester. I had seen Tom's work in Freedomways, a small
publication (not a book or magazine), and immediately recognized his
talent. I asked him to do sketches, as has always been customary in book
publishing. Tom said he didn't do sketches, but if I didn't like his
drawings he would do them over. I decided to take a chance, and his art
was perfect for the book. To Be A Slave was named a Newbery Honor Book
and is still in print.
The Middle Passage was, of course, Tom's major work and I had it under
contract for 20 (!) years, during which time The Dial Press, where I was
Publisher and Editor-In-Chief, was bought/owned by three different
companies. Each time the parent company changed, I got a call saying,
"You don't want us to buy this old contract do you, Phyllis?" I said,
"If you want me, you have to buy the contract." Around the time The
Middle Passage was published in 1966, I contracted for The Southern
Years, which was to show what happened to the Africans as slaves in the
South. I told Tom at that time that neither of us had another 20 years.
Unfortunately I was right.
I also made sure that the company sponsored/ supported two shows of
Tom's artwork at the Schomburg Museum for Black Culture.
Over the years of working with Tom and publishing all his extraordinary
books, we became good friends.
In 1999 I was given my own imprint at Penguin Putnam, Phyllis Fogelman
Books, and Tom called to congratulate me. Then right after I lost my job
in November 2002, I had a family wedding in California and because of a
major snowstorm in New York I couldn't get back to the city for several
days. By the time I returned home, I had 3 phone messages from Tom
saying he was worried about me, and asking how I was doing. When we
spoke he kept saying how I was the first one to publish Black authors
and illustrators and that I'd always be recognized for that -- obviously
trying to build up my spirits. But not once did he say he was ill.
I was and am heartbroken that he is no longer with us. But for those of
us whose paths he crossed, Tom will be in our hearts forever.
Thank you.
Phyllis Fogelman
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| Benny Andrews, master artist speaks for all of us when he said, “Tom
Feelings, a talented and giving person whom I admired and respected will
always have a special place in my heart. All of us will truly miss him.” Tom Feelings, a talented and giving person whom I
admired and respected will always have a special place in my heart. All
of us will truly miss him.
Benny Andrews, artist
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