← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Reverence Joyce McDonald's Sculptures Receive First Museum Exhibition
00:15:50
Artist Joyce McDonald's ceramic pieces and archival materials are the subject of a new exhibit at the Bronx Museum.
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- [00:09]
A
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. It's the fall season, which means new art shows are at the museums and galleries. We'll start with a show at the Bronx Museum by a woman who refers to herself as a testimonial artist. Her name is Reverend Joyce McDonald. Born in Brooklyn, New York, her life has been full of loss, healing and transformation and is the inspiration for her sculpture. Almost 30 years sober, she has been living with HIV. She's been working for four decades. And now, for the first time, there is a museum exhibition dedicated to her work. It's called Ministry. The show assembles more than 75 artworks and photos between the years of 1999 and 2002. Ministry is on display at the Bronx Museum of Art starting tomorrow, Friday, September 5th. Joining me in studio is artist Reverend Joyce McDonnell. It is so nice to meet you.
- [01:08]
B
And thank you for having me. This here is beautiful here.
- [01:11]
A
May I call you Joyce?
- [01:12]
B
Oh, sure. Okay.
- [01:14]
A
Joyce.
- [01:15]
B
Yes.
- [01:16]
A
What conversations did the Bronx Museum have with you about having an exhibition for your show?
- [01:23]
B
Well, it was basically like four years ago because I'm a longtime member of Visual aids, that's the agency for artists that has. That's HIV positive. And Kyle has spoken about that. He saw a vision of me having an art show in the Bronx. Oh, wow. And myself, you know, art is so up close and personal. That was like, too big for me to even think about, you know, and here it is. I was just thinking last night, and here it is. That time has come and so many things has happened between the time that he said this and it's really here.
- [02:04]
A
Religion is a big part of your life.
- [02:05]
B
Yes.
- [02:06]
A
The show is called Ministry. How did Religion come to your life?
- [02:10]
B
Religion? Well, my family were born again Christians, and I was raised up in a Christian home. Unconditional love, and they used to call us the Black Brady Bunch. My dad took us on trips. He enlightened us. He used to take us around to museums and things like that. But I, you know, a couple of things happened in my teenage years and I kind of strayed away. It was so, like, slow and. But I strayed away. And before that, I believed in God because my parents believed in God and I saw how they were, but not because I necessarily believed. And when I did come to a point, after 25 years, through all kinds of stuff, all kinds of stuff, she. Building straight jackets, kidnapped. Everything is all through my work. I was standing on the street one day in my neighborhood and I heard a voice because I used to always Hear voices. It would say, jump in front of the train, negative thing. And this voice said, go to church. And I remember laughing, saying, I haven't been to church 30 years except for some of the people. There's so many people that died from AIDS and drug addiction. Only funerals. And I went to proceed upstairs. My mom was in church, my two daughters, my sister and I, you know, as an intravenous drug user. And I remember shooting these. I will say it was my last drugs, basically. And then the next thing I remember because I always had these, like, seemed like out of body experiences. Next thing, I blinked my eyes, I was at the church for real. And I'm like. And I walk up the steps and the pastor, who is still my. He's my pastor today. He said, we've been praying for you a long time. And I remember walking up, I didn't see anyone in church, nobody. And I remember that day, he said, you want to change your life? Come as you are. Give your heart to God. And I did the prayer of imitation. Ask Christ to come in my heart and forgive me. It's like my whole life changed. It didn't change that exact moment, but I felt God implanted. And from then on, by that time, my daughters were like 14, 15. I had been to 60 detoxes. I was always trying for something, but I didn't know what it was. I could never find what it was. But that day when I asked God the Lord to come in my heart, it really, really changed me.
- [04:52]
A
Is that the point when your creative expression came forth?
- [04:57]
B
Matter of fact, what happened was I had been going to the detoxes. My sister, I was just speaking to her this morning, dad, she brought me an art pad and a scripture key book. And I couldn't sleep. That I remember. I couldn't sleep. And so when I couldn't sleep, I would just read the scripture, key book, whatever I was reading. And I would sketch a picture. And I did like 13 or 14 pictures. I still have the booklet now. And then when I looked at it, they were the things, the deepest, darkest secrets of my life in sketch form with a pencil. And that's what began to unlock. It wasn't so much of the art, it through storytelling, it was a part that I had never. A lot of things I had never told anyone.
- [05:44]
A
When did you get involved with sculpture?
- [05:47]
B
I got involved with sculptures in. I believe it was in 1995. Okay, just to go back a little bit, the same pastor, Reverend Dr. Marvin Z. Taylor. When I came there as a new, you know, Convert. And I was happy because I. Something had lifted off me. 25 years of. I just felt new. And he asked me had I ever been tested. And I didn't feel like I needed to be tested. I had gained my weight back, and I was happy. And I said, tested for what? He said, tested for hiv. He said, I'll even take you to my doctor. I'll go with you. He did all these things because in the community that we lived at, hundreds. I had hundreds and hundreds of friends that did not make it, you know, And I did go and get tests, take the HIV test, and I tested positive. But by then, God had made such an impact in my heart, in my soul, that they said, well, Ms. McDonald, you know, you have HIV, you can have AIDS. And I had already had HIV for 10 years.
- [06:59]
A
Wow.
- [07:00]
B
So I started going. My doctor. Doctor suggested I go to an AIDS day program and educate myself. And while I was there, you know, I was like, wow, this. Because I always promised myself I was not going to live if I was HIV positive. I seen how families love their. They love their family members, but not enough that they wasn't afraid to have them in the house. You know, that whole 1980 era. And they had this art therapist. I was sketching little pictures, and he said, I'm gonna give you some clay today. And I remember a song my dad used to play when we would go on Trips. He took 100 pounds of clay. And it's like when I started with clay, it's like something came alive in me. I never had classes. I never knew what I was gonna make. Oh, interesting. It just would come. And that's how it's been. It was secret, but the detox secrets, where it came up in sketch form. Now, it was coming up in clay. Wow.
- [08:03]
A
My guest is Reverend Joyce McDonald. She has her show at the Bronx Museum. It's her first. It's called Ministry. One of the earliest pieces in the show is called A Taste of Sweetness after near death from 2001. You can see it on the Bronx Museum website. It's a picture of a woman in sort of a purple dress with her hands. Class looking up at the sky. She's not that big. Tell us a little bit about this piece and what story it has with your life.
- [08:36]
B
Right. The piece that you're speaking about. It's like different art pieces bring out different things. I believe it was around the time when I got diagnosed with a hurtful cell at Sloan Kettering and they had to take my thyroid out. But in that surgery, which was Supposed to be a day surgery. I had a near death experience. I had cold blue. I wound up in the hospital for a week and. But when I was there, when they gave me the surgery, they didn't get a chance to take. They did the surgery, they took me back to my room, and then I began to bleed profusely in my neck. And then I remember telling the nitrogen doctors, I'm HIV positive. They all went out, they came back with those big space aliens. But the thing about that moment was I felt God. I met God. They recut my neck open. They had pumps and everything. I was cold blue. But it was this taste of goodness, this taste of free. Was like they were even. People were coming, saying, are you going to sue? I said, no, I can't. This was the best. I would have never met God. Like I did.
- [09:51]
A
And you were able to create the piece of.
- [09:54]
B
So afterwards I was on home rest. And that was the piece, the first sculpture I did. It had staples in the neck.
- [10:00]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [10:01]
B
Right there's, I believe, in there somewhere that has staples. And the lady in the purple was like, the goodness. I could just feel it when I was making the sculpture. I never know what expression or where anything is going to come from. So that was like a moment of just to see appreciation, love for God.
- [10:22]
A
For people who go through the show and they see your sculptures, what do you hope they think?
- [10:27]
B
I hope, you know, whether they read the story or they may identify something for themselves, that they know the situations that you go through, like the situations you live through, the situations you make, it is not the end, the simple fact. Because with the things that I, you know, that's represented in my art that I didn't plan to show anybody. Right. It's like shared healing. It's like hope. It's like there's just nothing too hard for God to do, no matter what depth. Because I felt like I lived in a depth of despair. I felt like I lived in hell. And I have a lot of sculptures that represent my mom. My dad passed away early, but he was a photographer. But my mom, I believe she prayed me out of hell.
- [11:19]
A
For anybody who's interested in seeing some of Joyce's work, you can go to our Instagram stories. Llofnyc I'm speaking with Reverend Joyce McDonald. Ministry is the name of her show opening at the Bronx Museum on September 5th. What is a piece in the show that you knew had to be in the show?
- [11:40]
B
Well, I have a piece that I'm going to bring to this show. And because the last two years, out of all situation, I have. The last two years I have been through where I thought I had been through something before. I've been pulling it out of her bag. She's pulling it out of her bag. This, this was my. This, this was my first piece.
- [12:07]
A
Oh, she's gorgeous. Oh, she's gorgeous. It's a woman. She's bent on.
- [12:12]
B
It's funny. Yes. And I have made this sculpture many times because there's sometimes, you know, during this 30, 40 years, my spirit feels that way. You know, sometimes it's comfort and it's a poor woman crying out. I don't know what made me put her in my pocket. Yes.
- [12:34]
A
When you are speaking to people who are looking for an outlet, a creative outlet of some kind, what advice would you give them? Someone who has lived quite a bit of life?
- [12:45]
B
Well, I believe everyone has creativity in them. I believe everyone, if they just put their hands on some clay, I believe everyone can bring something from the inside to the outside that would have. It's a healing power that come through creativity. Sometime I wake up in the middle of the night. Not sometimes, most of the time. And I happen to walk past some clay that happened to be on the table. I don't plan to make anything. I don't plan to allow most all of the matter of fact, most of my work is unplanned. I don't know what it's going to come to until it's finished. Some of it, I don't know what it means until after.
- [13:28]
A
You don't have. You don't have any sense of it?
- [13:30]
B
No.
- [13:31]
A
What kind of mind are you in when you're creating a piece like that?
- [13:34]
B
I know. Like I said, I started at the AIDS Day program. Yeah. They said, we hope it's no fire because she can't hear. I go all the way into a place. I remember one while it was something going on and I wasn't creating and I didn't understand why, you know, I was doing my prayers, I was doing what I do to stay spiritually strong. But then once I got back to clay, because I never took a break off it again, I felt that something was missing. I had to create. It's like the story about the potter and the clay. God spoke to Jeremiah and said, arise, Jeremiah. Go down to the potter's house. There you will see him working on a wheel. Jeremiah went down to the potter's house and there he seen the potter reworking the clay. So, like, my work represents reworking, you know, And I'm being reworked daily. I just came to a thank you, Lord. I had a stroke on my 30th sober year. That morning caused the bleed. And then the very next year, I got diagnosed with sinus cancer. And I just. You know, I have some sculptures. And I think that's why I brought this with me, too, because it's dear. Cause I went through 33 radiations in my head and neck, you know, but still, I still created. I create at one year, I had shingles. I had.
- [15:07]
A
And you're always creating.
- [15:08]
B
It was called between the screens. I would do art between the screens. Most of it. I remember when I had the code blue I told you about, and they had called my parents. They called everybody to come.
- [15:24]
A
All I can say is I am so glad you were having a show at the Bronx Art Museum.
- [15:29]
B
I'm so glad to be alive to be there.
- [15:32]
A
Yes, and yes. The show starts tomorrow. It is by Reverend Joyce McDonald. Ministry is a name. It's at the Bronx Art Museum. Thank you for making the time to come and see us. And thank you for showing your art to us.
- [15:46]
B
Yes.
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A
We'll be back after a break.
- [15:51]
C
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- [15:56]
B
I'm always honored to meet fans out in the wild.
- [15:58]
C
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- [16:02]
B
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- [16:05]
C
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- [16:08]
B
Sign what? The app. Yeah, sure.
- [16:11]
C
Oh, that means so much. Oh, it rubbed off the screen when I touched it. Could you sign it again?
- [16:16]
B
Anything to help, I suppose.
- [16:18]
C
You're the best.
- [16:18]
B
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