interview with imani cheadle on “retrouvé”

OLIVE: how about you tell us about yourself and your relationship to creating and how you got started in this medium?

IMANI: i'm  a person who has to make things and has to create things. for me, it's  an instinctual need to make things. and it hasn't always been drawing. drawing has been a very constant thing for me through my whole life. whenever people ask me, “when did you start drawing?” i'm like, i  didn't stop drawing. ?  everybody draws when they're young. kids draw all the time, but  people, for different reasons,  stop doing it as they get older. but i  never really stopped doing it. i  always enjoyed it…people are often like, “oh, you're very talented in this” and to me - talent is an applied passion. right? so  of this luck aspect of talent  being whatever genetics, life circumstances, however you were raised, your environment - it leads you to have a passion for something. so my luck is being passionate about this thing, which means i've spent a bajillion hours doing it, ? and still finding enjoyment in it and still doing it as much as i can. so, yeah, to me, making art and drawing is a very instinctual thing. it's  something i did my whole life and i never really stopped doing it.

OLIVE: that's such a beautiful answer. i like the point about how everyone draws when they're a child, and then it  kind of dies off for a lot of people.

IMANI: yeah. a lot of people are discouraged. ? that's where the luck part of the passion comes in, , i used to draw all the time in school: in class, on my assignments, in the margins of my notes, much to the chagrin of many, many of my educators. and a lot of them discouraged me from from drawing. ? a lot of them, they were upset that i would draw, and  if it wasn't such a necessity to me, if i didn't love it so much, if i wasn't so passionate about it, then i would have stopped. that's probably what happens to a lot of people. or they have this comparison between others, and they  feel like, “oh, i'm not gonna be good enough,” so they  kinda stop.

OLIVE: would you say that drawing is your main form of expression or one of many? well, you said it's one of many.

IMANI:  it's one of many, for sure, but it's the most constant. drawing is something that has always been very accessible to me. , it's easy to pick up a pencil and draw. so it's always been because i'm kind of a lazy artist. like, it's easy for me to draw versus i also like to paint and i sculpt and, , i guess i play music, which is another  art, and i act, and all these other artistic pursuits, but i've always–

OLIVE: a renaissance woman. 

IMANI: yeah! if i do all of ‘em. basically anything that's  creative, i'll try. but, yeah, drawing has been the most constant because it's the most accessible. i can kind of do it anywhere. and when i have that  creative itch it’s easy to draw. 

NATI: i love that. i guess my first question is what did you start drawing and how has that evolved since then? what does your artistic process look like and what are your inspirations? do you still draw the same things? 

IMANI: yeah. when i started drawing, it was much more self centered. when you're young and you're a kid, you're kind of figuring yourself out. and so a lot of the art would center myself and things that happen in my life and those sorts of things. as i got older and i started reading books and watching anime and getting into all these other things, that's what i started drawing. i'd be inspired by those things, and i would make fan art of stuff. i've always liked drawing animals, too. i spent the last 4 years really trying to figure out how to draw horses–it's very hard! i'm not figuring it out! they're very difficult! but i like to draw pretty things, like pretty people.  i also used to make up – i still do – but make up stories and draw characters from these stories that i was creating… as for my artistic process, i have a very love-hate relationship with my artistic process because i find that it is, it’s almost like it's a toddler? it's this very petulant little creature that … it wants what it wants when it wants it. and i have a very difficult time sitting down and thinking about something that i'm creating. being like, okay. i have from 4pm to 5pm off. i need to work on whatever thing i'm working on. let me sit down and think about it. my brain will go everywhere. but if i have something to do, oh, suddenly, the idea comes to me! suddenly, i have this creative impulse, and i get kind of hijacked by it. so it's a fun ride when i'm along for the ride, but it's a very inconvenient ride. so yeah, my creative process is kind of all over the place.

NATI: i have a very similar creative process. do you ever work well under a deadline? how do you navigate that balance between i need to submit this, but also that's not how i work best?

IMANI: i've gotten better at it over time. i definitely was not very good at it to start. i'm still not fantastic at it. but something that helps me is: i have to with the first idea that i have. like, the idea for the comic came to me all at once, as it usually does. i always try to do a rough sketch through, like, panel out to get the ideas down so that i have the foundation for it even if i'm not feeling creative. i know that it's a muscle that i can work. i know that i can draw even if i'm not feeling creative. no, i'm not feeling inspired to do it. but i have the basis, all i have to do now is realize the idea that i had, then clean everything up and make it. it’s leaning how to work with the creative process. if i waited until i was feeling inspired to complete everything, i would never get anything done.

NATI: do you remember what you were doing when the idea for the comic came to you?

IMANI: i think i was gonna vacuum my apartment. i was like, i need to vacuum before it's dark out. you can't vacuum at night. that's so rude to everybody.  i shouldn't be making all this noise. i did not vacuum. i started thinking about it, and then i had to sit down and really plan it out.

NATI: it took it over.

IMANI: yeah.

NATI: to the inspiration's point of the question, are you inspired by other artists, other styles of drawing? are there any other comics…

IMANI: oh  absolutely. yeah i don't know how to find my style. a very interesting thing is that, as you continue to draw, you stop worrying about that because you start to realize that your style is made up of every single thing you've ever liked. like, i know i am an unintentional thief of things. i find artists that i'm like, i love the way that this artist does this. it's so, so beautiful, and i wanna be able to draw like this, or i wanna be able to make something like this. and i'll steal the little things you know? like how this person draws noses or this person's line art or this style of shading that they do. yeah, my art is a collection of all art that i've ever loved. and with my own personality and my own hand. so it's hard to pinpoint an inspiration because i've had so many. there's a lot of really cool digital artists online that i have followed whose art i love. they’'re incredible, i wish i could do that.

NATI: dude. i love that. also, the bridge you made between people as an extension of their [experiences]. art is a collection. it’s what i say about my life all the time. i am a collection of all my favorite people and all of the people i have ever loved. they've all deposited little pieces into me that have made the collage of my personhood. so yeah, i love that that.

IMANI: yes.

OLIVE: can you tell us about your choice for the the forest as the environment and what the function of the landscape shift was?

IMANI: yeah. part of me wants to say i've been influenced by fantasy and video games, there's always this forest element to these things. but if i were to think deeper than that, i feel like there is an intrinsic feeling of fascination with the forest and the woods. there's this preoccupation.

its ancestral in a way that - [think of] our prehuman predecessors who lived in the woods, who lived in trees. i mean, if you put your finger in a newborn baby's hand and they grasp your hand, that's an instinct that they have, that you lose as you get older. but that instinct is to hold on to your mother. like, that's from when we lived in trees, and babies would cling on to their mother's backs. so there's that instinct. also, if babies fall backwards, they have this instinct to reach their arms out and grab, and it's to stop themselves from falling out of a tree. it's interesting because it only shows up in these life stages, and then they go away. so it's like we have that instinct somewhere in us. there's this memory of the forest.

there's this memory of the woods so there’s this preoccupation with it. it is this place that feels like home for most people, at least for most city-living people. those people are not really comfortable in the woods. the forest is a beautiful, bountiful place, but it is also dangerous. it also evokes this sense of fear from us because it plays on these human instincts of fear. of being lost and being alone and being in the dark. and these are all instinctual fears we have that we've developed from survival through all this time.i find [the forest] to be this interesting medium to work with. and in this comic specifically, going from the open plains (where our more modern ancestors are from) - where you can see everything, the sunlight's out, and you're comfortable -  to this dark, crowded wood where it gets dark and you lose your way. 

 in this comic, i follow what i don't know as myself, this entity that i don't even recognize into this dangerous place very blindly out of a fear of being alone. and i don't realize it until it's too late, until i'm already in it. finding yourself in this place that's actually very foreign to you and is very dangerous and very, it’s a place where i abandon myself in this comic. so, yeah, that's the reasoning behind why i chose to have it get dark and woodsy and spooky and all that. yeah.

OLIVE: you're so smarty.

IMANI: *speaking of herself* she took one psych class.

OLIVE: you said that you lost yourself in the comic. are you referring to when you didn't recognize yourself or the fact that you are following this strange entity in the hopes of not being alone?

IMANI: yeah. both things. i lost myself because i couldn't recognize myself, and i also lost myself by, i mean, getting lost. one self lost the other self. we got lost.

OLIVE: can you please speak on your use of color and contrast ? light and dark, black versus white - how that functions in your comic?

IMANI: it speaks to these instinctual fears of being afraid of the dark because it's been dangerous for us. that's where all of our predators used to come out and eat us back when we lived outside. so shifting from light to dark really invokes this sense. and [in the comic] when i'm walking through the woods and gradually, you start to notice it becomes darker and darker in each panel. i tried to use darker colors until we got into the pure black panels. 

NATI: so would you say that the openness, the lightness speaks a bit to naivety? maybe the darkness represents overwhelm, fear. what other words might you associate with [light and dark]?

IMANI: the lightness is this naivety, innocence, this…not “pure” version of myself, but… a version that starts to become lost as there's this reliance…this following of this person… i don't even know. the fear and all of that doubt starts to creep in with the darkness. and, yeah, the darkness is more that lost, overwhelmed, fearful. the missing. you're out here. now you're missing.

NATI: you said that this comic was really difficult to make because it was one of the first times that you created art that centered yourself. what has the experience of creating art that centers yourself? what was kind of the catalyst for that sense of rediscovery, the interrogation of the self?

IMANI: honestly, it was pretty hard. it was weird. i write myself, in a way, into everything that i write. you're very truthful when you write. you expose yourself all the time when you write things. so, in a lot of the things that i write, i'm in there; that's one aspect of it. the last time that i made art about myself was when i was a child, [when i was] not as self conscious. i guess i'd call my art semi-realism in a way. (i don't really know what else to call this style.) but i like to draw very pretty things and pretty people, a variety of pretty things. but to put myself there, to  make myself one of my beautiful characters was very difficult for me. part of it being [a result of]  this patriarchal society [where] as a woman i'm not supposed to admire myself. [i’m expected to], in a way, continue to carry out this degradation of myself that society already does, and i shouldn't celebrate myself in any way. so putting myself into a space that i have always reserved for making beautiful things, and therefore accepting myself as one of those beautiful things, was very difficult for me. i really had to think of myself as a character in order to do it. i don't really know if i succeeded at personally letting myself be there because i really had to separate myself in a way: draw myself as a character, and make myself this character. the catalyst goes back to my artistic process  - when i have an idea, that's kinda the only idea i have. and i tried - i really did try - to think of a way to not center myself in this, to not have this be about myself. but it was like it was a personal journey. so it's like, it kinda has to be about my person then, doesn't it? like, i kinda have to make this about me, don't i? if i'm talking about myself in this way? basically, i penned myself in. i painted myself into a corner, and i was forced to do it. so it happened, it was strange. 

OLIVE: that was so beautiful. i'm glad that it did happen. and what's funny? when you said that you have this reflection on “oh, i guess i do have to make it about myself” like, most guys don't have thoughts like that. 

IMANI: yeah!! unlike me, taking literally an entire day to try to figure out how to even draw myself.

OLIVE: yeah. what was that like? did you have a lot of experience making self portraits?

IMANI: no. not not since i took art classes. not since art school, and i was forced to do it. the last time that i made a self portrait was probably 8 years ago, the last time that i have represented myself in any way like that. i don't do that, really. so, yeah, it was a process of learning. i got i got help from my brother, which is great. my brother is also an artist, and he draws people and makes them into his own style. so he has a very good process of taking a real human being and transferring them into your style. and i had to send him some of the drawings that i made of myself, and i was like, “why doesn't it look like me?” and he was like, “okay. hold on. you gotta fix these few things.”  it was honestly a difficult process. it took me a whole day of drawing to get somewhere that i felt okay with. like, it's not exactly me but you see the drawing, and [you can tell] it's me. that's as good as we're gonna get here. 

NATI: so fire. it came out beautiful. it was like looking at one of the most gorgeous people i've ever seen on page, and i was like, of course, that's imani. no fucking shit. i'm gonna sit with [what you said] - that patriarchy tells us we're not supposed to celebrate ourselves and that you refuse to continue the degradation. how did you decide the different stylistic choices between the you that was lost and then the you that was found?

IMANI: yeah. I put it off until i started drawing that page. [i decided that] the me that was the one that started will be me right now. that's easy. but, yeah, finding a different version of myself to make was difficult. i ended up making myself a little older. i don't know, this projection of myself in a way where i look a little bit older, a little bit more mature. i wanted it to feel like a culmination of myself as a person. that was kind of the only idea i had in mind designing it. trying to distinguish it from the previous me, but also make sure that it was reading as still me. it was tough. i had to draw it 4 times before [i decided what i was going to do] trial and error. 

OLIVE: the last question. what other projects are you working on, and where are you headed?

IMANI: well, you all know what other project i'm working on right now. i am currently directing for the first time ever. a video for the dance showcase, as you guys know, as NATI is also doing. it's really fun. i am very excited for you guys to see it. it's actually gonna come out really fucking sick, so i can't wait. it's been crazy now that we have shot and edited the first one. it has been really wild to have something that i thought about and actually have it turn out the way that i thought that it would. like, it's really, really weird. i'm still reeling from it. it doesn't feel right. i didn't think it was gonna happen. but it's fun being behind the camera. everything that i've done with cameras,i've always been in front of the camera,  posing for photos or on stage acting or acting in front of the camera. like, i've always been in front of it. and you kind of only have control over yourself in that. you don't really you have control of anybody else on set. people always associate actors with the project, which makes sense. but actors are doing the least amount of creative input on the project. all they can do is really control themselves. so it's been really interesting to step behind the camera, have this intoxicating sons of power where i'm like, i get to make this go how i want it to. and it's funny because it activates the same thing that making that drawings and making comics does but in a different way because it's through other people.  it's really fun to collaborate and have my vision translate through people and have people go, oh, i see what it is that you're trying to do, and then do that. it's been really cool. so i honestly hope to do more of it. i hope that these videos can open some doors. maybe they'll be so cool that everyone's gonna be like, oh my god, i want you to direct this thing for me. and also, yeah. so i'm excited. hopefully, that's where i'm going, and i'll keep drawing, and i'll keep making art, and that stuff's never gonna stop. so yeah. i'm really so honored to be featured. it's like, my god. what? it's a very pleasant surprise.