Zawadi Hawkins-Gladstone Interview with Jacque’s Bidon

Zawadi: Jacque’s, I'd love for you to tell me about the work that you do. What do you do?

Jacque’s: I was thinking about that and, you know, because I'm from Haiti, I know enough about the Haitian history.  I didn't know the full history of American history. That's my drive right now. All I learned in high school was the Boston Tea Party, Christopher Columbus, all of that stuff. Once I started doing my own research on history and listening to my dad who was educated and hung out with some educators, they taught me something about Haitian history and some of them pointed out how  American history and Haitian history were intertwined. So I became interested in learning more and teaching what I know to young people who come to learn printing and letterpress from me.

Zawadi: What ages are the kids you teach? 

Jacque’s: Anywhere from 14 when I get them. They keep coming to 20.  It's also important for everyone. Look, I'm not afraid to pass it on to adults either, because we have some adults who don't know about it either. Case in point, the brother that was that was thirty five years old. He didn't know who Fannie Lou Hamer was. I had to let him know. How could you go through life like that? You're an African-American and you never heard of this person.  It’s about educating America.

 Zawadi:  I'm curious as to how you got to that. What inspired you about the about the letter press and printing? What got you about that particular venue as a way of putting your art out there?

Jacque’s: Well, that stuff, let me tell you, I was a little kid reading comic books and stuff like that and used to play around with oil painting and all of that. But when my oldest brother taught me how to play with colors and mixing colors and all of that, and, after we  mixed the color, he pulled out some sort of a piece of wood and he said, ”Let's see what we can do with this.” I was like, “You know what? I can do that.” Next, I had an oil painting!  He kept showing stuff saying, let's try it.  I oil painted from sixth grade all the way to the middle of my ninth grade year.

And after all that, it was like  a different, new world for me.  I didn't know what I could so  with so many materials, with stuff people throw away. 

Zawadi: What impact do you hope your art has? 

Jacque’s: Your history, history is your family, history is your story. Yes, you know what I mean, that's your story, and to me, you know, it's like why I love doing what I do. That's another thing. I love doing what I do because it's my story too. You know, I'm from Haiti, right? But my Haitian history. Is tied into the slave trade in all of our stories, whether you're white or black. If I could just add to that for the kids of Rhode Island to know the slavery history of this state. My posters should be hanging in every school.

Zawadi: What do you mean?

Jacque’s: How can you tell people that come into the state and have kids believing that Slater Mills is the holy grail of textiles? No, it's not. You went somewhere and stole someone's culture, bought it here and maybe yours when it's not yours, but you're making money off of it.

Zawadi:   So, Jacques, I want to get a little more personal to you.  I want to know, like, you have a studio. Where is it? Where do you work from? How do people know where to find you?

Jacque’s: So I was working out of AS220, but now I have my own studio. I needed twenty four hour access to be able to do what I need to do, you know. I want to be able to wake up and go in and do my thing. It’s not a huge studio, but I just love this space. 

I've been working on this  for 10 years now. And the first thing I asked  to get started with this whole thing was : How come the new AS220 program that’s supposed to be for the community and is not working with kids at risk?. So one of my biggest pet peeves was,  I'm using this printshop, but the youth program is barely getting access to it. I wanted a space to  not have anybody to have the answer to or to get the door locked to shut it down.

Zawadi: Do you have any exhibits coming up? 

 Jacque’s: Well, I will be having a gallery opening up. People can buy the posters. I've been doing a lot of printing.   I'm not very savvy when it comes to social media, I just put up prints that I have and that's it. You're going to see history.

 Zawadi: So what kind of support do you need to sustain your efforts to do this thing? You've got the place now. You've got some startup money. What will help you make a little bit more money? 

Jacque’s: Yeah, I need some funding because right now I'm using my own money, you know, I got a couple of small grants here and there from risk and things like that, and also a few grants to help me pay my rent and things like that of. I'm going to bring a few other people on board..

Zawadi: How do you connect your work to the reciprocity Rhode Island project? And what are your thoughts about the future of the reciprocity Project in Rhode Island?

 Jacque’s: It's  needed NOW. You know what I mean? You can just see anything like what happened with this brother, Matt Buchanan. You know, you've got someone that's standing up to the status quo. 

Zawadi: How can the Reciprocity Project help you meet your goals?

Jacque’s: Reciprocity Project doesn't answer to anyone. I need support for my work. For me I want to work in an environment where my curriculum. It's going to be used the way I want to use it, I don't need anyone in it. I don't want anybody, you know, telling him what to do.  I know what I want to teach. I want to teach true history, you know what I mean? But I want to teach it the way I want to do it. I don't want kids to have to go buy five, ten different textbooks to learn about history. I mean, because you really don't need that many books, all you need to do, you know, you get the person's name and you do the research and everything to find out what they did. It’s just basically telling the  truth.  

Zawadi: I think it's so important, especially in light of everything that we've been talking about. It's  so important that you take that stand as a black man that you're going to do it your way, you're going to do your thing and not have other people telling you you can't do this and can't do that. That's how we've gotten into the situation we're in where the kids don't know their own history because nobody was allowed to even talk about it.

I’m  happy to have you as a part of the reciprocity project, because you are not only a person who obviously cares and believes in the future of our youth, but also your commitment to passing your knowledge and skills on to kids, to youth. You love it and you want to know about it and you want them to know about it.

You can also find Jacque’s work at jacquesoffset.com/ and instagram.com/jacquesoffset/