
Art as Medicine and Magic
The Art of Omi Gray
By Malkia M’Buzi Moore
Omi Gray is a multidimensional,
multi-faceted artist living and working in Harlem NY. You might see her walking from her Harlem apartment to Central Park to gather leaves to be used as botanical leaf prints on silk. You see her and know that there is something interesting about this woman, with her silver-laced locks, wearing her own hand woven textile creation. She does not dress like so many New Yorkers do, black as basic and denim as an alternate. She has been in Harlem long enough to witness the many changes there, including gentrification. She continues to thrive in her beautiful apartment that contains an art studio where creating takes center stage just as you enter. Is this a Harlem apartment or an art gallery within a tropical forest? Omi has created her environment just as she creates art- oblivious to the constraints so many put on visual art and interior design. Every surface is a home for art: walls are display spaces, floors are canvases, windows are light-filled jungles.
Who is this artist that has been called many things, collagist, weaver, milliner, jewelry designer, beautician/ coiffeur, tailor/couturier and so much more? Some would label what Omi does as crafts. Her meticulous execution, her exhaustive study, her commitment to detail, and her innovative applications transforms her work into simply art.
Omi Gray’s art journey began in the beauty shop with her grandmother and mother. She watched them take women’s hair from ordinary to extraordinary and transform them from everyday women to goddesses. These matriarchs provided for her through their artistry. She lived well in a happy environment. The beauty parlor was a healing center, where women came to clear their minds and renew their spirits through the shared stories. In the late '40s and '50s her grandmother and mother had several beauty shops in Harlem.
Of course, Omi worked in the salons and branched off in the ’60s to do braids. As Omi recounts, "When Black Rose cut the perm out of my hair and into an Afro in 1965, I left the perm, went natural, and began braiding hair. She goes on to say, “That was my first contact with fiber arts.”
Omi started making jewelry while attending City College. She used to admire the jewelry of Shariff, a vendor that she finally approached about teaching her to make jewelry. He showed her how to make jewelry by doing it step-by-step. She recalls how “He gifted me my first set of tools to help me get started. Whenever I had a problem I would call him and he would walk me through the process. That was way before there was Zoom or YouTube."
Omi started wearing the earrings she made in 1976. People would always ask her where she got them. In the beginning, she was doing metalsmithing, working with brass, copper, and silver. She went on to deal with all aspects of jewelry and expanded to using fabric, leather, paper, glass, shells, beads as well as precious and semi-precious stones.
The first jewelry Omi sold was a pair of earrings. Omi recounts while riding on the subway, “I was sitting next to a woman who was admiring the earrings I had on. She asked me to make a pair for her and she gave me a deposit. I took them to her job and her co-workers asked if I could make some for them and I came back every week on their payday. That became my marketing strategy." People asked, “where did you get those?” and I said “I made them, and they would ask me to make a pair for them. And I did.”
Omi's son would watch her making jewelry at home. As he got older he was able to assist her in many ways, he would help her sell jewelry and shop for supplies and took him with her when she would sell at festivals and pack up. She explained, "He acquired many life-skills, in creativity, math, geometry and finance by working with the metals and by my showing him how selling them was a way of making a living."
In 1988 Omi began working at Columbia University in the School of Social Work. After holding several positions, she retired in 2012, all the while nourishing her creativity.
While at Columbia, she always kept her creative skills alive. She discovered felting, a whole new art form, which she found very fulfilling. Her first instructor, Carol Cypher recognized Omi's talent and liked the hat she made so much that asked her to design one to be featured in her book entitled How We Felt , Designs and Techniques by Contemporary Felt Artists by Carol Cypher, published by Interweave in 2007. In addition to making a hat, she was asked to write step-by-step instructions on how to make it as well. She found this to be a challenging assignment that caused her to stop and observe every aspect of the creative process. This was later translated into one of her teaching techniques.
Omi started wearing the earrings she made in 1976. People would always ask her where she got them. In the beginning, she was doing metalsmithing, working with brass, copper, and silver. She went on to deal with all aspects of jewelry and expanded to using fabric, leather, paper, glass, shells, beads as well as precious and semi-precious stones.
The first jewelry Omi sold was a pair of earrings. Omi recounts while riding on the subway, “I was sitting next to a woman who was admiring the earrings I had on. She asked me to make a pair for her and she gave me a deposit. I took them to her job and her co-workers asked if I could make some for them and I came back every week on their payday. That became my marketing strategy." People asked, “where did you get those?” and I said “I made them, and they would ask me to make a pair for them. And I did.”
Omi's son would watch her making jewelry at home. As he got older he was able to assist her in many ways, he would help her sell jewelry and shop for supplies and took him with her when she would sell at festivals and pack up. She explained, "He acquired many life-skills, in creativity, math, geometry and finance by working with the metals and by my showing him how selling them was a way of making a living."
In 1988 Omi began working at Columbia University in the School of Social Work. After holding several positions, she retired in 2012, all the while nourishing her creativity.
While at Columbia, she always kept her creative skills alive. She discovered felting, a whole new art form, which she found very fulfilling. Her first instructor, Carol Cypher recognized Omi's talent and liked the hat she made so much that asked her to design one to be featured in her book entitled How We Felt , Designs and Techniques by Contemporary Felt Artists by Carol Cypher, published by Interweave in 2007. In addition to making a hat, she was asked to write step-by-step instructions on how to make it as well. She found this to be a challenging assignment that caused her to stop and observe every aspect of the creative process. This was later translated into one of her teaching techniques.
After her first introduction to felting, she was inspired to learn various techniques and studied with fiber experts from around the world and throughout the United States. One of the most influential instructors she had was Charity van der Meer from Zambia, who taught her the art of refined garment making, the art of Nuno felting with no sewing involved (dresses, jackets, and coats). Omi maintains that "Felting is a very intimate, tactile form of creating art because it's 99% handwork." Nuno is a Japanese word meaning cloth. This technique fuses wool with sheer fabrics such as silk or gauze.
At a Fiber Festival in Rhinebeck NY, Yukako was demonstrating a weaving technique. Omi was drawn to her while watching her instantly make this cloth on the loom, and found out that she had a studio called Loop of the Loom, a mindfullness Zen weaving dojo in NYC. After taking a class she ordered her loom and everything else she needed to do Saori weaving. It was free form, and she loved the freedom of their philosophy, "there are no mistakes."
She recalls how she would roll her loom to Central Park and sit by the lake and weave. Many people would come and she would let people from various countries weave and she now has a six-foot-long piece made up of their weaving. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic has made it impossible to do that kind of sharing now.
Omi has held group and individual workshops, with institutions and organizations as well as in her Harlem Design Studio. Her workshops are with a wide range of diverse people, from children to people with developmental challenges and older adults. She has had private workshops with people undergoing cancer treatment or seeking relief from other illnesses. Omi's teaching style-her calm demeanor and peaceful passion engross people and help them transcend their pain.
Participants in her workshops all have a sense of satisfaction from producing pieces in her two signature workshops- Make it and Take It, using a variety of techniques and materials to create something you can take with you and Making a Way Out of No Way, taking recycable items and transforming them into art pieces for example, making paper beads using magazine pages and decopaging glass jars. She likes to encourage people to try to make something. She always promotes taking a workshop. Omi has exhibited her work often as part of her teaching. Omi is always experimenting with different materials and mediums. She focuses on the process and she translates her creations into teaching tools. Since the Covid pandemic, Omi has really expanded her virtual teaching. She has honed the virtual process for a variety of workshop participants, individuals and groups. She explains, "There are many benefits of virtual workshops. I have learned how to make participants feel that they are right here with me. Their viewing vantage point of my demonstration is crystal clear because the focus is on my hands. I often provide a video that they can view later as well, and respond to email questions."
For people like the woman who said, "I am a consumer, I don't want to make anything, I want to buy." She makes her work available for purchase. Omi's inspiring, arresting artwork compels people to purchase the innovative pieces she creates.
Omi ran the New York City Jewelry Makers Meet-Up Group with 1400 members from 2007 to 2019. Members would learn the skill, create a piece, and take it with them. They met at the Sony Atrium, a free, well-lit space. The area was closed due to the pandemic. She is now considering doing the Meet -Up again virtually.
Omi Gray is an artist of immense talent, harnessing spirituality, ancestral memory, and cultural connectivity that creates art and art experiences that are both medicine and magic.
Photos of Omi Gray's art work- order and descriptions
Top-Omi at work creating rug of Nuno felt and woven textiles
1. Silver metal clay sculpted ring
2. Resin bracelet with silver metal clay mask
3. Handmade beads of assorted paper, leather, suede, and fabric
4. Pillbox hat, Nuno felt fabric (merino wool and silk fibers with mesh netting & feathers
5. Zulu woman stamped image on botanical printed silk fabric
6. Merino wool color composition in a mat frame
Top-Omi at work creating rug of Nuno felt and woven textiles
1. Silver metal clay sculpted ring
2. Resin bracelet with silver metal clay mask
3. Handmade beads of assorted paper, leather, suede, and fabric
4. Pillbox hat, Nuno felt fabric (merino wool and silk fibers with mesh netting & feathers
5. Zulu woman stamped image on botanical printed silk fabric
6. Merino wool color composition in a mat frame
|
© 2021 Merge Literary Magazine. All rights reserved.