Making art and facilitating awareness: Clayton Hamilton and Judie Sloan
See the free documentary With All Deliberate Speed at Kan-Kan Cinema and Brasserie on Saturday May 28 at 2 p.m., and see their art on First Friday June 3, in a show titled Transparency at Indiana Landmarks from 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
If you ever drive north on College Ave in Midtown Indianapolis, you’ll come across the text-based painting of Clayton Hamilton aka “the Wall Guy.” You’ll find it on a retainer wall, just north of 38th St., across the street from a boarded up Church’s Chicken.
Currently painted on a 4-foot-tall and 100-foot-wide wall are the words “peace/Pride/Purpose”, against the tri-color red/black/green background of the Pan-African flag.
Hamilton’s words and phrases on this outdoor canvas, over the past 30 years, have often pointed at, and towards, systemic racism in America.
Hamilton also works on a smaller scale — in the same upbeat political mode — on wood planks, which have been exhibited by Long Sharp Gallery in New York City. On First Friday June 3, he will exhibit his work alongside the mixed media glass sculpture of Judie Sloan at Indiana Landmarks, in a show titled Transparency.
“I like to layer and combine materials: glass and wire, glass and paint, glass and canvas… or all of the above,” Sloan says of her work. “The transparent qualities of glass give me unlimited options to layer color, texture, and materials.”
In addition to making artwork, Sloan and Hamilton advocate for Indianapolis-area Black artists, and work as event organizers. Working together, they have organized many art exhibitions together since they first founded InSight Art Promotion in 2014.
They have organized group shows at the Athenaeum ArtSpace, Indiana Landmarks, and at other venues. The last show they put together, in March 2020 took place right before the pandemic shutdowns. (Their show on June 3 will be the first Insight Productions art exhibition since March 2020.)
“Under the radar, we choose venues that [are] unique. Not only to Black people, but a large population of regular gallery hoppers,” Sloan said.
InSight has also organized a free series of feature films and documentaries at Kan-Kan Cinema titled black in AMERICA.
It is designed, according to Sloan, “to bring awareness, unique perspectives, and thought provoking conversations.”
On Saturday, May 28, at 2 p.m. the film With All Deliberate Speed will be shown at Kan-Kan, followed by a discussion with series curator Clayton Hamilton. The documentary centers on the desegregation of Great Mills High School, in Great Mills, Maryland, between the years of 1958 and 1972.
“We choose the feature films and documentaries based on each other’s ideals,” Sloan said. “The documentary reflects the historical perspective and film that dramatizes that event, if possible. Of course it does not always work. That's why a brief discussion afterward can assist with context. InSight will curate the series well into the future.”
