Crafting His Own Pattern
PHOTOS COURTESY OF RAMEKON O’ARWISTERS, CAROL M. HIGHSMITH, ANDRE NATTA AND UNSPLASH WRITTEN BY CRISTINA DEPTULA
Black and Queer Crocheter and Sculptor Ramekon O’Arwisters Celebrates Heritage and Community Through Healing Crafts Experiences
S outhern-born crochet artist and sculptor Ramekon O’Arwisters describes his style as liberating, grounded, and authentic. “I feel most grounded and affirmed when I focus on my creativity. I can absolutely trust my creativity; it only requires that I remain fearless and authentic in my creative vision,” he says. HIDING WITHIN HIS EARLY ART It hasn’t always been easy for O’Arwisters to accept and share all of who he is. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, he used drawing and painting to hide his queer feelings and thoughts. “It was a way for me to keep my parents from knowing about me being queer since I knew they would not approve. To keep them from asking why I wasn’t interested in masculine activities such as sports or dating girls, I kept busy doing art and homework on the kitchen table,” he says. He now reflects that his parents were likely glad he was safe at home and not out messing around with drugs or fighting or at risk of getting arrested. “In Black America at that time, parents of little Black boys feared for them, especially from the brutality of the police,” O’Arwisters says. His artwork then was mostly geometric shapes and patterns. “My drawings had no content. They were void, empty, dull, but pretty.”
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