Camden natives Sidra Smith, Mickalene Thomas visit city to highlight its arts scene

CAMDEN — "It's fascinating to me," said Kimberly Camp as she sat at Camden FireWorks on Monday. "There are rock stars from Camden, and they're all in the arts."

Camp, a Camden native and art world rock star in her own right (now owner of Galerie Marie in Collingswood, she was CEO of the Barnes Foundation and her work has been shown at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Longwood Gardens, the Smithsonian Institution and the African American Museum Philadelphia), also wondered, "Why do more people not get this?"

Two of those rock stars — visual artist Mickalene Thomas and writer/producer Sidra Smith — paid a visit to their hometown Monday, touring its artist spaces and a South Camden museum with Mayor Vic Carstarphen. The purpose: To explore ways each of them can use their respective platforms to help elevate Camden as a place where artists and creators can build a community and help propel the city's ongoing renaissance forward.

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Their other stops included artist William Butler's nearby studio and the Camden Shipyard and Maritime Museum, just down the street from FireWorks. They drove through some of Camden's most challenged neighborhoods, but neither of the Camden natives now living in New York seemed discouraged by what they saw.

"Family. Home. Support. Community. Culture. History. What's viable, progress, change, transformation, growth," Thomas said when asked what she saw in Camden.

A visual artist, Thomas' work has been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and Guggenheim and Whitney museums, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Art Institute of Chicago and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Her portrait of Michelle Obama is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.

A 2019 profile in Town & Country magazine notes that she was born in 1971 in Camden and raised by a single mother. She left the East Coast in the early 1990s, struggling with her sexuality and studying prelaw and theater arts at Portland State University. (Thomas, who holds art degrees from the Pratt Institute and Yale School of Art, identifies as queer.)

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Smith, also born in Camden in 1971, was a model who lived in Paris and Italy; the latter is where she developed a love of cooking and, according to an Essence magazine article, "her modeling career was cut short because of her love of pasta."

She rebounded well, though: She cast music videos for Dr. Dre, then formed a casting agency; later, she went on to produce feature films and documentaries, including the 2013 documentary "Free Angela and All the Political Prisoners," about Black Panthers activist Angela Davis (Jada Pinkett Smith was an executive producer on the film). Her twin sister, Tasha, is a well-known actress.

"What's happening here now, I'm excited that I'm being integrated and woven into this web, this phenomenon of what's happening, people really wanting to take the energy that's here and ignite it so it's sustainable, for its growth, for commerce, and creating economic wealth," Thomas said.

"We've been talking with Sidra about the arts community here in Camden and how we can build relationships, how they can help us build upon what we already have here," said Carstarphen. Smith encouraged Thomas to take part in a tour of the city.

"They're both all in for helping, and in a perfect world, we'll have people who are from here highlighting what's great about Camden artists, bringing more artists and building from there."

Both of the Smith twins and Thomas are representing their hometown "by doing extraordinary things," he added. "We're asking ourselves, 'What are artists here going through? How can we help young artists?' So it's good to have people who've lived here to be part of this."

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The maritime museum is a former church, and FireWorks used to be a Camden Fire Department station. As Carstarphen took Thomas and Smith down Broadway from downtown, they passed through neighborhoods that are challenged by blight, homelessness, the drug trade and illegal dumping. They passed encampments, and the decaying and once-magnificent Carnegie Library.

Carstarphen wanted Thomas and Smith to see more than just the growth downtown.

"I wanted to give them an idea of all the potential that's here," he said. "I'm learning a lot more since I've become mayor about how much a strong arts community can bring to a city. Look at Collingswood and other communities, and how the arts have been a catalyst for development."

Creating a haven for artists

Growing up, Thomas said, she didn't see opportunities for artists in her hometown; nor did she feel like she could be her true self. She mentioned Darnell Moore, another Camden native, a writer and LGBTQ activist who's now working with Netflix to make the platform's content, marketing and staff more diverse and inclusive.

"As a young person, I didn't see much art here," Thomas said. "I had to go to Philadelphia to see art. You went outside of Camden; it wasn't a place where you could say, 'Let me be an artist here,' although there are amazing artists here, people who've stayed. But for me at the time, it wasn't a place to cultivate that."

She's hoping more LGBTQ youngsters also will look to people like her and feel freer to embrace their true identities.

"I would go to Philadelphia to be around other queer youth," she remembered. "I never really thought that Camden was that place ... One thing that artists' communities do, they create a haven for people to be protected and safe with their own expression and I'm hoping we can create an arts center that becomes that type of space, an exhibiting space but also a place for ideas, new technology, new media, but also just culture and social, political constructs, a safe place where people can go to."

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Smith still has family in Camden; she oversees content for Essence television. She's looking at the possibility of bringing a film studio to the city — and not just to create opportunities for performers, but also for the many people who support production, from technicians, costume designers and set builders to drivers and caterers.

"I want to inspire people to make a good movie," she said. "You don't have to be an actor to do that. I'm using the entertainment business as an anchor because that's the business I know, but when you use that, you attract other businesses."

She visited Camden High School to meet with students at Creative Arts Academy, and asked them about other performing arts careers. "You've got to have makeup, you've got to have costumes, you've got to have cinematography," she noted. "There's a whole career where you can make a really good living for yourself, even if you can't drive. A lot of these kids don't know that."

Smith said she can see her own story come back to where it began.

"Everything in the world I ever wanted to do, I've done, and then some. So when I think about taking my dreams to the next level, being here and pursuing that is the next phase of my life."

'The ecosystems are already here'

Thomas called the space at FireWorks "amazing," and recognized the burgeoning arts community, meeting with local artists Terina Hill, Hope Mead (from whom she purchased mugs), Donald T. Williams (sitting for a quick sketch), and Katrina Tapper.

"The ecosystems are already here," she observed. "So it's taking that and nurturing that, making sure it matures so it becomes a viable network ... We go to Philadelphia for this, this and this. We need people to come to Camden for all we have to offer. (Camden's artists) have done a lot here, and I feel so much love and passion. They've persevered, and the perseverance is so real and raw."

She is hoping more young people see Camden as a place to build a life.

"A place where there's merchants, retail, people really thriving and not leaving because they feel like they need to go somewhere else to create a family or make a quality of life," she said.

"So this is not a place that you escape from — this is a place that you come to."

Phaedra Trethan has been a reporter and editor in South Jersey since 2007 and has covered Camden and surrounding areas since 2015, concentrating on issues relating to quality of life and social justice for the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. She's called South Jersey home since 1971. Contact her with feedback, news tips or questions at ptrethan@gannettnj.com, on Twitter @By_Phaedra, or by phone at 856.486-2417.

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