Mentorship Is Not a Moment: It’s a Process

A lot of people think growth as an artist happens in a moment, like something clicks one day and everything changes. That hasn’t been my experience. For me, it’s been slower than that. More consistent. More about showing up than figuring something out all at once. Mentorship didn’t hit me like an epiphany. It built over time, day by day, conversation by conversation, being corrected, being pushed, and going back into the studio to try again. That’s really what it’s been. Staying with it long enough for something to take hold.

One of the most important things I was given early on came from Mr. Sheppard. He would say, you work through yourself. At first, that sounds straightforward, but it takes time to understand what that really means. It’s not just about making work. It’s about realizing that your life, your experiences, and your way of seeing are the material. Learning how to trust that doesn’t happen overnight. It happens through practice, repetition, and staying with it even when you’re not sure where it’s going.

I remember him stopping me mid-process and telling me to slow down and look again. He would even tell me to step away from a painting, especially when I was rushing in my hunger to grow. In those moments, when I wasn’t in front of the canvas, I learned to sit with the work differently. Sometimes I would read. He recommended that I check out Paul Klee, and I bought the book immediately.

What stayed with me from Klee was the idea that art is not just about what you see, but about making the invisible visible. That opened something up for me. His sense of rhythm and his willingness to embrace a kind of freedom in his work gave me permission to move differently. I started to loosen up. I stopped trying to control everything. Over the next couple of years, my work began to change. I became more open, more expressive, and more willing to trust the process. I can see that shift clearly when I look back at earlier work compared to where I am now.

But mentorship is not just about what the mentor gives. There’s a responsibility on the other side, especially when someone is giving you their time, their knowledge, and their attention freely. You don’t pay that back with words. You pay that back through what you do, through whether you actually apply what’s been given to you, and whether you go back into the work and let those lessons shape how you move. Not just once, but over time. Because a lot of times, you don’t even understand what’s being given to you right away. Something can be said to you, and it might take months, even years, before it really lands. But when it does, it changes how you see, how you work, and how you carry yourself in the studio. That’s the real exchange.

At the same time, not all guidance comes from people you sit across from. Some of it comes from studying those who came before you. I’m working within a lineage they helped shape. Artists and thinkers like Aaron Douglas and Loïs Mailou Jones, along with intellectual figures like W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke, helped define how Black artists understand creativity, identity, and cultural responsibility. Their work sets a standard. It creates a language you begin to understand over time. But there is a difference between influence and mentorship. One shapes you through study. The other shapes you through relationship.

If you stay with the process long enough, something shifts. You start to realize this isn’t just about you learning anymore. It’s about what you’re carrying. What was given to you doesn’t stop with you. It moves through you. And that’s where it gets real, because now the question changes. It’s not just what am I learning, it becomes what am I responsible for now that I’ve been given this. You start to see it in your work, in your discipline, in how you show up, and eventually in how you deal with other people who are trying to find their way.

That’s how mentorship turns into something bigger. Not something you claim, but something you grow into. Something that shows itself over time through your work, your consistency, and your willingness to stay a student even as you begin to guide others.

If there’s anything I know for sure, it’s this. Growth didn’t come from waiting for something to click. It came from going back into the studio, over and over, even when I didn’t have answers.