Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. If you walk into the Heath Gallery on 24 West 120th Street, you'll see new work from local artist Debbie Taylor-Kerman. Debbie has lived in Harlem since 2006. She moved to New York in 1991 after a childhood in Scotland. Now, a few years ago, Debbie made a big change. She left her day job to pursue her dream of painting full time. She found herself caught up in a new creative direction fueled by our current political moment, the unrest of 2020, and her personal grief over losing a friend to COVID.

You notice in the show that Debbie likes to work in specific materials like acrylic and charcoal collage and gold leaf. She paints abstract figures mixed with pops of different color. You can see a sample of some of her work now on our Instagram @allofitwnyc. The show is called More Love Now. It's on view at Heath Gallery through May 3rd. Debbie Taylor-Kerman is hosting an Artist Talk on April 12th at the gallery from 2:00 to 4:00. She's with me now in studio. By the way, happy belated birthday, Debbie.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Thank you very much.

Alison Stewart: The title of the exhibition is Love More Now. Why did you want that-- Excuse me? More Love Now. Why did you want to name the show that?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: I think just with what's happening with this current administration, there's just so much divisiveness. They're pitting people against each other. I just wanted it to be about love. It was my act of resistance, really, about expressing love, and that's really what we want. We want more love, we want more acceptance, we want more tolerance, so it was just a message that I needed to express.

Alison Stewart: You've been in Harlem since 2006. How do you think Harlem has influenced your art?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Oh, tremendously, tremendously. I love Harlem. I fell in love with it the first time I walked around. I come from a very working class area in Scotland, especially my parents. My parents grew up in Glasgow. There used to be people sitting out in the street on the strips, hanging out the windows, talking to each other. It just felt like that to me when I first went to Harlem. Just really the diversity, the beauty, and seeing people from all over the world and all skin colors, all religions, and I just love that we coexist together in such a beautiful way. I've never known so many of my neighbors as I do in Harlem. I've lived in quite a few areas in New York City, so it was a love affair right away.

Alison Stewart: Before you became an artist full time, what were you doing before, and what made the change?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: I came to New York City as a textile designer. Then I segued into licensing my art. It was anything from Christmas ornaments to dinnerware to all different kinds of products. I've always wanted to paint fine art. I come from a working class family, and I didn't think I had a voice. What have I got to say? Also, I needed to make money, it was a practical thing. Then I had been started to paint and it was there. Then when we all went into lockdown, my dad actually died of COVID in Scotland. He was one of the first people that I knew to die very early on.

I was lying in my couch really depressed and really just-- I couldn't go to the funeral. It was just a really bad time. I was lying there depressed, and on the couch, and I heard my dad's voice saying, "Put your paintings on the wall, hen." His wee angel said that. We had bare walls. I did. I put my paintings on the wall, and for the first time, I seen, "Wow, there's something here."

Then I just was feeling such gratitude to all the essential workers, especially because I had no connection with my dad. It was all through the doctors and the nurses. I just had this pull that I needed to paint essential workers. I started just-- It was a tribute, really. I started to paint essential workers. Then I just started just putting them on Instagram. Then all of a sudden, people were wanting to buy them. It just snowballed from there.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to Debbie Taylor-Kerman, she's an artist, about her show More Love Now. It's on view at the Heath Gallery through May 3rd. That's beautiful that something wonderful came out of such a great loss.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Yes, it was incredible. We were emotionally even talking about it, but the fact that Saundra invited me to do my first solo show at Heath Gallery. She said the opening night's going to be April 4th. That was actually the fifth anniversary of my dad dying. It was one of those things that all-- It was two days before my 60th birthday, so it was just like-- It was such a glorious event. I'm so looking forward to the Artist Talk this Saturday as well. I just love connecting with people and that people feel connected to my art?

Alison Stewart: Tell me about the materials you work with.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Oh, my gosh. Everything.

Alison Stewart: Everything.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: It's essentially acrylic paint because I build lots of layers. It's all about-- I usually build about seven or eight layers in an abstract way, and that's with acrylic paint, with charcoal, with crayons, with lots of collage. I like putting things that are important to me, collaging it in there, and then the figures unfold to me. I love mixed media, but I don't like it to look too stuck on, I like it to feel--

Alison Stewart: Blocky.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Yes, yes, yes. Blocky. That's a great word. I like it to feel seamless and that it's actually part of it.

Alison Stewart: How is your process different from painting on canvas? Just directly painting on canvas? What do you think the difference is?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: I think-- I don't know about just painting on canvas. I think my process is very much that I don't worry about or I don't think about what the end result is. I have no preconceived ideas, so I just build. I build layers, and it's all-- There's a lot of feeling in it. It's like how I'm feeling determines the colors, and how I'm feeling determines what collage I want to put in it. Sometimes I feel like in a scrape and I get the sander, and I sand it. [laughs] I work a lot on wood. I do work on canvas for the bigger pieces because they're just too heavy to ship.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about how big your pieces are.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Yes, well the biggest I've ever done. I got commissioned to do two 7ft by 7ft paintings that are in the Benjamin Hotel in midtown Manhattan. They were my biggest pieces yet. I generally, 4ft by 4ft, 4 by 5ft are my biggest thing.

Alison Stewart: How do you decide on color?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: It's a very intuitive thing. This show, More Love Now at Heath Gallery. It was really about Joy. I Just felt like the first time this first administration came in, I had such anxiety about everything, about him and them. I just thought, "I'm not going to let them steal my joy. This four years is going to be hard, but I'm not going to let them steal my joy." There was a conscious choice to be really bright, have bright colors, because I think color is an expression of feeling. I think bright colors can be joyful. That was why I chose a lot of the bright colors in this collection of work.

Alison Stewart: How did you first get interested in art?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: I think it's just in me, like in every way since I was a kid, I was always making things-- I've always been a very creative person. I thought when I had my first child, I thought I was going to be a stay-at-home mom for a while. After about a year, it felt like there was something deeply, deeply missing. I just had to do something, so it's just in me. Actually, creating fine art has taken me all of these years of maturing as a woman and not giving a hoot what people think, and just knowing that it doesn't matter what anybody thinks. I have what I have to say, and what I have to say is important whether somebody thinks it is or not. I think it's like becoming this mature being. I hope I'm mature, getting there. It's given me the freedom to not give a hoot.

Alison Stewart: Do you remember the first time you saw a piece of art in a museum?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Yes, I do. The first one that really made me an impact. It was like when I went to Glasgow Museum. There's a piece by Salvador Dali, and it's Jesus on the Cross. It's got like a really incredible perspective, incredible painting. I remember just being like, "Oh my God, it's incredible."

Alison Stewart: My guest is Debbie Taylor-Kerman. Her new show More Love Now is on view at the Heath Gallery through May 3rd. She's hosting an Artist Talk there on April 12th from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. A lot of titles in your show have questions. For example, what's your favorite beetle? What's your favorite holiday? Do you like jelly on your peanut butter sandwich? What do you like about questions?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: This was really about because I think because there's just so much divisiveness in the country, I want to bring people together. I want to connect people. When I sat down to think about my titles, I just thought, what is it that we do to connect? What is it we do when we're falling in love or when we love people? It's like we ask questions, or else we tell people about ourselves. The titles are either things, me telling you about me, or me asking questions about you. It's about the questions transcend race, economic status, religion. It's usually things that we can all relate to, regardless of where we're from. I just wanted it to be relatable in that sometimes it's the simplicity, it's the simple things in life that really connect us.

Alison Stewart: How many pieces are in the show?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: There's 30 pieces altogether.

Alison Stewart: Ooh, how did you get down to 30?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: There was actually. I created 27 new pieces, but then when Saundra came to my house for the artist visit, she fell in love with three other pieces. There's one piece in particular that I painted last year when the war broke out in Israel, and it's a depiction of an Israeli father and a Palestinian father holding each other and weeping. It's called Weeping Fathers. It's a very important piece of work. She really wanted that to be included in the work because it really is a symbol of love and peace and connection.

Alison Stewart: What is the happiest piece in your show?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: The happiest piece? I think the transgender community has been really attacked recently. A lot of, like the transgender community, I put a lot of depictions of that. There's one piece where there's a tribe in India called the Hijra, and they celebrate transgender people. Then a lot of Native American tribes have always celebrated transgender people, they call them third gender people. I have one piece that has a hijra, a transgender Indian, and then in the middle, a drag queen. It just, to me, is a symbol of joy and acceptance of regardless of who you are, you're beautiful, you're loved?

Alison Stewart: Where do you go for inspiration?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: In the streets of New York City. [laughs] On the subway? I'm constantly taking pictures on the subway. Find it fascinating when you see people, especially people coming home from work and from completely different backgrounds, and one person might be wearing a pair of Prada shoes, and the next person's wearing a pair of worky boots, and they're falling asleep nodding on each other. I find this just beautiful.

Alison Stewart: You have a series called Subway Riders?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Yes, I do.

Alison Stewart: Based on your observations--

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: In the subway. Yes, exactly.

Alison Stewart: Where's your studio? What do you need to be able to be creative?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: My studio's in New York City. It's in Harlem. It's in our house. I love New York City. I have a love affair with New York City. I think that's really what I need. I keep thinking, like, being almost retirement age, my husband keeps thinking, and I keep talking about, "Could we live somewhere else?" I don't think I can. I really don't.

Alison Stewart: We often say on this show that we are living in uncertain times. Why can art be helpful during this time?

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Oh, because it connects people. It gives people hope. I feel that for me, creating the art has been an incredibly cathartic experience, like from when I was creating art, when my father passed of COVID to now, having to every day wake up with that dread of looking at the news. What's he doing now? When we see people creating art in whatever form, it can give us hope, it can give us strength. It can give us a determination to resist and fight back. Part of this collection was also inspired by a poem by Robin Brandtz, and it's about resisting, and it's about resisting through love, resisting through being educated, resisting, and so I think all forms of art give our talk.

Alison Stewart: The name of the show is More Love Now through May 3rd at the Heath Gallery in Harlem. My guest has been Debbie Taylor-Kerman. You can join her Artist Talk on April 12th from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Debbie, thanks for coming in.

Debbie Taylor-Kerman: Oh, what a delight it was. Thank you so much, Alison. It's just been a delight.

Alison Stewart: I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening, and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here tomorrow.