[music]

Helga Davis: You wake up in the morning, and then what happens?

Peter: [chuckles)

Helga Davis: Oh, put your headphones on, Peter. [crosstalk]

Speaker 2: [unintelligible 00:00:08]

Helga Davis: Oh, yeah.

Peter: [chuckles]

Helga Davis: Come on. Put your arms around.

Speaker 3: [unintelligible 00:00:11]

Speaker 4: I want to hug you and hug you and hug you some more.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Peter: Right through all these microphone cables.

Speaker 3: Go ahead.

Helga Davis: I know I'm in the right time, in the right space. Do you feel that?

[music]

Helga Davis: I'm Helga Davis. So, I'm still doing all of the things that I did last season. I go out of my house in the morning, I say, "Good morning" to people, to every single person I pass on the street on my way to the subway. I'm still doing that. But what I'm finding, is that it's harder and harder to connect with people, because everybody's all plugged up. Their ears are plugged up, they're eyes are focused on other things.

They're looking at those, you-your-- The three inches in front of their faces. And so, this thing that started out as kind of quirky and cool, I think it's still-- Well, I don't know that I think it's cool, but it's for sure quirky. But it really was my way to connect to myself and to the day. It still is. It still is. I'm just saying that it's harder, since the last time we were together, it's harder to do that.

Because I-I can't get anyone's attention it feels like, and whatever it is that we're numbing ourselves to, or from, um, I'm still here to say that I'm resisting, and that, if I pass you between 127th Street and 125th Street on Lennox Avenue, I'm still gonna be that person that says, "Good morning." That looks at you and says, "Good morning." Because I-I feel like I just have to do that.

I have to resist that part of, even this, part of these conversations is about resisting, resisting a kind of apathy, resisting anger, resisting rage, resisting the temptation to just kind of check out, and wait for all of it to go away. It's not going away. And we're here. And so we should make the best of it, and we should make the best of it together. I'm glad to see and hear from so many people who enjoyed Season 1 of Helga, who found lessons, who found company, who found conversations that helped them just move a little bit forward in their lives. That's really important.

And so we're going to keep moving. And we're starting this season with Thelma Golden. Thelma Golden, for those of you who don't know, is the Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem. She's a person that I've known, probably, for 20 years, and our paths cross often, but they've never- they never intersect until now. This is my conversation with Thelma Golden. Welcome to Season 2 of Helga.

[music]

Helga Davis: I just wanna say how glad I am that you're here.

Thelma Golden: Oh, thank you.

Helga Davis: Because you're another person that I always see and-and we're like ships, and we're always crossing, and we can be in the same place, but there isn't time, there is-- It's-it's not the right moment to have a conversation.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Or to-to get into anything to fix a time for a coffee, or a visit, or anything. There is just time to look into the eyes and to say, "Yeah, this is a person I recognize." And to maybe give a hug, and the kisses on the cheeks, and then go. And what's beautiful and what has been wonderful about doing this for me is that, it's an opportunity to sit with the people that I've been crossing in the night for 20 years, [chuckles] and really look at them, and have a moment to say, "Hi", and, "How are you? And how was your day? And what's going on with you?"

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: In a way that's much more relaxed and intentional and deliberate, and a little wicked too. So, I'm really glad that you're here.

Thelma Golden: Well, thank you. I appreciate being here, thrilled that you asked me to be here. And I too have had that feeling of crossing paths with you, though I have to say, some of my favorite Harlem moments are seeing you sort of command Lennox Avenue as you walk down it.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Thelma Golden: And once I get into your field of vision, and our eyes do cross, and we have that "hello", and we have that hug, that's, you know, I love it. But I also feel I've had the chance to see you, more than you have to see me. Because as a curator and lover of art and consumer of the culture, I've had the chance to see you, of course-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: -making your art, being a part of the culture that's so important to me. So I appreciate getting to sit here with you in this role, in this moment, to talk to you about, hopefully, many, many things.

Helga Davis: Here's the first thing I was thinking about today when I was--- When-when-when I was waking up and saying, "Thelma's coming," I was thinking about this idea of the curator, how we're all always curating because we see, right? And we choose to see certain things, and we choose not to see certain things. Things flash across our field of vision. We pay attention to some of those things. We don't pay attention to others of those things. And I'm wondering, for you, when you feel like you consciously started curating the world.

Thelma Golden: I'm not sure when I began to consciously curate the world, but I certainly know when I began to see the world through art. And that was when I was in fifth grade at a amazing school on the North shore of Long Island. I grew up in Southeast Queens, in St. Albans Queens, and went to school at a school called Buckley Country Day School for elementary school.

And I had a teacher there, Lucille Buck, who taught us art history. Now, like-like many lucky elementary school students, I had taken studio art, the making. And I liked making, I grew up in a home with a deeply creative mother. So I understood the impetus towards making and creating, and to seeing and being engaged with beauty. But in fifth grade, when Mrs. Buck taught us art history, the history of art, quite literally, I was fascinated by the possibility and potential of what it mean-meant to spend time in this space of works of art.

That also coincided, uh, with going to museums on field trips. And the great gift of being born in New York City was that, those museums are some of our great museums in the world, that I had a chance to visit. And in those spaces, in museums, I felt alive. They felt as if they offered me endless sense of possibility. And I knew I wanted, in some way, to spend my life in and around artworks in a museum.

Now, I didn't have a name for it. That's why I have to say it that way, because when I go back to my fifth grade mind, that's all I could articulate, I didn't-- The word "curator" isn't one that existed. It isn't one that I'd heard. I am not sure that I even would've having heard the word, had context for imagining it's what I could be. So at that point, I didn't articulate it as a career as much as a life aspiration.

Now, some of that life aspiration was also made possible by the fact that my parents, while art was not at the centerpiece of our cultural life at home, theater and music and dance were, my parents were deeply invested in African-American culture. And we saw and went to all kinds of manifestations of culture. And what I appreciate now as an adult is that, they did not make distinctions about it as to what would be appropriate, um, for children.

So, that my parents were members, supporters of the Negro Ensemble Company, and took us to all of those plays. I can think about them, and watching them and not knowing exactly what all the words meant, but just feeling something, right, from those actors from the stage. Um, we saw Broadway, all of the great Black musicals of that era. Dance, I saw Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey, before I ever went to the New York City Ballet. So I understood culture. And when I walked into a museum, and began to spend time in museums, I had the same feeling I had when I had these experiences that were given to me by my parents in the space of culture. And I knew I wanted that to be my life.

Helga Davis: Were you in your school, were there other Black kids in your school, or not too many?

Thelma Golden: Um, there were not. And you know, when we went to Buckley Country Day School, it really came out of the deep aspiration of my parents to offer us the best education that they could. You know, I was the child of two, you know, incredible New Yorkers. My mother was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. She was born in 1930. My father was born and raised in Harlem in 1926. They met each other in 1961, married in 1963, and shortly after, moved to Southeast Queens.

And in that move, they began to imagine a life, not just for themselves, but for myself and my brother, who was born a year after I was, he's a year younger. And really at the core of that for them was education, because both of their lives had been changed immeasurably by education. Both of my parents were educated in the public schools of New York City, all the way through high school. My father went to City College. His college education there was interrupted by the Korean War, but he came back, and finished at NYU, um, through--

Helga Davis: So that's already huge that you had parents who cared so deeply, but you, you were the only-- Were you the only African American student in your-in your class?

Thelma Golden: Yes.

Helga Davis: And-and what-

Thelma Golden: Yes.

Helga Davis: -what impact did that have on you? Because I-I-- I'm asking you this-

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -because I think about my-my, uh, my education at the Walden School.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And I think my class at Walden had 22 people in it, and maybe we were 5 or 6 Black kids. And one of the things that I cherish about that time is that I felt like Helga.

Thelma Golden: Mm. I completely know what you mean by that. And I think I understand it from my own experience.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Thelma Golden: Um, I was very conscious that my brother and I were two, a very few Black students at the school, but it was an incredibly amazing environment. One that was full of a kind of love that created a safe space for us, right? So I understand how these stories play out so differently for people. And I honor the fact that my story includes the fact that it was not a traumatic experience, but I also think they had to do with the fact that my parents were very clear about what the experience was.

And so, to the degree that I ever expressed a yearning for wanting to see a kind of validation in that space of who I was in the very nuanced specific way that I understood from my home, my parents made it very clear to me, that that would happen at home.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Thelma Golden: Right? And it did happen at home.

Helga Davis: Right.

Thelma Golden: And I think about how my education was so much what happened during the school day, and what happened at home. And the-and the two came together in ways that were amazing. So when my father would say, "What are you studying in history?" And if his instinct was that, it wasn't including the story in the way that, perhaps, he understood it, he would go to his very vast library and pull a book down, and begin an alternative lesson. Canon revision for me began like right at on Lewiston Avenue.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Right? In-in the home with my parents. And in terms of the social and the ba-- Social aspects, my mother, while being super active in our school, you know, with the parents' group, et cetera, she also created all these opportunities for us to have multiple kinds of social lives, so that our opportunity to see ourselves in different worlds was possible.

So I think about those years, my elementary school world, and I think I definitely became who I am because of all that nurturing, because of the fact that it seemed- it seems to me now to have been so nuanced in the thought-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: -of what it needed to be. And, you know, it's-it's interesting to me. I remember I, um, had another teacher, and I'm going to guess this might have been fifth or sixth grade as well, Karen Dickson. And I remember when we were getting ready to read Huck Finn.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And she got up in front of the class, and gave the most profoundly moving to me, explanation of history, and the way history changes and words, and what they mean, and how they should and should not be used, and how they could and could not be applied. And she spoke deeply to issues of parity and of identity, and did it in a way that didn't call me out specifically, but made me feel incredibly seen, and also made all of my classmates understand something very different than perhaps if we had just--

Helga Davis: Gone ahead and read the book without any context.

Thelma Golden: Without that.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: And to this day, I think about her all the time. You know, I think about, you know, we use the word "allyship" now, and I understand how much as an educator. She was not just saying that for me, she was saying it for everyone.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: Right? She was teaching, she was doing some very essential radical teaching in that classroom. And I, again, it was a gift to me.

Helga Davis: And so you had- you had this experience of-- So the school could basically, uh, you could be Thelma, in the way that I felt very much like Helga, I think, but I also felt a little very split too, because I still felt that, if something happened between a Black student and a white student in my school, that the Black student was going to get kicked out, right? And that the white student would be given the benefit of the doubt. I had no-no, um, evidence of any of this. But I came with that kind of-of worry.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Um, and I'm still very good friends with my music teacher.

Thelma Golden: Mm.

Helga Davis: The-the woman who was my music teacher in school. And we were talking recently, and about that time in that school, um, there were some-some kids there. So Kenneth Lonergan was in my high school then. Matthew Broderick was in the high school, uh, Robin and, uh-- What's her other si-- What's her sister's name? The Pogrebin twins and their little brother were in the school. So we were this-this group of, as she remembers, very bright, very active, very curious kids. And we were doing some stuff with each other.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Right? And I said to her, "I feel like you gave me the keys to the kingdom, but you didn't warn me about what was out there, or what I might encounter after I left you."

Thelma Golden: Mm.

Helga Davis: And I wonder- I wonder if there-- If you had any part of you that felt split, or that felt, um, not prepared in any- in any way for the world you would encounter beyond your school, and your parents' home.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Or had you really just been fortified in-in such a way that-that you were ready for the world after them?

Thelma Golden: I feel that I-I know that I had three very profoundly amazing educational experiences. Buckley Country Day School from kindergarten through ninth grade. The New Lincoln School for high school.

Helga Davis: Oh, you went-- Okay.

Thelma Golden: Where I was held deeply by the head of school at that time, Verne Oliver, who, when I met her, I spent a very unfortunate year in boarding school. Um, that was a wonderful school, but not the place for me. And when it was clear that I needed to come home from that 10th-grade year, and complete my high school year as my parents applied to the New Lincoln School, and I had an interview with Verne Oliver, when it became clear that I was accepted and going to enter in September into her 11th-grade class, she then in June, handed me a copy of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

Helga Davis: Uh-huh. Mm.

Thelma Golden: And she said, "Read it. And when you start school in September, you will meet with me every week for one hour and we will discuss it." And that gesture, that single gesture sums up my entire two years of high school, which really felt like four years, in terms of the education I got. But also because in handing me, Ellison's Invisible Man, and I still have it, it was her paperback copy. It was as if she handed me the keys to the kingdom.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: That I now inhabit every single aspect of it. So I had New Lincoln, and when I was at New Lincoln, it was time to look at college. Mrs. Oliver also was the person who encouraged me to look at women's colleges.

Helga Davis: Huh.

Thelma Golden: Encouraged me to understand the power in what that environment could create for me. And so with that in mind, I applied to almost all of them, and went to Smith College.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Where again, I was deeply, deeply nurtured by some amazing, amazing professors. But notably there, I will speak of Dr. Walter Morris Hale, who taught government and political science. Even though I went there as an art history major, became perhaps my most single most important professor for me during my time, and at Smith. And so I feel as if I was very prepared.

I-I often have the feeling that I was too prepared. But, you know, I felt that in childhood, you know, my mother-- Um, through my childhood, my father was a lawyer and an insurance broker. He had a insurance brokerage firm that insured people's homes and cars and small businesses. And my mother intermittently worked for him, and at other times had other jobs. Some part-time, some full-time.

But at-- A lot of the time, sometimes she also spent on the many community and civic activities she was involved with. And often, I can remember distinctly coming home from school and my mother saying to me-- My mother didn't drive. And so that, I'd get home from school, and she'd start scheming about how on a weeknight we would get my father to drive us somewhere that she wanted to go.

And part of that be-- Involved, being ready to leave the moment he got through the door, but looking as if we weren't ready to leave. So my mother would say, "Get your coat, bring it in the kitchen. You know, get my purse." And when my father would come in, she'd say something like, "Oh, Artie, you know, can you just run us around to the AMP." And he'd say, "Oh, I just got home. Can it wait till Saturday? You're not ready."

And she'd say, "Yes, we are. We're ready." And it was always like-- And my mother would say to me, "You know, you have to be ready." And if you asked, "Are you ready?" She would say, "I'm born ready."

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: And she would often say that about me. And I think about that, and I feel like my life has been always about a kind of preparation sometimes for events and activities that I couldn't have imagined. I mean, I feel that it makes complete sense to me that I am the Director and the Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, given the fact that I grew up within an embrace, in a household where my father lived with the idea of Harlem's deep importance to him.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Right?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Of-of Harlem being the place that created him, that made him. Harlem being so important that it stayed, even though we moved, he and my mother moved to Queens in the early '60s, and I was born there and lived there my whole life. It still entered into his day-to-day conversation about anything we might be talking about. And that continued until he died, basically. Right? Or talking about the Harlem of his past. But then of course, in his last 17 years, you know, the Harlem of my present.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And that makes me know that there's something that makes sense about the fact of what I'm doing. When I walk the streets of Harlem, I am walking in many ways, some of the same paths my father walked. And when he was alive, even, you know, my father passed away, he was 89-years-old, but was blessed with an incredible memory.

If I said to him-- As became the nature of our conversations, you know, towards the end of his life, after my mother had passed, and you know, he was living on his own. He loved for me to relate the details of my day. And if I said something like, you know, "Oh, I had to go today to visit, you know, another arts nonprofit." If I said the address, just the-the numbers, you know, if I said--

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: You know, 222 Lennox Avenue, he could immediately-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: -tell me where that was.

Helga Davis: Right.

Thelma Golden: You know, if I mentioned a particular building or a place, he would refer to what it had been. This was so profound, that sometimes I refer to buildings as what they were, which is not knowledge I should have, because that existence predates my life. But it's how I understand-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: -and think about, um, you know, the place that I am now. It's through the stories and the memories and the way in which it lived in him.

Helga Davis: You think it made a big difference that you had both your parents?

Thelma Golden: Yes. I think it made a big difference that I had both of my parents. I think it made a big difference that they had an incredible relationship, which I witnessed. I think it made a big difference that I understood their marriage as a story of their love for each other, but also of a deep partnership around many goals and values and ideals that they shared.

But I also think that having both of my parents made me very aware of how differently they parented me and how seemingly-- I'm not sure if spoken or unspoken, they seem to have a pact, as to how they would interact with me in ways that created for me a wide sense of myself.

Helga Davis: Can you give an example?

Thelma Golden: I think in many ways, my parents deeply held some gendered ideas that enacted around the way they parented me. Actually, instead of being narrowing, were very profoundly powerful. So, for example, my mother was the complete example of Black female respectability politics on every level. My mother believed deeply that the way in which the world would interact with you, had a lot to do with how you presented yourself.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: My mother believed deeply in manners and comportment. She believed in a deep sense of knowledge to be able to operate within the world with dignity and poise. She used old fashioned words like that. I-- This existed all through my life. And I, of course, had all kinds of adolescent and teenage rebellion against it deeply, but it was a gift.

Because I realized when I used to think about it as being completely about superficial ideas, I realized how much power was there. I learned that, not just from what became the dynamic ways that as an adult I could talk to her about these things. But also, again, through art. You know, when I look at the great photographs of the Civil Rights era, and I see those young women in those dresses, and those hats, with their handbags, sitting there with--

Helga Davis: And their gloves.

Thelma Golden: Yes. And the hoses are being turned on them.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And the dogs are there, and they're being spit at. I-I know what that is.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: I know what that is. So, my mother, often that would be the space at which she would come at me with, and offer me. My father, very much did not see a way to understand any of that. So what he gave me is what he had. I worked for my father in his office from the time I was 9 or 10. What bec-- What began as a way just to spend time with him in his office, became very much a job, because I was good at certain things.

I had very good secretarial skills from a very young age, and he then trained me to make them better. So that in those days, pre-computer, where an insurance office included a lot of files. Right? Every-every body's policy was multiple pages. Every year their renewal came, every file had to be in chronological order, alphabetical order, the filing cabinet. Not just A, B, C, D, but AA, AB.

Helga Davis: Oh, I hear it in your voice. [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Oh, no, no, no. Oh, no. I could-- You know, I would-- In the office, all the business was done by telephone.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: So my father and I had an incredible partnership, where someone would call, he would put it on speaker, I would hear it. He would say, "Hello, Ms. Davis, how can I help you today?" And he would say, "Oh, Mr. Golden, I'm not sure if my premium is due." I would already hear Davis, I'd run over to the file cabinet, I'd be looking for your policy. I knew where to look for the premium line. I would hold it up. And then he would say to you, "No, you're not the first, you're the 15th." Right?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And then go on. And he might-- In that moment, try and ask you about your house insurance, and-

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Thelma Golden: -you know, and, "Oh, you told me your church was thinking about buying a van-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Ms. Davis.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: You know-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: -speak to your reverend. Let him know that I could, perhaps, think about-- Tell me the name of your church again." And I knew how to write that down. Right? Then, we'd look in the telephone book, find the address. My father had a package. I would address. Billing was a, you know, it's addressing-

Helga Davis: So you were doing all that?

Thelma Golden: -envelopes. I was doing all that. And through high school, I-I-I learned aspects of the business, and I-I loved working with him in that way. And he felt that training was not so much his idea that he was training me, A, to be a secretary or, B, to work for him, but more that was training me on what it meant to be a professional.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: What it meant to work in an office, what it would mean to be responsible, right, in a job. And have those responsibilities. And, you know, later in life, you know, um, I can remember if I said to my parents something like, "Oh, you know, next week is the museum's opening." My father would ask me, "What remarks are you gonna give? Tell me." My mother would say, "What are you gonna wear?"

I mean, then they would do this together. And I-- In those moments, I would see how together, you know, they formed me. You know, and how together they believed deeply in who I could be.

Helga Davis: Do you feel a huge sense of responsibility for what you hold now? What-what you- what you oversee, what you- [clears throat] what you are building at Studio Museum?

Thelma Golden: I-

Helga Davis: And actually prob-- In-in-in other areas also.

Thelma Golden: You know, the Studio Museum is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Helga Davis: 50th anniversary.

Thelma Golden: Right. Which is an incredible fact for an institution that was begun in 1968, with the idea that there should be a museum for Black artists in the face of many people who did not even acknowledge the importance of these artists, and this history.

Helga Davis: We'll get to that in a minute. [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Right. So, you know, I feel responsible to the many people who worked for so many years to create possibility for Black artists. I feel responsible to those people who before they had institution, or title, or position, did the work. I feel responsible to the artist to the past, right? Those artists who did not receive recognition, though their genius is so clear, right, to us.

I also feel responsibility to the future, right? To the idea that creating what can happen now within this institution, creates what can happen in the future, right? It sets out just as our founding began the idea that I can sit in now, and feel privileged to lead, creating that-that for the future is very important to me. So I do feel a deep sense of responsibility, and I also feel a deep sense that I live within a set of values that makes it so that I understand this work as bigger than me, and makes me understand this work as necessary and important in-- But without needing always to have that validated by others.

Helga Davis: That's a huge thing. Wow.

Thelma Golden: But it's a gift. It's a gift because what it has allowed me is a real sense of purpose. A real understanding. You know, I-I-I love art, right? I mean, I-I-- This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to live within the context of being able to live in and around art in my life. So the fact that my work is that already is a gift, but I love how tangible it feels for me to work with art and artists, to have art and artists just define and inspire who I am in my life.

But to work at an institution like the Studio Museum that has a life that is so grounded, right, in where it is. You know, s-some of what on a day-to-day basis gives me just, you know, as-as the young people say, just gives me life. Is the fact that, when people interact with me about the museum, particularly in Harlem, a lot of times they'll say to me, "I love that exhibition," or this program.

But more often than not, what people do is they acknowledge just our existence. I remember like three days after the new Whole Foods on Lennox Avenue open, I was downstairs like everyone else walking through the Whole Foods. I actually joked. It was like people were walking through it like it was a museum, right?

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Right? Because we had not seen that much kale, right, in Harlem before. And I was watching people look at it all, but I remember this woman walked up to me and she, by way of greeting, just started with "Thank you". And she went on to tell me how she understood what the museum was. And she didn't say it within the specificity of a particular exhibition or program. The way she articulated it was so beautiful to me, because what she basically was acknowledging that our existence was the gift.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: Our existence was the gift. And, you know, standing there in the spice aisle, she just broke it down. Broke it down. And I carry that with me, and I carry all of those interactions with me, because that's what I feel responsible to.

Helga Davis: Are we getting a lot of people from the neighborhood coming-

Thelma Golden: We are.

Helga Davis: -to the museum?

Thelma Golden: We are, but not as many as I ever would want.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Thelma Golden: And that really has to do with the fact that museums, all museums still have a long way to go, in order to fully understand what it means to be open and truly accessible. Now, I feel proud that we get lots of people from the neighborhood, and we go out and welcome the neighborhood through our education programs, our public programs, our outreach programs, our teen programs, our senior programs, and really touch the neighborhood and touch the neighborhood in real and profound ways. But I envision and a lot of the design of the new museum, um, that has been beautifully designed by-- for us, by Sir David Adjaye. Really, was to take that idea of openness, and make that visible-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: -in the actual physical structure of the museum itself. To-to dissolve, right, the-the walls between the inside of the institution and outside, to allow both the neighborhood to be in the museum, and the museum to be out on the street in the neighborhood as well.

Helga Davis: Do you think that we just still think that's for someone else, that's-that it's for white people, that museums are for-for-for others? Even the idea- even the idea that the work of an African-American person could be to paint or to make video. Is it still a foreign idea? Is it- is it a hard- is it a hard thing for us to get our heads around still?

Thelma Golden: I think as a culture, we acknowledge creativity.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And expressivity, right? So I don't think the issue is imagining, right, the ability for a person to paint, or to sculpt, or to make photographs, or to make performance art. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is in the space of institutions, and how people understand what happens in them, and how they might interact with them. And some of those barriers are physical, right?

They can be as simple as understanding what will I do when I get there. Right? And so-so much of our work at the Studio Museum is creating experiences within the institution in the space of art, right? Allowing the institution to be home for many different kinds of activities that then open up the possibility of understanding what a museum is, and can be.

But I also think sometimes it's just as simple as a-as familiarity. And I think back to my own childhood, where I, you know, had parents who understood that by allowing us to experience culture, would make us people who would seek that out through our lives.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And so I think that, really, I-I marvel at the way in which, even in my career in museums, the 30 years that I've been working in museums, how museums have changed, how in the world when people approach me, they talk about the way in which they see museums as important cultural resources for themselves, for their families, for their communities.

How they have expectations of what the experience will be. And I think lots has changed in that regard. But I bel-- I-I know that we have to continue to be open, continue to reinvent the ways in which we interact. And so that museums continue to be relevant, and important to diverse and varied audiences throughout, not just the city, but-but everywhere.

Helga Davis: So you graduate from Smith, and then what happens? Um, do you go to the Whitney?

Thelma Golden: No, I went home and I worked for Arthur Golden, Golden & Golden Insurance.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Phone would ring, "Golden & Golden Insurance. May I help you?" You know, in the early days when I was in high school, my father didn't tell his clients that I was his daughter. Right? But by the time I graduated from college, he was proud.

So when I'd answer, of course, many of his clients would say, "Oh, congratulations. We heard you just graduated." You know, it was lovely. So I worked for Artie Golden. Um, I had just learned to drive. So Artie Golden had, uh, bequeathed me his 1976 Cadillac Seville. So I was working--

Helga Davis: I can totally see you in that car.

Thelma Golden: Totally. I had to put a pillow to see above the windshield. So I was working for Artie Golden and driving his-- Driving my mother, who still didn't drive around in Artie's Cadillac, and looking for, um, a job. And I had the opportunity in that summer to apply for a museum fellowship that, um, existed in many museums in New York at that time, one-year entry level fellowship.

And I received acceptance into the fellowship program, both at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Marsha Tucker was, the late Marsha Tucker, was the Director of the New Museum at that time, and Mary Schmidt Campbell was director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. And I accepted the fellowship at the Studio Museum, and began my year there, which was incredible.

And while there, it was just a year-long, began looking for permanent positions, and got a position as a curatorial assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art. And that really, at that moment was my dream job. I was working for a curator, I was well-trained by Artie Golden, so I answered that phone, you know, "Curatorial department, Thelma speaking, may I help you?"

I was every day working for the curators there, seeing exhibitions being made, you know, in those days before email, even before voicemail, all information passed through the assistants, which was an incredible education to understand just how everything worked. I was also working again after a year at the Studio Museum in those galleries, right?

Being, you know, taught, given this great foundation, um, at the Studio Museum, then at the Whitney Museum together. Those experiences really formed my-my resolve that I wanted to make exhibitions, and be a curator.

Helga Davis: But it-it-- And it also came out of this very practical experience of having answered the phones, of knowing how to file things, of, right? The very pragmatic work that you did with Artie Golden, prepared you for the world.

Thelma Golden: It prepared me for the world. And that, along with my Smith College art historical education, you know, that demanded the sort of rigor of art historical training, the deep looking, the, you know, broad sense of understanding what that meant, gave me again, you know, these sort of two different experiences. And then, I'll add to that, you know, that my mother also gave me a lot that I took into my professional life, because my mother, as I said, was involved with a lot of civic and social organizations in our neighborhood, in our community.

My mother was always organizing something. And my mother, again would deputize me as her assistant. And my mother would sit at the kitchen table. She would, you know, steal office supplies from my father's office. So there were always half-used legal pads. And she would make lists, and she would say, "Okay, you know," she organized-- She used to organize these flea markets at our church, where everyone would bring their things, and then they would be sold.

But she had a whole schedule when you had to do this, for when the flyers had to go out, planning, organizing, right? All work that lives within me, you know, day-to-day, my mother was an incredible hostess, incredible hostess, with never an event planner anywhere in sight. And she could, starting four days out, have a whole plan, right, of-of what to do, you know.

And that time before Post-Its, we would, you know, sort of rip apart little pieces of paper, and she would tack them up, you know, with all of what to be done. And we'd move activities from one side of her bulletin board to the other, as they were executed.

So I felt very prepared academically, I felt very prepared socially, I felt very prepared from these work experiences that I had had at home, and I felt like I had this incredible sense of passion towards what it would mean to be someone who could author exhibitions.

Helga Davis: What do you miss most about your parents?

Thelma Golden: Oh, you know, I miss everything. You know, we are just a few days after my father's birthday was January 14th, my mother's birthday, January 18th. And my mother always took that occasion to celebrate that as a birthday week. And, you know, I miss everything about them. But I have to say, in these years since they've passed, they are both-both very present to me.

Um, I feel as if, you know, we all fear that, right? You know, the becoming our parents. And I feel that experience all the time, right? I feel the vestiges of what they gave me coming out in so many ways. You know, my father was a deep and great reader. Um, you know, I did not need, uh, Google Alerts because my father, by nine, ten o'clock had read all of the papers.

So if there were any mention of anything that had to do with anything I was interested in, I would know, right? Definitely by 10:01. And I miss that, right? I miss his parsing of, you know, what is going on in our world, um, in the way that we could download on that daily. I miss my mother's way of even in-- At the end of her life, you know, when she was ill, the way in which she still lived with such a sense of hope, you know.

She would call me. My mother did not believe, you know, in-in the bulk of her life, she thought the lottery was something, you know, not to be played. It was a waste of money, so on and so forth. It was only in her-her later years after she had a stroke and was, you know, deeply ill that she began to engage in this. And I love that idea, because she would call me with great urgency to play the Powerball for her.

And, you know, and I just found that incredible, incredible. And I would say, "Mommy, what are you gonna do with the money?" Because she would already be in that. And I loved that sense of hope, that was something I always felt from her as a child. You know, one of the sort of great mysteries, or I-I don't even know if it's a mystery, but something that remains so importantly unresolved for me in my life, is the fact that my mother's name was Thelma. And most people think I was named for my mother.

And that's the easiest thing to say. When people say that to me, I say, "Yes", but that's not the truth of it. The truth of it, is that I was named for my father's sister, whose name was Thelma. My father, so Artie had a sister born in 1930, and her name was Thelma, and she died when she was six. And Artie's mother, my grandmother, Anna, lived with us through my whole childhood.

She moved from Harlem with my parents when they moved to Queens in 1961. And so all through my childhood, I understood this. But what was profound was the fact that when my father met my mother, Thelma, born in 1930, and brought her home to his mother, my grandmother Anna, in 1961, and said, this is Thelma.

My grandmother, in many ways realized that this would for her be related to the fact that she had had a daughter named Thelma who had died when she was six-years-old. So when I was born, it was very clear to me when my mother, Thelma, and my grandmother Anna were talking when they were talking about me, or when they were talking about my deceased aunt.

And when my mother would say, "My Thelma," I knew she made me. And when Anna would say, "My Thelma," I knew they were talking about my father's sister, my aunt. And I grew up always with this sense of that Thelma, right? That's who I knew I was named for.

And you know, of this person who I never met, who didn't have a life beyond her six years, who I only knew from a few photographs that existed of her, but yet my grandmother, Anna, always saw her in me. And so, again, I feel, when I think about missing my parents, I always had this experience of living with this idea of those people who are with us, but not with us. And so, I do miss them, but I also cherish the way in which my missing them, makes me think about them and know them, in ways that are deeper and more profound, perhaps, than when they were alive.

Helga Davis: When you are looking at someone's work-

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -what are you looking for?

Thelma Golden: I never know what I'm looking for when I'm looking at someone's work, and I value that. I always felt, if I went into looking at artwork looking for something, then, perhaps, my relationship to art, to artists, and to being a curator, was wrong. So I go into looking at artwork, usually first, by thinking about the questions that it asks of me.

And trying through a conversation with the artwork itself, or in many cases with the artist, when-when I have that privilege, I think about what those questions are, and I begin to try and attempt to think about answers. I know that might not be possible, but I do. Often, people say, "How do you know?" And for me, the knowing is both intellectual, right?

When-when I see an artwork, and I can begin to frame a narrative that, either refers to the past and context that I understand, or makes me think about the future, right? Something I haven't seen, and yet, I-I know I'm seeing it. That's one way, the intellectual, but there's also the emotional. Quite often, I feel a very visceral connection to what it means to stand in the space of the work, which only happens for me in real space, right?

So, that's why I do distinguish my relationship to artworks that I see digitally, versus those that I have an experience with in real space, but also, Helga, I have to tell you, the real secret for me is that, I am as interested in artworks, as I am in artists. And really, when I think about what's been most important for me as a curator, it has been that deep interaction with artists.

I love that, sometimes, that interaction can result in an exhibition, in presentation, but that almost feels as if it's the bonus gift. That the real gift, the real, what I think is most important about my work is this conversation with artists. This conversation about, you know, where creativity and intellect meet. It is about why people make what they make.

It's about the questions that they are asking themselves, and what they hope, that in what happens when the work moves into the world, what it can mean. I see myself as a conduit, right, between artist, object, and audience, right? So, where I fit in that relationship, can change, right? Sometimes, it can be about presentation, sometimes it's about interpretation, sometimes it can be about all of those things. But I really, more than anything, what I am is what I've become, because of the interactions with artists.

Helga Davis: I feel even that what we were saying earlier about, when I asked you the question, what are you looking for-

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -in a work, and you said that, if you go in looking for something, that there-there's part of the experience that then is lost to you. It feels true of relationships with people too, right?

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm. Because in so many ways, you just don't know where it's going to go. Now, I am not actively curating now. I've been Director of the Studio Museum for 11 years. And in that role, I don't have the opportunity that I had, uh, when I was Deputy Director and Chief Curator, or during the 10 years, I was a Curator at the Whitney, to be actively always in the space of exhibition-making.

And I don't miss it. I mean, I shouldn't say that. I miss it. I miss it in-in very, you know, sort of real ways, but in-in so many ways, I love what this mind I have, this curator's mind is doing as an institution-builder. I-I'm deeply, deeply fascinated, even though I'm having the experience with what it is, but I do now, however, still love to engage with artists and artworks.

And I have to say, it's an even more interesting and profound experience for me now, because the stakes are so much different. So, as I said, I love seeing work in real life, I have to. But why I love the digital space, is because it introduces me to artists. And I have been enjoying so deeply, how without all of the space that might separate me from, particularly, emerging artists, is collapsed in the digital space.

You know, that I can and do just slide in people's DMs sometimes, you know, with what it means to see, and wanna know more, and wanna begin that kind of conversation. And I-- It's-it's incredibly fulfilling. But I also, because I'm not so actively curating, it makes me even more eager to look and look, and look some more. I'm just always looking at art. Um, you know, for me to have pure experiences, I have to say with art now, I find that sometimes I have to do that outside of the space of contemporary art.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: You know. Um, nothing pleases me more than to walk into a museum, or into galleries in a museum outside of my particular areas of specialty, right? Where I don't have all the reference points, where I can immediately identify or date, and just look, and just see where that looking leads me.

Helga Davis: And there's something about that for us too, as humans, you know, we're always looking at something-

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -or trying to get somewhere in the looking.

Thelma Golden: Yeah.

Helga Davis: Right?

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And what is it to just take that breath, and just look.

Thelma Golden: Yeah.

Helga Davis: I noticed that with people, uh, often when-when like they're lost, right? People look at their phones, but they don't just look, and see where they are.

Thelma Golden: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And I'm one of those people, who I love to help the tourists, and-and I-I-I put in my time for good karma for [laughs] when I- when I'm traveling, and I'm lost somewhere because I want someone to help me too. But I might just stand there with them and say, "Well, look, if you look, this is this place."

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And from here, if you look there, you wanna go that way towards that thing, but you must look.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Is there a thing that you- that you do every day, that every person could do that helps ground you, that helps send you out into the world, in a way that-that, uh, allows you to do the work that you're doing? Part of-of-of what I-I find interesting in these conversations too is-is to collapse a little bit the mystery around how a person does the thing that they do in the world.

You know, so much that- so much that-that comes up in these conversations has to do with people finding that thing that gave them the passion. So you had your father talking to you about Harlem, right, and having these references, but also having your own curiosity about art and just-- And following that thing.

And I'm wondering if-if even before that, there is a path, a thing, a ritual, a something that-that you do, that every person can do, um, that connects them, that can connect them, potentially, connect them to-to their thing?

Thelma Golden: I think there are probably a couple of things that I do. I think that I need to be very still for some part of every day, and usually, at the beginning of the day. And that is because I exist perpetually, but also for me, you know, very beautifully, constantly in motion. And I love that. And it's how I think of myself, it's how I see myself. So in order to be with myself, I need to find some stillness.

I also do need to think about, and look deeply at art every day. And that can be the same work of art, or different works of art. But I find that to be the fulfillment of this childhood wish that I had, of what would it mean to be able to have art in my life all the time? I find that I need the experience of what it is to look, um, every day, and working in a museum, makes that possible.

I also find that I need very profound interaction with the minds that inspire me, and I feel that there are a set of conversations that rotate in some ways, but that one of them, at least, happens every day, um, with some of the people that I am privileged, have been incredible, intellectual interlocutors, but more importantly, um, real friends to me. And in the context of this conversation, I'll talk about two or three.

One of them that I've talked about publicly, uh, a lot is the artist Glenn Ligon, who I have some interaction with every day. And in many ways, the-- And that's been for 25 years, and Glenn has been an incredibly important interlocutor in how I think about art and how, in those thoughts, the way in which they work out for me, is in conversation with him.

Now, often when I say that, I know it sounds very pure, as if we're sitting, talking about art. Well, it's when we're talking about art as we talk about everything else, but it has been a profoundly transformative conversation for me, and really a base from which I work. I also, equally, have that kind of conversation with Hilton Als. You know, Hilton worked with me deeply on, really, what was my first important exhibition, Black Male.

Um, Hilton was the editor of that catalog, but that-that term is too narrow for really what his role was. He really shaped the space of that volume, which really was not an adjunct to the exhibition, but part of it. Was a way to understand that exhibition through that volume. But in the process of that work, he also profoundly impacted the way in which I thought of the physical space of the exhibition.

And again, that came out of what was then our relatively, in the early-'90s new sort of friendship and collaboration. But that has continued. And again, you know, I often think my voice as a curator has been so shaped by my ability to speak, and be heard by Hilton, and for me to then understand myself through his hearing, and speaking that back to me.

He also is constantly giving me the reference points, constantly. And so sort of living within the context of, you know, Glenn, that has given me the gift of this incredible visual conceptual framework that I can exist in. And Hilton sort of creating that through words, right? And the words as a way into the visual--

Helga Davis: And both of them being inspirations for you.

Thelma Golden: Deep inspirations. I also will speak about my relationship to the artist Lorna Simpson, and realized that in that, you know, I saw and knew Lorna's work before I knew myself as a curator, or that I would be in this world. I mean, her work was profoundly important to me as a college student. I saw it reproduced in the village voice, and cut the image of her work out, and realized that it was different than every other work of art that I was being taught at that moment.

And it opened up a whole world of possibility. I didn't meet her until many years later, but fundamentally, the existence of her work, changed everything for me. And so, you know, again, a way in which relationship to artists, relationship to conversation. So I-I-I need to be fed in that way, and I understand what it means to have those relationships. And I think that they are important. And maybe that's just a way to say that I'm deeply inspired by my peers.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: And I feel very lucky to be living and working in this moment. And I think of the dozens of artists that I've had the privilege to work with in deep ways, and I see that as an extended circle of, in every-- In each and every one of them that has defined who I am, and what I am as a curator. And for that, I am eternally, eternally grateful.

Helga Davis: How do you then, also, in this world where you are moving all the time, you are seeing things, you're taking in information, what happens then in your relationship? How-how-how are you navigating that inside all of these huge responsibilities that you have?

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm. Um, you mean my life relationship?

Helga Davis: Yes. Sorry.

Thelma Golden: [chuckles] No, I was gonna say of all, but, no. Well, look, I-- You know, again, you know where life takes us, right? Where life takes us. So imagine, you know, when I think back to my childhood, I think and see many moments, experiences, just even maybe physical objects that meant nothing, or didn't reveal their meaning to me then, that I realize have so much importance now.

And I think about that when I think about, um, my husband, and my partner, Duro Olowu, right? The fact that, again, I knew of his work before we met each other. I coveted his work before we met. I sought it out with a deep, deep, deep sense of urgency, um, unsuccessfully before we met.

So, when we met, one of the first things I said to him was, a long, long run on sentence of appreciation for what I saw in his work, and what that desire for it, I knew was about-- Wasn't just because he made beautiful, beautiful, beautiful dresses and beautiful clothes, but they spoke so deeply to so many things that were important to me, history, culture, identity, all of it.

And that was our initial meeting, not planned, random. And then, you know, the fact that, that turned into a friendship, and then a relationship, and a marriage, and a life, has been an incredible gift. It has given me, it's made literal, uh, something that I studied, right? So as an Art history African-American studies major, I studied the theoretical implications of the diaspora.

I was made to understand the-the intellectual legacy of African and African culture and Pan-Africanism, but to marry a man born and raised in Nigeria, and to understand, not the theore-- What-what that means in theory, but to have that come into my life, and make the African-American experience that I have had richer. The fact that we live between New York and London, and understanding what that has meant, right, for, um, our life together.

And the fact that he is an artist- an artist, and lives and thinks and sees like an artist, has given me yet another point of inspiration every day that is bound so deeply in our relationship to each other, and our love for each other. And I-I love that. Um, you know, Duro is an incredible thinker. His mind is wide, and does not have bounds.

And you know, in some ways, I love what it means that, he has an identity that understands itself as ancient, and as one that sees itself in a primary way. But I also love how he is truly a citizen of the world, right? And-and can see himself in and around the world. And that comes out in his work. And so that has allowed us to share, um, a life together that has involved lots of different place-- Physical places, lots of geography, but also a life of the mind that is wide, um, and deep.

And, you know, deeply, deeply, deeply, just fulfilling in every way.

Helga Davis: Is there anything you wanna ask me?

Thelma Golden: I wanna ask you, what you think it means to be a Black artist now. You know, I-I-I have so much nostalgia, right? For an idea of purity around those-those notions, right? And I'm a deep student of that period, sort of '50s, '60s, '70s 'cause so much of the art that informs the moment of the art, I am most invested in, you know, needs to understand, right? What that was.

I mean, I even will go back to the Harlem Renaissance. I mean, you know, one of my great regrets, I feel like, you know, why wasn't I there? Why wasn't I there? I should have been there.

Helga Davis: Uh-huh. [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Right? I should have been there. And so I'm always interested in this- in this idea, right? Black art, what does that mean? I don't feel it needs to be answered fully. I love what it means to-to tangle in the definition, but I also always wanna know what it means to be a Black artist.

Helga Davis: I think one of- one of the things that, um, an experience I had very recently, I was working on a piece with someone, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. Mm. And I'm always, always interested in, how do I turn the thing on its head. And so I started working on this rendition of the national anthem-

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -which I performed at The Met Breuer, and, mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And to say that it's-- I'm gonna send it to you, and maybe we'll put it up on the-

Thelma Golden: Yeah.

Helga Davis: -website.

Thelma Golden: Yeah.

Helga Davis: But in the-- What I understand about it, is that those words from my mouth can be a bomb.

Thelma Golden: Mm.

Helga Davis: And this is the place I must explore. This is the place I have to live from. This is how my being here makes sense. It's-it's to know this. And, you know, I still-- My mother still is trying to understand what it is I'm doing, and why I won't straighten my hair, and just find a nice man, and get married. [laughter]

Thelma Golden: I know, I know, I realize she say that, "Helga, we didn't talk about hair. Is there a way that two Black women can speak to each other?"

Helga Davis: And we-we can.

Thelma Golden: And not talk about hair? I mean, you know.

Helga Davis: We-we-we just did it, didn't we?

Thelma Golden: Is there a way?

Helga Davis: We just did, we almost did- we almost did. [laughs] We almost got there.

Thelma Golden: I mean, when did you stop straightening your hair?

Helga Davis: I have no-- I don't even know anymore.

Thelma Golden: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And [laughs] we almost made it though.

Thelma Golden: Right. But, you know, I own that. I think that's, you know, one of our realities, right?

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: That-that it-

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: -that it means so much. And you know, there's a whole autobiography for all of us when we talk about being understood, you know, misunderstood.

Helga Davis: Seen.

Thelma Golden: Seen, it's always about our mothers.

Helga Davis: Beautiful.

Thelma Golden: Always.

Helga Davis: Always.

Thelma Golden: Right? Always. It lives so much in terms of our sense of ourselves, you know, and I think about that a lot because, again, it's another way in which I think about who I am, and I know that, that decision of knowing that I wouldn't be an artist. And it-- And I should say that, you know, people often say, "Did you ever imagine you would be an artist?"

And I think those early experiences with culture, made me know that, true art and great art was an act of genius. And I knew I didn't have that. I already recognized that, but I also recognized that I recognized that, and that's what could make me a curator. So I never wanted to be an artist, though, you know, certainly, and this is about hair. Seeing Judith Jamison in Alvin Ailey as a little girl, certainly predicted that I would look this way, because that changed me.

And certainly, as I understood what ideals of beauty could be, that was always one that stood there for me. And while I knew I could not dance, I thought, perhaps, there was something about that, that I could be. And she, again, profound, when I think of just-- It-it was just such a-a searingly amazing experience to see her and then, you know, through my life.

But I-I think about-- For me, when I think about those moments I was becoming myself, certainly, it was the moment at which I cut off my hair, definitely. That felt like an act towards, and that happened when I was probably 20. I was probably about 24, 25 when that happened.

Helga Davis: Yeah, I must have been around the same age.

Thelma Golden: Yeah. And so in a way, you know, half of, you know, a half-life ago, and it very much felt like everything that it could mean about what, and some of it was really practical, I thought to myself, "You know, this is who I am, and this is who I'm going to be, and this is how I'm going to walk through the world." You know? And it-it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be with my mother, though she always maintained a wish potentially, um, that I might, you know--

Helga Davis: Come on back. [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Right, right, but, you know, again, that was one of the places, you know, why I, you know, love her so dearly, because we reconciled around that issue because she acknowledged this as me.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: And-and that's-that was, you know, a great gift, but, you know, I think about it when we think about ourselves, that's always there, right?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Right? Our-our way to understand ourselves through that, which, however, right? However, because I don't- I don't feel deep politics about these choices.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: You know, I-I-I don't have judgment about the different ways in which we, as Black women approach this, but know that the choice, you know, that I made felt very much like a step towards becoming myself.

Helga Davis: I would like to think though, that I could make a different choice in another moment.

Thelma Golden: Yeah.

Helga Davis: And come- and become, and still be-

Thelma Golden: Exactly.

Helga Davis: -whoever I am.

Thelma Golden: Exactly. But that's- but that's what I think is so interesting about it is that, for us, that's a reality, right? But it does have that weight, right? It's not as incidental as a hairstyle, but it is about these choices towards selfhood, you know. And I-I do feel very much, um, I was very conscious of myself as a Black girl, and then a Black woman, like that-that was always there.

Some of it was in reflection, because I saw myself, you know, again, through, you know, I grew up in the Queens Borough Public Library around great librarians. And so many of them offered me these reflections of myself in literature, right?

You know, one of the greatest conversations I had with my mother as a, you know, a young girl is when I read Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones. And my mother was, you know, the child of, you know, immigrants from Barbados, who was, you know, raised in Bed-Stuy. And I read this, and all of a sudden, like my head exploded. I looked at her and I said, "I-

Helga Davis: Now I get it.

Thelma Golden: -know who you are."

Helga Davis: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Thelma Golden: And she was like, "Yes". Right? And that, you know, immediately, you know, and of course, when my father, when Artie gave me James Baldwin, particularly those, you know, the novels set in Harlem, I, of course, then I could say to him, and so in so many ways, I always understood myself, you know, in these ways, but I realized that when we begin to think about the ways we describe ourselves, and the way in which that we carry that with us, um, you know, tells us so much about our story, right? And-and what we need to pick up.

I've been in a space of really trying to reclaim, you know, what some of those early, early influences were for me, you know, um--

Helga Davis: For any particular purpose.

Thelma Golden: Well, just because I-I-I think it all didn't come from nowhere.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: You know, I've long understood how profound it was for me to see Roxie Roker playing Helen Willis on The Jeffersons.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Thelma Golden: So all this aspiration, live in the world of culture, live around art. Do you remember [crosstalk] that apartment?

Helga Davis: Diana Ross in Mahogany, right.

Thelma Golden: Mahogany. Well, let's-- We can't- we can't. [crosstalk] We-we need another whole podcast.

Helga Davis: And, yes, that-that apartment. [laughs]

Thelma Golden: Yeah. So really-- So if we say-- For TV pop culture, for me, the two films together, and they came out just a year or so apart, that have everything to do with who I am and what I do, are The Wiz and Mahogany.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: I'm not gonna say any more about it, but that's it.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: The Wiz, Mahogany. In terms of this idea of an imagining, you know, The Jeffersons was so real for me, because in so many ways, George Jefferson, right, this Black businessman, I recognized that. And my mother was very much in the mold of Louise Jefferson, even in physical, style, and comportment. So, I got that, but it was Helen Willis, right, who would be coming downstairs on her way to the opera, that just was like, "Okay, that's what I imagine."

Helga Davis: But what-what did the idea that she was married to a White man mean for you then-

Thelma Golden: You know-

Helga Davis: -in that context?

Thelma Golden: -in that context, that felt incidental. I didn't have politics around it. It seemed to me to have something to do, perhaps, with going to the opera.

Helga Davis: Uh-huh.

Thelma Golden: It had something to do with the fact that her apartment had red walls and African art. It seemed to maybe have something to do with the fact that she existed in what seemed like this expanded field. But I didn't take it to be something as political as I understood now, as an adult, looking back at the way in which the show was understood. I was watching it without that filter. And actually, truth be told, I didn't pay very much attention to him.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Thelma Golden: Really.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: It-it, really, for me, was always about how she would just walk into the room. I've been trying to replicate many of those outfits for my entire life.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Thelma Golden: No, really. I just-- Everything, everything about her as Helen Willis. And then, of course, as I got older, everything about her as Roxie Roker.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Thelma Golden: Just, you know, formed, you know, such an important and serious, serious space. And, you know, TV plays that role. I mean, the first understanding I had of a notion of a Black artist, came from watching Good Times. I understood artists and artworks, but at that point, I thought artists were not people who were living, right, because I was going to museums, and understanding objects.

Helga Davis: Uh-huh.

Thelma Golden: But the idea of a living artist, and then in particular, a Black artist, came through, again, pop culture, right? Came through that form. And I think about the way in which that is just so typical to the kind of childhood I would have had in Southeast Queens, you know, sitting on the floor, watching the TV-TV with my brother, but how the messages that were there were predicting into, you know, some aspects, you know, of-of my future. And some aspects of the way in which I would walk out into the world looking for things, right.

Helga Davis: Thank you, Thelma Golden.

Thelma Golden: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[music]

Helga Davis: Episode one of Season Two of Helga with Thelma Golden. So, we have three concrete things to do, to put into practice. To wake up and to sit quietly, to look at a piece of art, and to connect with a friend, to connect with someone who knows you, who knows who you are, and can remind you, "Oh, this is so great." I'm Helga Davis, and this is Helga.

[music]

Outro: This episode of Helga was edited by Jessica Griggs, with support from Aaron Dalton, and original music by Alex Arrington. New Sounds Senior Producer is Alex Ambrose. To learn more about New Sounds, and to discover hand-picked genre-free music 24/7, visit our new website at newsounds.org.

 

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