You have to recover the capacity to imagine yourself as an ideal and figure out how to project that into the world.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of envisioning your ideal self and actively working to present that identity to the world.
Kerry James Marshall's quote speaks to the transformative power of imagination and self-identity. It suggests that in order to achieve our fullest potential, we must first visualize who we aspire to be and take the necessary steps to embody that vision in our interactions with the world. This process of self-imagining is crucial in shaping not only our personal lives but also our contributions to society.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal growth, this quote can inspire individuals to visualize their goals.
In Western Catholicism, darkness was evil. In the colonial and imperial context, dark skin was always weak, powerless, subjugated. If you see these images all the time, they become commonplace, and they no longer become a spectacular or sensational thing.
My introduction to art history was like everybody else's. You see an art history book that has works by Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Yes, these things are great. But I don't see a reflection of myself in any of these things I'm looking at.
If you think about the way we experience art, the paradigm is still Western European. If I go to the National Gallery, what am I going to see the most of? I'm not going to see a whole lot of black figures in pictures.
When you go to an art museum, the thing you're least likely to encounter is a picture of a black person. When it comes to ideas about art and about beauty, the black figure is absent.
The history of political movements in the African diaspora is that the solution to the problem is never in the hands of people who are advancing the movement. I try and operate on my own terms.
Too often, if you look back through the history of representation and you take the work of African-American artists, the work is on such a modest scale that it becomes sort of inconsequential.
I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.
I'm much more interested in lesser-known eccentrics and characters and performers. Like Matthew Buchinger, who was born in Germany in 1674, had no arms or legs and yet did magic, and had 14 kids, and made the most extraordinary calligraphy.
I can't say that there are 'things' that make me come alive. There are thoughts that make me come alive.
I'm capable of anything, my imagination can give me wings
Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it...and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we're from, or what we look like, or who we love.
I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver.
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