Washington has the 
Capitol and the Con 
gress, and therefore 
the privilege of being 
the capital of the United States of 
America. However, what makes Washington 
tick goes beyond the protracted 
debates between the Republicans and 
Democrats fighting for a hold on the 
nation's mind. Washington has a cultural 
life and a huge concentration of 
museums that probably would not be 
found elsewhere in the world. Thus, 
central to the Washingtonians apart 
from the politicians are also the scores 
of cultural workers who make art happen. 
Highly rated among which is Lou 
Stovall. Seeing Stovall or even his 
gallery is strictly by appointment. So 
when after a cold spring evening's 
children presentation of Hamlet by Lou Stovall: Heroes and Teachers 
the pupils of Sydney Friendly's School 
(Clinton's daughter attends here). Lou ing interview began, the music in the back- 
Stovall's wife (he never drives) drove myself, ground completes the environment for an arttheir 
son (who took part in the play) to a ist who is spiritually in love with nature. 
choice area of Washington for an inspection 
of his gallery and for a dinner. It was like Under Stovall's direction. Workshop Inc.. has 
some kind of privileged initiation. Lou Stovall, grownfrom a small but active studio primarily 
58, is a complete artist in every sense of the concerned with community posters, into a 
word. So, his basement houses his wood work- professional printmaking outfit. 
shop and a detached building in the lordly 
bungalow doubles as the printmaking work- His craft is that of a master printmaker but he 
shop and gallery. Still in his unique shade, has passion for drawing as the numerous 
Stovall reads a poem to me before the follow- pieces in his gallery shows. Whilst his own 
LOU STOVALL: "I CREATE 
Question: Who's Lou Stovall? Can 
you give us a brief insight into your 
background, youth and development 
as a printmaker? 
Answer: As far as I can remember, as a child 
until I was four years old. I was born in 1937 
and in 1941 my family moved north, like so 
many Black Americanfamilies, to find work. 
My father found work in Springville, Massachusetts 
and I went to school there. I received 
a grant and a scholarship to the Rhode Island 
LANDSCAPES OUT OF 
I was not interested in anything else but art. 
But I also like writing, so I wrote poetry, I did 
printing and made drawings. At the high 
school, I went to Rhode Island School of 
Designs, but while there my father became ill 
and he passed away, so I went home to take 
care of the family. 
School of Designs in Providence, Rhode 
Island. I was there for one semester and my 
father became ill and later he died. I had to 
return home to support the family, until maybe 
five or six years later when I was released 
from family responsibilities to pursue college 
education again. This time, I went to 
Howard University. 
Question: Where was home? 
Answer: Springville Massachusetts. I was 
born in Athens, Georgia but I lived there only 
I had studied drawing and painting before 
and so I opted to specialise in printmaking. I 
decided I would try printmaking when I 
MY IMAGINATION HAKEEM BELLO 
prints and drawings are part of numerous 
public and private collections 
throughout the world, Stovall's 
recognition as a master printmaker 
has gained him commissions to print 
the works of several other notable 
artists. 
Among these are Josef Albers, 
LeonBerkowitz, Jacob Lawrence, 
Gene Davis, Peter Blume, Alexander 
Calder, Sam Gilliam, Sydney T. 
Guberman, Robert Mangold, Reuben 
Rubin, Franklin White, Selma 
Hurwitz, Jacob Kainem, Paul Reed, 
Jame L. Wells, Pat Buckley Mess, 
Breckie Stevenson and Di Bagley 
Stovall. 
However, Stovall is well known to the 
White House and Washington. Thus 
among his special commissions he 
designed the Independence Day Invitation 
for the White House in 1982 at the request of 
Mr. Ronald Reagan. At the request of Mayor 
Marion Barry, in 1986, he made the print, 
American Beauty Rose for Washington, DC. 
Area Host Committee of 1988 Democratic 
National Convention. 
Leading a community of respected artists in 
Washington, one cannot but be touched by 
Stovall s looming image of the artist as a 
community leader and servant. 
graduate from college. A German whom I 
had worked for part-time when I was a student 
offered me a job. I worked for him for 
two years and I became a foreman of his 
printmaking studio. There I learnt and taught 
myself more about printmaking. 
In 1968,1 received a grant from the Philip 
Stern Foundation and that grant allowed me 
to buy equipment for printmaking. But most 
of the tools and tables for the job I made for 
myself for a full scale printmaking, wood 
making and metal workshop. So, here I am at 
58, having studied art all my life and having 
been well versed in art history and having 
realised that printmaking was a great medium 
with lots of potentials. That's what I 
have been doing for quite sometime now and 
not only have I made prints for myself but I 
11
LouStovall 
have made prints for other artists. 
Question: Do you have some influence from 
your father or was his a different kind of 
painting? 
Answer: It was a different kind of painting. 
But we used to laugh in my family that the 
lacquer for painting is in the blood of the 
Stovall people because the basic ingredient 
that I used for printmaking was made from 
lacquer. 
Question: So would you say your art has 
evolved over the years or it is still evolving? 
Answer: It is still evolving. When I first 
started, I was interested in being an abstract 
artist because basically that was the fashion. 
But after a while I realised that I really had no 
interest in abstract art but I was interested in 
nature, the way I perceived it in my head and 
not that I went out to copy a landscape. I was 
interested in creating a perfect world that 
would be nice to be in so I made landscapes 
from my own thoughts. Later, I evolved with 
flowers. So, I now do flowers and landscapes. 
I think probably if I would ever 
change my style again, I would do some 
figurative works expressing the beauty of 
Black people. 
Question: Is the idea of imagining landscapes 
also responsible for your experimentation 
with the tandem (circular) art forms 
instead of the predominantly conventional 
rectangular art forms? 
Answer The use of the tandem form has 
always suggested a sense of spiritualism to 
me. I consider myself a spiritual person because 
I feel that the healthiness of the spirit is 
essential to mankind. So, I have a sense that 
the round forms is 
representative of 
the cyclical state of 
nature, that life 
keeps moving in a 
cycle. 
Question: Do you 
train artists? 
Answer: I have two 
full time people 
who work as my 
studio assistants 
and these are people 
who are interested 
in 
printmaking. We 
also do matting and printing and we undertake 
the installation of artworks in professional 
offices. 
I also work sometimes as an arts consultant, 
buying art for offices and I also feature as one 
of the panel of discussants on an arts programme 
called Around Town. So, between 
making prints, drawings, furniture with my 
assistants and the arts programme, I lead a 
very busy life as an artist. 
Question: How did the creative writing part 
come in? 
Answer: The writing part comes in because I 
like to work with creative ideas. Sometimes 
a picture could be worth more than a thousand 
words and after creating the picture, the 
image that I want, I still have more to say. 
Sometimes, I will write a poem about its 
conception. 
Question: So the work precedes the poem ? 
Answer: Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes 
the portrait precedes the art but to me it 
doesn't matter. 
Question: Is it true that the American art 
audience takes in a lot of colours that brighten 
the home rather than depict the grim realities 
of the day? I made that observation to an arts 
consultant earlier and he seemed to have 
agreed with me. 
Answer: Well, it's not 100 per cent true. 
Certainly, the 35 to 50 artists whose works 
are on display in New York galleries and its 
surroundings do not all paint in bright colours. 
Some of these household names work 
with very bright colours but certainly not all 
of them. I think that in general, what you said 
about American collectors, not on the high 
level but on the medium level, that one must 
have bright, colourful happy art to buy because 
you are hanging it in your home or 
office or anywhere and it's supposed to please 
people. Not many people would want to 
purchase an art work that's going to depress 
them. But a lot of works that come out in New 
York now deals with the grim realities of life, 
the cutting edge of life and that's what critics 
write about. 
Question: To what extent does art and art 
education influence the American person? I 
discovered that every art outlet has very 
inspiring patronage. Does it reflect in the 
American life or it's all simply taken as part 
of tourism? 
Answer: That's a very complex question that 
probably demands acomplex answer. I'll put 
it this way, art and culture is as important to 
the American life as the constitution. In no 
other country would you find so many people 
who are so aware of their rights and the rights 
of man. Yet there are people who are still 
starving, who are hungry, who do not receive 
equal access to education and there are people 
who are still being discriminated against. 
However, we still have the sense of our rights 
as still being very important. However, as far 
as art and culture is concerned, in no other 
country would you find so many people 
going to so many places and spending so 
much on arts and culture. The country sends 
a lot of people or people initiate themselves 
to go to a lot of cultural events not only in this 
country, but also abroad. Predominantly 
people who visit the museum, the memorials 
and other historical sites are in search of arts, 
culture information and science. That's why 
the National Air and Space Museum is one of 
the most visited museums in the world because 
people are fascinated with science. 
Question: Does this also include the young 
ones? 
Answer: All the schools regularly take their 
pupils to the museums, to the galleries and 
the monuments. The families also during the 
weekend, take the children to all these places. 
So, the children grow up accepting the museum 
as a part of their recreation even though 
they make the usual complaints that they 
would rather be at in the fields playing. But 
they go to these places all the same and are 
usually proud to exchange their experiences 
in school with their mates. 
Question: So what would be the effect on all 
these if the politicians who are advocating 
for budget cuts at all levels carry the day and 
the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 
is slashed or abolished? 
12
Answer: My response to that will be that arts 
have never been wholly dependent on the 
sustenance or subsidies of the politicians or 
even of the arts community or the collectors. 
Art would go no matter what. A very good 
example of this is that in the darkest hours of 
Germany, much as the state strove to ensure 
that nobody was making arts, there were 
people who still make art poking fun at the 
state. In every culture that we can think of, 
most of the arts are usually focused on the 
ways that we make wars against each other. 
The artists have always managed to set themselves 
apart and make comments on the 
society. I don't mean art just in terms of the 
visual artists but also the plays, the musical 
performances and even films in which you 
have responses to the political climate. 
Question: Does your being an African- American 
influence your work? In other words do 
you have the sensibility of an African-American? 
Answer: No. That's why I said earlier that if 
I changed styles again I would want to do 
something in that direction. Of course, an 
artist can't say when I change my subject 
matter, this is what I am going to do because 
once you are in front of the canvas you are not 
always the one in control of the communication 
between you and the canvas. Sometimes 
you want yourself to do one thing and something 
else comes out. So at times when I hope 
that maybe I'll have the opportunity to make 
some images of B lack people it may not work 
out and I'll turn them to flowers . 
Question: Could that be attributed to the fact 
that you probably left your family roots too 
early because your father went to work elsewhere 
and you didn't have enough time to 
take in the environment? 
Answer: Not exactly. I was born in the South 
and at that particular time, I don't think any 
Black person of my age at four would be 
thinking about that or even ten years after 
that. I think that I found my roots by the time 
I was seven years old and I began to realise 
what I was interested in. I started making 
drawings and I expressed the desire for music 
and so on. I felt very much a part of the 
New England culture because I found information 
and education more accessible and I 
think that, that way lots and lc:s of scholars 
have come from the South. But I also think 
that the South have lost lots of potential great 
scholars by not educating them properly. So, 
I feel very fortunate that I was not left in the 
South. 
Question: : Can you tell us how far you've 
travelled with your art? 
Answer: I've had exhibitions 
in many cities of this 
country (United States) and I 
have taken my work to London. 
I've had an exhibition 
in former Soviet Union now 
Russia, and in some of the 
Caribbean Islands. 
Question: Do you still hope 
to visit African either to exhibit 
or teach? 
Answer: I'm very interested 
in talking to Africans and 
listening to people from Africa. 
I feel that I see a great 
deal of the arts from my Africa. 
I mean about the way 
Africa feels and I would like 
to take my works there and 
share some with other people. 
I think that we have taken 
some of the best of arts from 
Africa they are placed in the 
museums here and in London. 
So, I think that is not 
being fair to Africa. They 
won't be able to show the 
best of their arts to their children 
unless they go to foreign 
countries. So, I am interested 
in going to Africa to 
share my ideas with its peopie. 
Question: What future do you see for 
printmaking, especially with the advancement 
of technology and computerisation 
of even the arts? Do you see the personal 
touch to printmaking gradually disappearing? 
Answer: No. Not for me. I think that now 
because we have the computer graphics, 
laser colours and all that there will be a bit 
of difference but it's still not producing 
the great art that the print is. There is a 
very unique sense of what a print is, what 
it feels like and it looks like. I think that 
there would always be a place for fine arts 
prints that's separate. There is a different 
market for such prints, that's special and 
very expensive. 
Question: How about the business side of 
arts generally? I learnt in the course of my 
Top: Lou Stovall, Riyht, 1989 
Centre: Lou Stovall, Morning Stream, 9/11/81 
Bottom: Lloyd McNeill, Feed Kids, '69 
13
I'm very interested in 
talking to Africans and TIHE PEN Shop LIMITEC) 
Corporate Gift - Public Relations - Promotions. listening to people from 
Africa. I feel that I see a 
great deal of the arts from 
my Africa. I mean about 
the way Africa feels and I 
would like to take my 
works there and share 
some with other people. I 
think that we have taken 
some of the best of arts 
from Africa they are 
placed in the museums 
here and in London. So, I 
think that is not being fair 
to Africa. They won *t be 
able to show the best of 
their arts to their children 
unless they go to foreign 
countries. So, I am interested 
in going to Africa to 
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share my ideas with its 
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trip that it costs a lot to move art works 
around especially in form of insurance 
charges. Won't this affect the quality and 
quantity of international exhibitions especially 
for the famous artists? 
Answer: It's been affected already. Ten, fifteen 
years ago, it was very easy to borrow a 
work of art to show in any exhibition, no 
matter how small or insignificant. But now it 
has to be something very, very important 
before the works can be given out. I think it's 
the National Gallery of Art that doesn't have 
a great deal of trouble getting the works but 
most other museums have a great deal of 
trouble doing that. And insurance are the 
problem really, because insurance covers are 
so expensive to get. You pay for the full 
coverage of the work and most shippers and 
freighting concerns also carry their own 
insurance.GR 
14