Everything I Learned from Ed Dwight
Ed Dwight Interview with The History Makers
My first encounter with black history was in the fall semester of my freshman year at Fisk University. Before that, I barely knew anything about both African and African American history. I was a science student in my secondary school in Nigeria, and I never had to take a history course, the courses I took in primary school that had to do with mainly Nigerian history were very tiring to me because the Nigerian educational system is more centered on passing exams than learning and hence it programs students to regurgitate course works. As such, I never really cared much for it, and just crammed the dates and names like a night or two before my exams.
Text Message “Yh I enrolled for African History, not sure how that’s gonna go, crying and smiling emoji”
Learning about black history and African history in the fall of 2020 was very empowering for me. Knowing the past opens a door to the future. This weekend, as I decided to search the archive for Black History, but more about the history makers’ experience with it, if they learned about it in school, and what impact learning their history had on them. On searching, I came across an interview that caught my attention immediately. The interviewee said “I didn’t know who Harriet Tubman was ‘till I was over forty years old. I had no idea who Fredrick Douglass was. I didn’t go to black schools. I mean I didn’t know there was slavery. I was 45 years and I was learning about slavery”
Ed Dwight Interview with The History Makers
Wait... even I knew there was slavery. How is that even possible? I became even more curious about who the interviewee was, not only because of what he said, but also about his use of ‘paint’ when talking, ‘was that figurative, or is he an artist?’ I asked myself. A couple of hours after going through his interviews in the archive, conducting some google searches, and viewing his works, I became very embarrassed that as a black artist and past engineering student, I didn’t know ED DWIGHT.
Sculptures by Ed Dwight
Everything I Learned from Ed Dwight
Just in case you fall in the same boat as me and don't know who Ed Dwight is, He is a world-renowned sculptor, author, first African American to have entered the Air Force training program from which NASA selected astronauts, and controversially not selected to join NASA.
Left: Ed Dwight with a miniature space rocket. Right: Ed Dwight sculpting.
In addition to his achievements in both the science and art field, he has such a bubbly and captivating personality which kept me seated for hours, and here’s everything I earned from him:
It’s never too late to get started
Ed Dwight Interview with The History Makers
Ed Dwight chased his childhood dream of becoming an artist, by starting sculpting at the age of 45! Hearing him talk about this and how he knew nothing or where to start at first was very motivating and calming for me. Young people like myself are constantly faced with the pressure of catching up with this fast-paced world that is amplified through social media. We see 14 yr olds on Forbes and 19year old homeowners on YouTube who seem to have their entire lives figured out. While this is worth celebrating and worthy of admiration, the constant consumption of that kind of content can leave the rest of us feeling far behind and make us over-look and undermine our accomplishments. Even though I just turned 20 today, hearing his story reassured me that it is never too late for me to pursue my dreams or change paths to forge the life I want for myself.
You don’t have to be restricted by a label
Left: Ed Dwight Sculpting, Right: Ed Dwight with a miniature rocket
He was multifaceted as both an engineer and an artist. He didn’t let the label of being known as an engineer restrict him from chasing his dreams of becoming an artist, and representing black people through his art. I can be an artist and a designer today, and 10 years from now, if I find a new interest/passion in interior decoration or software engineering too, I can chase that as well. As human beings we’re multifaceted, and embody universes inside us, and a label is too little to hold us back.
Don’t be afraid of stepping out of the status quo
Ed Dwight defied the status quo in so many ways. In his life as an engineer, even though he was discouraged from applying for the space program and discouraged while in it, he persisted and gave it his best while blocking out the noise. At the start of his art career, he was not allowed to cast his sculptures in public foundries, but that did not stop him, he persisted and ended up owning his. In his mid-career, he was criticized for realism in his art, but he kept going because of the vision he had for himself. He was also criticized for using negative spaces in sculpture because he was the first to do it, but he continued, and others started adopting it in their works too. Rather than mimicking our lives on already existing standards, we can go beyond those standards or even set ours as we please.
Personal Reflections
Sopuruchi Ndubuisi Illustrating on an Ipad
I was pleased to have stumbled upon Ed Dwight. I resonated so much with his story because I was an engineering major before leaving my country and coming to the united states to study art, and just like him, I have been criticized for using realism in my work. My research was exciting, and I will be sitting down next week to go through the archive to find more History Makers who share similar interests as me.
Quote Of The Week
You can teach your brain to help you, or you can teach your brain to destroy you, and your brain will react to what it’s been told.
- Ed Dwight