I sat down with Michael Massenburg recently to dis- cuss his journey in the art world and art in Inglewood.

According to Massenburg there were art studios on Warren Lane before there were art studios at the Beacon Arts Building. There have always been artists on Inglewood’s West Boulevard since at least the 1980s.

Sadly, the art studios on Warren Lane are no more. Art often takes second fiddle to more easily funded social service programs. Massenburg found his “art” in Watts. He went to CSULB to study art, but ended up becoming a business major. One of the last things he did before dropping out of CSULB as a senior was take a black studies class on art that was taught by Professor Silvers. Silvers taught an art class at the Watts Tower Arts Center where John Outterbridge was the director. “When I did go [to the Watts Tower Arts Center] it was my first time going there. I was blown away, because when I walked in I saw all these people who looked like me and I hear jazz and they are all painting. I had to go to Long Beach to figure out this existed 10 minutes from my house,” he said.

That was his last art class for eight years.

One day in 1989 he took an encyclopedia to work and during his break he picked up a pencil began to draw a picture of the gymnast Nadia Comaneci. It was first time he had done any art in eight years.

“And I looked at that and said to myself I think I want to do this. They say don’t become an artist, be- cause you’ll starve and you won’t have any money and I thought I’m driving a shuttle van, I don’t have any money, and I had filed bankruptcy two years prior, so since I’m already at no money I might as well do art,” he said.

In the 1990s Otis Parsons, now Otis College of Art and Design, was in MacArthur Park. He decided to go there. He spent one year there. He got a grant to cover the tuition, but unfortunately paperwork and a counselor at Otis decided he wasn’t going to get that grant.
“I had already made a decision that I was going to do art. It was no ifs, ands or buts about it. I was enjoying art too much,” he summarized.

Massenburg’s first show was at the Third World Art Festival, which was run by Cecil Ferguson, in 1990.

To learn more about Massenburg’s art, please visit the website: michaelmassenburg.daportfolio.com