Art

Calvin Macon’s battle from addiction to published author

THE BIRMINGHAM TIMES — Macon started out smoking marijuana, eventually used cocaine and then crack cocaine. After retiring from the military, he was mostly using crack. When he realized he was addicted, he tried several ways to quit smoking the drug.

Published

5 years ago

May 4, 2019

Oakland Post

By Erica Wright

To this day, Calvin Macon regrets the condition he was in when his parents last saw him.

“I was struggling,” he said. “I had a house and I was married, but I was still struggling with drugs. My parents died within about a month of each other [in 2004], and then my uncle died. I remember my dad telling my mom when she was really sick, ‘The only reason I’m here is for you.’ He died shortly after she did.”

Macon said his father had diabetes and an abscess on his toe. He went to the hospital to have it removed, which resulted in a blood clot that led to his death.

Macon, 62, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, sculptor, and recent author recalled the day he was getting ready to smoke crack cocaine at home—then he saw the light and knew it was time to quit. That was six months after he lost his parents, and he has been clean for the past 15 years.

Resisting temptation hasn’t always been easy: “I can see a cigarette lighter and think about when I used to smoke, or I can be driving somewhere and think about it because there are so many places I’ve been around Birmingham where I would go and buy drugs and smoke it or whatever,” he said.

Faith

Macon’s faith in God’s redemptive power is much stronger than his urge to do drugs, though.

“I believe in God, Jesus Christ, and I always knew I was supposed to be doing something else. That’s how I ended up writing my book,” he said. “I wrote my book in like a week and a half. I had written a couple of poems before, but when I decided to do this, I did it in hopes that it would help somebody because if I can do it, then they can do it.”

Part of his trusting God meant he had to end friendships that were not good for him, he said.

“I had to cut people off because they weren’t real friends anyway,” he said. “They’re friends while you’re smoking, but you just have to let folks go and you can’t be around it.”

Macon said he focused on sculpting, which he has done since serving in the Navy from 1975 to 1999. While serving on his first ship, he hand-carved a sculpture out of a wooden pallet.

“After we got supplies, I would find pallets or … any kind of wood available, [such as] broom handles, to make mobiles, coffee coasters, pipe holders, whatever,” he said. “Then in 1997, I started [working with] stone. I was stationed in Japan, where I met a stone sculptor. He gave me a chunk of soapstone, and I gave him a piece of ebony. Since then, I’ve been [working with] stone.”

Macon said it usually takes a month to shape a piece. Though he has done work for others and some galleries, he now mostly creates works for himself.

First Book

Macon began writing his book last year. He was inspired by some of his sculptures and would write poems to go with the pieces, then decided to put those poems in a book.

“A word or a phrase [would come to me], then I would write a poem around that word or that phrase and put it on Facebook with a picture of my work,” he said. “People would tell me I should copyright [the poems and pictures I put on Facebook].”

Macon got in contact with a publisher about writing a book. A few weeks later, the vice president of acquisitions called and said they were interested. It took Macon about a week and a half to put together material for his recently released first book, “I Can See the Light,” a compilation of pictorial poems that accompany his sculptures and illustrate how he overcame his struggle with drug addiction.

“Some poems are related to a specific carving in the hope that the artwork will add texture to the poem. Some poems reflect my thoughts and feelings as an addict, [as well as] interactions with my family, friends, and other addicts. Some are based on [my] post addiction reflections on the general revelation of God and how I see things today,” he said.

Recently, Macon recited some of the poems from the book at Bards and Brews, a poetry performance and beer tasting hosted by the Birmingham Public Library (BPL) at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Birmingham Native

Macon grew up in Birmingham as one of eight children; he has four older siblings and three younger siblings.

“I was a middle child, so I was pretty much on my own,” he said. “The older kids got stuff and the baby kids got stuff, but I was in the middle, so I was kind of by myself most of the time. [Even] when I would come home from the military, no one would even notice.”

His father worked at the Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Birmingham and Dickey Clay Pipe Company in Fairfield. His mother cleaned houses in Mountain Brook.

Macon’s family grew up in the Acipco-Finley and Hooper City neighborhoods and moved to Hooper City by the time he was in fifth grade, which he began at Lewis Elementary School before transferring to Eagan Elementary.

“We had to change schools and went to Eagan, [where] we were one of two black families,” he said. “We had to fight our way home every day.”

Macon attended Phillips High School, where he was in one of the first few classes to integrate the school. After graduating in 1975, he enlisted in the Navy for advanced electronics.

“I was the only black in the class out of 50-something guys that went through,” he said. “There were plenty of black guys in the Navy, but they weren’t in advanced electronics or air controllers; they were on deck jobs and things like that.”

Macon was stationed in several different U.S. locales, including Memphis, Tenn.; Norfolk, Va.; Jacksonville, Fla.; San Diego, Calif.; Monterey, Calif.; he also served in Japan. While enlisted, he earned a bachelor’s degree from a State University of New York (SUNY) school.

“The Navy had instructors riding on ships, so you could take some of your basic classes onboard,” he said. “The way the program is set up, you could take the classes, or you could take the tests if you thought you could pass. Then [your work would be] submitted to the university, which would give you credit. That’s the way I did it.”

For Those Who Suffer

Once he retired from the Navy, Macon returned to Birmingham and worked as a receiving manager at a home-improvement store. While working, Macon was a self-described “functioning drug addict.”

“I probably started using drugs in the 1980s, when I was still in the military,” he said. “When I wasn’t around it, I was fine. Whenever I would come to Birmingham, I would be in trouble until I could get back up to Memphis, [where I was stationed], and then I would be fine. Once I retired, [though], there was no control of it because I was retired and getting a check, and I had my own house, so it was hard.”

Trying to Quit

Macon started out smoking marijuana, eventually used cocaine and then crack cocaine. After retiring from the military, he was mostly using crack. When he realized he was addicted, he tried several ways to quit smoking the drug.

“I would carry only certain amounts of money. I couldn’t call anybody I would smoke with,” he said. “None of that worked until I just said, ‘Lord, help me, just help me!’ Somehow it worked, kind of like that let-go-and-let-God thing. [At the time], I didn’t know what that meant, but now I do. … I used to just pray for one day, for Him to just give me one good day to quit.

“It’s extremely difficult for people who smoke crack or use any other opioid to stop. They may tell themselves, ‘I’m just going to do a little bit,’ but you can’t do just a little bit. No one starts out to be an addict; they just get caught up in it. Once they’re hooked, the world collapses because they can’t get out.”

Macon was finally able to get out—and he knows his parents would be glad to see that their son has now seen the light.

“I Can See the Light” (Covenant Books) is available at Amazon and in bookstores, including Barnes and Noble and Books A Million.

This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Meet the Ramsay HS student, en route to Yale, who earned more than $2M in scholarships

Don't Miss

Sankofa Bookstore Fights for Property Tax Relief

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Art

Community Struggles for City of Berkeley to Honor to Commitment to Black Rep Theater

Berkeley’s Black Repertory Group (BBRG), the only Black-owned-and-operated theater in the East Bay, is pushing for the City of Berkeley to provide the financial backing for the theater that is required by local law. At issue is whether the City of Berkeley will contribute legally required funding to support Black theater, similar to what the city does for other performing arts and cultural institutions in the city or whether it will continue to promote gentrification and forced displacement through longtime practices that undermine this historic venue. Founded in 1964, the theater is located at 3201 Adeline St. in Berkeley, a cultural arts center that houses the Birel L. Vaughn Theater.

Published

1 month ago

August 6, 2024

Oakland Post

Summer youth theater camp 2022 at Berkeley Black Repertory Theater. Photo by Pamela Spikes.

Special to the Berkeley Post

At issue is whether the City of Berkeley will contribute legally required funding to support Black theater, similar to what the city does for other performing arts and cultural institutions in the city or whether it will continue to promote gentrification and forced displacement through longtime practices that undermine this historic venue.

Founded in 1964, the theater is located at 3201 Adeline St. in Berkeley, a cultural arts center that houses the Birel L. Vaughn Theater.

“We not asking for handouts. The city should just pay what it legally owes us and also stop using city officials to harass us,” said a member of the board of the Black Rep.

Former Councilmember Cheryl Davila forcefully argues that Berkeley officials are undermining the theater as part of the city’s continued gentrification and ongoing elimination of local institutions and neighborhoods of African Americans and other People of Color.

“The City of Berkeley has continued the colonization as reflected in disparities documented in the Health Status Report, the Center for Police Equity (CPE) Report and Mason Tillman Report,” Davila said.

“The Tillman report revealed bids are awarded to white men only,” she continued. “The CPE report demonstrated the bias in policing and the Health Status Report, health disparities due to racism. The (city) has not fairly distributed funding or support for organizations that are located within the red lines.

“Redline disinvestment has been the practice in the Black, indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) institutions in the City of Berkeley. It’s crystal clear, the city, which has invested in Caucasian institutions, outside the red lines, providing emergency and other funding passed on the consent calendar with no opposition, nor illegal break-ins for building inspections, or harassment, unlike the Black Repertory Group,” she said.

“Now, these same redlined communities are recognized as “prime” real estate, so the fines, inspections, and eviction process began some time ago and continues to eliminate “Blacks” from our communities. The attempts to confiscate the historical institutions that were never given the full support to live and thrive in a city (that upholds) a façade of being “progressive.”

Dr. Omowale Fowles, a former Berkeley health commissioner, said: “Today, in the 21st century post-Jim Crow America, a so-called ‘progressive’ Berkeley City Council has continued to perpetuate the unfair, unjust and inequitable funding practice that drove the Black Repertory Theater out of the South!

“Berkeley has not lived up to its contractual agreements to provide an annual baseline of economic support for the BBRG, nor has the city responded, in a timely manner, if at all, to BBRG’s requests for consistent maintenance sanitation, and renovations interventions,” said Fowles.

However, the Berkeley City Council has managed to award several other theaters in Berkeley tens of thousands of dollars to enable their theaters to stay alive and thrive, specifically, the Berkeley Repertory Theater in downtown and the Shotgun Players’ Theater is South Berkeley, he said.

“Such malevolent behaviors (are what we have come to expect) from a government entity that prides itself on its quasi-liberal and progressive beliefs particularly toward the arts music heritage of Berkeley,” he said.

Lady AfiTiombe A. Kambon, a longtime Berkeleyan elder who is an oral historian and actor, traced the roots of the Black Rep to historic resistance to violent racism and the KKK.

“The Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater (BBRG) escaped Vicksburg, Mississippi, from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) for holding artistic storytelling events for Black people in the 1940s. The Black Rep fled from hatred and the threat of lynching to a city known to practice humanity and democracy,” she said.

“Now, the theater continues to be under attack from city officials and Neighborhood Watch organized to eliminate the Black community,” Kambon said.

The Berkeley Equity Summit Alliance urges all Citizens throughout the City of Berkeley and beyond to support the Black Repertory Group and ensure that the City of Berkeley treats all the theaters equally and equitably distributing services and funding.

For more information, reach out to tiombe47@gmail.com or Dallascowboy52@yahoo.com

@PaulCobbOakland @PostNewsGroup @NNPA_BlackPress @BlackPressUSA

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Art

The Center for ArtEsteem Opens a New Space in West Oakland, Returning Home

After moving into different rental units for the last seven years, The Center for ArtEsteem, a Black-led, West Oakland based non-profit, has bought and renovated a permanent space at 3111 West St. On June 22, about 100 people celebrated the opening of the two-story, 1,500-square-foot space. ArtEsteem Executive Director Amana Harris likened the move to “coming home.”

Published

2 months ago

July 19, 2024

Oakland Post

Artworks hang in The Center for ArtEsteem's new space at 3111 West St. in West Oakland on June 24. Photo by Zack Haber.

By Zack Haber

After moving into different rental units for the last seven years, The Center for ArtEsteem, a Black-led, West Oakland based non-profit, has bought and renovated a permanent space at 3111 West St.

On June 22, about 100 people celebrated the opening of the two-story, 1,500-square-foot space.

ArtEsteem Executive Director Amana Harris likened the move to “coming home.”

Founded in 1989, ArtEsteem, which used to be named Attitudinal Healing Connection, opened its first brick-and-mortar space in 1992.

It was located in the bottom unit of a duplex housing the nonprofit’s founders, Aeesha and Kokomon Clottey, who are Harris’s mother and stepfather. That space was located at the corner of 33rd and West Streets.

“We know this community,” said Harris. “We have kids that have grown up in this neighborhood. After moving around, now we see the greater value of returning here and being more accessible to the community.”

Kamilah Crawford, who is an alumna of ArtEsteem and a former employee, told The Oakland Post she’s happy the nonprofit has returned.

“ArtEsteem not only provided me with art classes and employment after graduating from the University of California, Davis, it provided me with a sense of community and social justice,” she said. “Deep down, I believe what I learned played a role in me becoming a physician’s assistant and my desire to give back to my community.”

Since its founding, the nonprofit’s mission has been to “address social ills by providing opportunities for creative expression and healing to children, families, and individuals.”

ArtEsteem has done programming at over 75 schools in West Oakland and the Bay Area. Currently, it serves about 2,500 young people a year in 25 different schools and has a staff of 20 people.

Each year, the non-profit works closely with about 15 to 20 Oakland high school and middle school students through its Oakland Legacy Project. During a 30-week program each school year, ArtEsteem buses these students to its center two days a week after school to feed and educate them about art and environmental awareness and to build self-esteem.

“We don’t just do art for art’s sake,” said Harris. “We use art so young people can have a better understanding of themselves in the world.”

ArtEsteem got a lot of help to secure its new home. The Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and an anonymous donor from the San Francisco Foundation provided the largest financial donations. About 100 individuals donated $200 or more.

Artists and individuals have also helped to beautify the space and the nearby area. Students from McClymonds High School, Westlake Middle School, and Hoover Elementary School have collaborated with teams of a dozen or more artists to create four murals in the neighborhood through the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project, which was originated by Harris, directed by David Burke, and funded by the San Francisco Foundation’s Bay Area Creative Core.

A new mural to be designed by former Oakland Legacy Project students, is in the works. The project also recently got help from Ken Houston and Beautification Council with cleaning up a mural that had been covered with graffiti.

In the building itself, one can see art everywhere.

“We want young people and their parents to feel uplifted by the beauty of the space when they come in,” said Harris. “We want to foster healing and resiliency.”

ArtEsteem is not done expanding its space. It is still fundraising and plans to build a new two-story building next door to its current space, set to open in 2027.

“Now that we own our space, we can dig our roots deeper because we won’t be uprooted,” said Harris.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Art

The Presidio to Unveil SUPERBLOOMS, an Art Installation on July14

Tosha Stimage stood on the new Presidio Tunnel Tops and took a breath. She inhaled the salty air, and her eyes wandered over the sparkling waters of the San Francisco Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in mist. She delicately explored the nearby plants, their touch and their smell bringing a sense of connection to nature, she said, that resonated deep within her. Tosha, a multimedia artist and floral designer, has translated those sensations into her new work, SUPERBLOOMS — a colorful ground mural installation on view to Presidio National Park Site visitors starting in mid-June.

Published

2 months ago

July 8, 2024

Oakland Post

Left to right, Tosha Stimage and Favianna Rodriguez. Photo by Felipe Romero, Presidio Trust

By Tosha Stimage

Tosha, a multimedia artist and floral designer, has translated those sensations into her new work, SUPERBLOOMS — a colorful ground mural installation on view to Presidio National Park Site visitors starting in mid-June. Shapes referencing the delicate tendrils of the Chilean strawberry, the pink Checkerbloom and the fiery California poppy all express the resilience and beauty of these native plant treasures.

SUPERBLOOMS is the third installation of the Ancestral Futurism Public Art Mentorship program, a project led by Oakland-based artist and environmental justice activist, Favianna Rodriguez. It invites emerging and mid-career BIPOC artists to develop temporary installations at the Presidio Tunnel Tops.

“The model of indigenous/community-led, environmentally informed practices in our public spaces is one example of how we might create more equity and inclusion in our world,” Tosha said. “Art can express the inseparable connection that requires us to consider not only ourselves but our fellow person and planet.”

There’s more to enjoy this summer at the Presidio Tunnel Tops, which opened in July 2022, and has since welcomed some 3 million visitors since. There are outdoor spots for family gatherings, the Outpost playground, views like no other, Presidio Pop Up food trucks, and plenty of free events.

Come to the free SUPERBLOOMS art launch party to enjoy hands-on artmaking, DJ music, plant starters, and more. Sunday, July 14, 12:00 noon – 3:00 pm at Presidio Tunnel Tops, 210 Lincoln Blvd. presidio.gov