Countee Cullen, Harlem and Me

Artist Rossella BLUE Mocerino and poet Countee Cullen

I first came in contact with Harlem a few years ago when I exhibited at the 115th Street Library (now the Harry Belafonte Library). I discovered some great restaurants, but what made the biggest impact on me were the large photographs displayed above the bookshelves—depicting many of Harlem’s greats. While some were already familiar to me, others I had yet to discover. My paintings were in very good company.

Author Zora Neale Hurston. Photo taken while exhibiting at 115 Street Library (now Harry Belafonte Library) in 2015.

Poster for art show, Carnevale in Harlem

Little did I know that a few years later I would encounter another great figure of the Harlem Renaissance: Countee Cullen. I went to scout the art space at the library that bears his name, located right next to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The library itself stands on the former site of the mansion owned by A'Lelia Walker, a patron of the arts whose home became a legendary gathering place for Harlem Renaissance artists and writers. Langston Hughes called Walker "the joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s," writing in his 1940 autobiography, The Big Sea:

"A’Lelia Walker had an apartment that held perhaps a hundred people. She would usually issue several hundred invitations to each party. Unless you went early there was no possible way of getting in. Her parties were as crowded as the New York subway at the rush hour—entrance, lobby, steps, hallway, and apartment a milling crush of guests, with everybody seeming to enjoy the crowding."

The first thing I laid eyes on upon entering the Countee Cullen Library was an inscription taken from one of his poems:

“We shall not always plant while others reap

The golden increment of bursting fruit,

Not always countenance, abject and mute,

That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;

Not everlastingly while others sleep

Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,

Not always bend to some more subtle brute;

We were not made to eternally weep.”

I came away from the Countee Cullen Library with two clear realizations: yes, I would be exhibiting in that wonderful space, and no, I couldn’t possibly hold a show there without honoring Countee Cullen himself. My wife, who always understands my vision, soon presented me with a book of his poetry.

My art exhibition, which will take place in 2019, will feature both past and new paintings, including my very first triptych. The title of the show, "Dreams in a Silken Cloth," is drawn from one of Cullen’s superb epitaphs.

Venice by Rossella BLUE Mocerino

Painting, I've read the past, I've seen the present, I believe in the future by Rossella BLUE Mocerino

This poem by Countee Cullen will hang alongside my triptych, To Paradise and Back. It’s remarkably uncanny how I stumbled upon a Cullen poem that so eloquently captures my view of Paradise. I’ve always pictured it like a five-star hotel: wonderful to visit for a few days—greeted by courteous staff in fine livery—but before long, standard perfection becomes monotonous. Despite all the challenges we face today, Earth is truly where we belong.

Triptych, To Paradise and Back by Rossella BLUE Mocerino

Just as Cullen concludes his poem "Yet Do I Marvel" with the lines:

"Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!"

I, too, could say:

"Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make me a woman, and bid me paint!"

Art show, Dreams in a Silken Cloth, will be held at Countee Cullen Library, 104 W 136th St, New York, NY 10030 Artist: Rossella BLUE Mocerino. Dates: May 6 - June 27, 2019