Amena Brown:
Hey, everybody. Check out this episode from the HER archives from the before times where I talk with photographer, filmmaker and founder of Phyllis Iller, Melissa Alexander. Melissa shares how her work is connected to her neighborhood and rooted in Black joy. Listen in as we discuss the lessons we've both learned being full-time entrepreneurs in the creative industry.
Amena Brown:
Ooh y'all, welcome back to HER with Amena Brown. I'm so excited. I know those of you that have been listening to my podcast a while probably think I'm excited every time, but it's true because I get a chance to interview so many amazing women and today's episode is no different. I am very excited to welcome photographer, filmmaker, founder of Phyllis Iller. She says that her work celebrates the inherent dope of the individual. Welcome to the podcast, Melissa Alexander.
Melissa Alexander:
Thank you.
Amena Brown:
Oh my goodness. Melissa, listen to me. I am such a fan of your work and I was trying to remember actually how I first found out about your work. And I think we either have worked with some of the same people and or may have some mutual friends because I feel like it was like someone had tagged you in a something and I was like, "Ooh, what's this?" Then I was on your Insta like, "This is amazing." So when I was thinking about exploring the theme Taste, I thought that you would be such a great voice to speak to that. How your taste in images and art and curation plays such a big role in your work. So thank you girl for being on this podcast.
Melissa Alexander:
Thank you for having me. I am absolutely excited just like you are just to share space and come together to maybe help other people, but just to share stories. I think there's a lot of power in that. A lot of power in recognizing yourself in others. So thank you for having me.
Amena Brown:
I know that you are gifted in quite a few ways and photography is just one of them. And I would love to ask you my origin story question I like to ask guests at the beginning. What are your earliest memories of being interested in photography? When you look back at your little girl self, do you see these remnants there of what you are now or what you are doing now in your work?
Melissa Alexander:
I'm going to be honest with you. I didn't really have an interest in photography. What ended up happening was when I was about 15 I was really into drum and bass and trance and electronica. And I told my dad. My dad asked me ... He was like, "What do you want for Christmas?" And I was like, "All right, look, this is what I want. I want two turntables, a mixer and speakers." Because I thought I was going to be this big DJ in Europe. And I knew I needed to get a head start. And my dad was like, "Okay, no problem." And when Christmas came that year, I looked under the tree, very excited and I didn't see any boxes. He handed me a little box and I was like, "Well, that doesn't look like two turntables, a mixer and some speakers." And it ended up being a digital camera.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Melissa Alexander:
And I was like ... I was still very thankful for it. A little disappointed, but still thankful nonetheless. And when I turned it on I figured out how to use it. The different settings and stuff. And I just realized I really enjoyed taking pictures. Of capturing moments. It wasn't anything where I said, "Oh, this is what I'm going to do." At the time I was really into art history and I wanted to be a curator. I wanted to work at the Fete gallery in Florence. That was my professional aspiration was. And so when I told my dad that I was going to go to school to study art history, he was like, "You might as well study basket weaving." And I was like, "Okay, so what am I going to do?" And he was like, "You're going to study business and French."
Melissa Alexander:
And I did that for a little while. But again, I went through college a couple times actually, but all throughout those years my camera was there just to take pictures of my friends and to remember things and things like that. It wasn't until I was about probably around 28, 29 that I got my first "real camera". And I was taking pictures around West End here in Atlanta and just on the street. Just doing street photography. And people were like, "Wow, these are really good." And then I was like, "Oh, really? Thanks. So I'll post more." And I started posting more.
Melissa Alexander:
And then it became, "I'll pay you to take pictures." And I was like, "Wait a minute. You're going to pay me to do this thing that I've done for well over 15 years now?" And they were like, "Yeah." And I was like, "All right. Okay. So let's see how this goes." And pretty much from there, my love affair ... I started to really develop my style. I started to really develop why I like taking pictures. I started to understand why I like taking pictures. And then it led me pretty much down the path I am today, sitting right here with you right now.
Amena Brown:
I love to hear all of the history that came into that. I mean, your interest in art history, that's fascinating to me because you can see in your work that there is a lot of depth in there.
Melissa Alexander:
You know what's funny? What's funny about that is that a lot of my favorite artists when I was in high school were people who were artists or painters who dealt with a lot of shadow. So Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Goya. When I look at those artists, I realize that I've done the same thing or I'm seeking to do almost the same thing that they did with paint and oils and all of that. I seek to do that with my camera and my lighting and I just actually make brown people look like that. Black and brown people look like that.
Amena Brown:
I love that so much. Okay. So I know you live here in Atlanta, which makes me excited because we've never met in person, listeners, but you know now I'm going to be trying everything I can to meet Melissa in person. So are you originally from Atlanta or did you grow up elsewhere?
Melissa Alexander:
I grew up in Jonesboro actually. Let me say by this. I was born in Oakland, California, but my dad was in banking and so we moved every few years. So I was born in Oakland, then we lived in Houston, then we lived in Dallas, Texas. And then we moved from Dallas, Texas to Maryland. Gaithersburg, Maryland, right outside of Washington, DC. And then we moved to just outside of Hartford, Connecticut. And so this is all pretty much by the time I'm 10. I've lived all those different places. And then when I was 10, my parents divorced and my dad had custody of us. So we moved down to Jonesboro, Georgia. So when people ask me, "Where are you from?" I without a question, tell them that I'm a southerner and that I'm from Georgia because my sensibilities and everything about me is based here. I remember when Ludacris was on the radio so-
Amena Brown:
Yes. Yes. Come on, Chris Lova Lova. Yes.
Melissa Alexander:
You feel what I'm saying? Chris Lova Lova & Poon Daddy. So I know that I'm from here. My family is from New York. So when they hear me speak, they're like, "Oh, you can't be from down here." But I'm like, "Listen, if you walk past my porch and you don't tell me good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, we're going to have a problem." So that's how I know that I'm from here.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. That's totally a rule of the south. There's a lot of weight around speaking. I remember getting in trouble or watching other kids get in trouble for, if you walked into a room ... Say, if I was at home and I walk into a room and my mom has a friend over or another family member came over since I've been upstairs in my room, whatever I was doing, you say hello. It's very important that you speak. That is a big southern thing.
Melissa Alexander:
That is. It really, really is. And it's funny because I have to tell my daughter. My daughter was born in South Carolina, but we've been here since ... We moved back to Atlanta in the end of 2014. So she was about four then. So she's 10 now. So she's lived here most of her life in Georgia. And I have to explain things to sometimes. And I'm like, "Hey, yeah, you speak, regardless of who's in the room, regardless if you know them, regardless if you know their name. You say hello, you greet them and that's just how we do."
Melissa Alexander:
I come from a family of children are to be seen and not heard. It's a very old school, west Indian upbringing, because that's how my parents were raised. My parents are a little bit older than most parents I guess maybe for a child who's 34. But they were very children are to be seen, not heard. Don't say anything unless you're spoken to. But growing up down here, you speak and then you're quiet, but you still speak first and you say miss such and such or mister such and such. But that's kind of a beautiful thing. I think about that sometimes how maybe it seems a little formal, but it just feels like that's the proper way to do things. You know?
Amena Brown:
Yeah. Yeah. I think so. And it gives you this way to honor other people, even if you don't know them. Even if you're just meeting them. When I go into professional environments, I work in a lot of spaces where I'm getting to an event and it's a room full of strangers. The whole team, everybody, I don't know anyone there. But that's how you get to know people by saying hello and honoring their presence. There is something really beautiful about that lesson, but you totally brought that home to me just now when you were saying you do not walk by my porch and not speak. That is rude.
Melissa Alexander:
And seriously. I even think about it in terms of ... Because West End ... I mean, when were you here?
Amena Brown:
I was in the West End '98 to 2002.
Melissa Alexander:
Okay. So you went to ... Did you go to one of the HBCUs?
Amena Brown:
Yeah. I went to school in the AU. I went to Spelman.
Melissa Alexander:
Oh, that's cute. I love working with Spelman. And it's funny because Spelman has such a energy around it. When I started working with them I was thinking ... In my head I had this idea of what a Spelman woman was like. But as I've grown with them and most specifically on my side, as I've grown in working with them, I realize that Spelman is full of homegirls, man.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, yeah.
Melissa Alexander:
They're smart. They're smart. They are smart as a whip, but they are still homegirls and you can still get a verbal lashing. Don't get it twisted. But when you're in those halls and you're walking on that campus, it has such a energy about it. I really love going there. And I love the fact that I'm able to bring my daughter there too. That's where she wants to go. I told her, I said, "You better do really well in school."
Amena Brown:
That part, because look-
Melissa Alexander:
"Listen, mama's making it, mama's doing it but Spelman's ... It ain't cheap." But no, I don't want to diminish her dreams but what I was going to say was just in terms of the speaking thing, is that with ... I do like for people to speak when they pass by my porch, but with Atlanta and specifically West End being gentrified in the way that it is I've come to realize that ... This is my first time really seeing a neighborhood go through gentrification. And so as I've been here ... I've been here for about five years. As I've seen it from the beginning and even when I moved here probably wasn't the beginning. But from when I've seen it to now my idea of what a gentrifier actually is, is somewhat changing.
Melissa Alexander:
I initially thought that a gentrifier was just a white person who moved into a Black neighborhood. And it could still be that. It could still definitely be that.
Amena Brown:
Sure.
Melissa Alexander:
I realize that it's more like if you walk past my porch and you don't say anything and you just look at me and you keep walking with your dog or your jogging stroller or whatever it is, you don't wave or maybe you just don't even look in my direction, to me, that's a gentrifier because you don't want to know your neighbor. I have white neighbors who walk by. Just yesterday in fact, this one lady, she has her dogs in the front porch all the time. And they're always barking anytime we walk by. And this time they didn't bark so I looked up at her and I smiled, she waved. And I was like, "Your dogs are doing better." And she was like, "Yeah." And as soon as she said that they started barking and we laughed about it. And I waved at her as I was walking past and she waved back. And I was like, that to me, maybe ... I'm not saying just off of that interaction that she's not a gentrifier, but it lets me know that she's open to her neighbor.
Melissa Alexander:
And I think that's a really big thing because a Black person could move over here. As historical as it is and all of that stuff. And we know that we've been here for years and years, but they could move in here and very easily say, "Ugh, you guys had the Malcolm X festival in West End park for 30 years. Please keep the drums down."
Amena Brown:
Right, right.
Melissa Alexander:
Right. It's just interesting how perspectives can shift when you're open to them shifting.
Amena Brown:
I really love that. And I almost feel like my love and affinity for the West End grows more as I am here in the city longer. Having spent those few years in school. And when I went back after maybe our fifth year or 10th year reunion and went back around the neighborhood, I was like, "What? What is happening here? This is completely different than how things were in the city." And of course I was coming to Atlanta that two plus years after the Olympics. And the city was in all of this sort of change and all the work that had been done. Some in good ways and some in not so good ways to sort of make the city this global entity in a way. This global destination.
Amena Brown:
And there were some pluses to that and some minuses to that. And to see the West End not just surviving but thriving in a lot of ways and wanting now ... You know when you're younger, you don't always think about how important it is to preserve history and what are the places where history lives? And it lives in the buildings and it lives in the people. And how do we preserve those stories? All that stuff is way more important to me now than it was when I was actually there living in the neighborhood, living there in the area. So I wanted to ask you a question about living in the West End, working in the West End, and some of your work centering around the story of the people in the West End. What do you love about being in the West End community?
Melissa Alexander:
Man. It's kind of hard to ask. I always tell people ... If I had a iteration of that question, I always tell people that West End is not very large. It's not even ... If someone comes here from a different place and they say, "Where's the best place to go?", I can't even really tell you that. Because West End is a feeling. West End is a place that you allow happen to you. It's not like New York where you say go to the Empire State Building. Go to The Guggenheim. Go to the Statue of Liberty. It's not like that. It's you sit down. One of my favorite things to do is to just sit down on a really nice spring day and let it happen to me. I found myself in different conversations that I know for a fact that I would not be able to have in another part of town.
Melissa Alexander:
I know that there's a love here. And so when I was taking pictures ... Because I said when I started out doing street photography, I was taking pictures of just everyone. And I felt good about it. But the longer I did it, the more I felt like I was taking away. I felt like I wasn't giving back enough. I'm like, "I'm taking these pictures of these people, they don't know I'm taking the pictures and then I turn around and I put the picture in an art show and then I'm getting money off of their image. Am I any different?"
Melissa Alexander:
And so I was asking myself that. [ Crosstalk 00:18:03] when I took a picture of these two boys. It was during the Malcolm X festival one year. And it was these two boys. We had gotten rained on and everybody ran for cover in the ... They ran for cover in the basketball court, which has a top to it. And everyone's grouped together. But I saw these two boys and one of them was maybe about ... The older one was maybe about six and the younger one was about three. And the three year old was clutching ... The six year old had the three year old in his hands and he was clutching him. They were holding onto each other because there was no one else around to look at them, to worry about them. I had seen them in the neighborhood and I took a picture of them. And in that moment, I said to myself, "What is separating me right now? I'm putting my camera before my heart."
Melissa Alexander:
So I took the picture and immediately walked over and saw about their welfare and was like, "Where's your sister at?" Because like I said, I know them. But I was like, "Where's your sister at? Where's your mom? Are you okay? Stay with me until your sister comes. Until she finds you. Just stay with me." And that's what they did. But in that moment I realized that I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't ... Being a street photographer probably wasn't going to be my calling in the long run. And so when I go to create art and things like that, I try to keep it in my neighborhood. As specifically as creating a short film called To West End With Love. Because I wanted to create a visual love letter to my community. I wanted them to know that I see you. It also serves as a visual time capsule so that when ... It's inevitable. Change is inevitable.
Melissa Alexander:
When West End does change ... Hopefully it doesn't change too much. But when it does change, anyone could go back to my film and see what West End looked like and what it felt like and how simple it could be to just maybe visit Tassili's with her long lines or to go to Yasin's or to dance in front of the Shrine of the Black Madonna or wait for a Marta bus to come by. So I still find my inspiration here, but just in a different way. In a different way. In a way that is much more authentic to who I am as a mom, as a black woman, as a lover of my people. I realized that I had to shift my perspective a little bit. And honestly, once I did that, I started tapping in even more and it helped me. It helped me.
Amena Brown:
I think that it is so wonderful that early on in your work this idea of what does it mean to have integrity in photography and just what does it mean for us to have integrity as artists, as the people who are doing the storytelling in whatever medium we do that and how do we gauge the truth and the honor of how we tell those stories and how do we decide what of those stories are ours to tell? And I think there's a lot of honor and humility and power in that. In knowing the difference or in knowing what feels the most true and honest to you. So kudos to you for that because obviously we have had many situations that we have looked at with photographers and writers and just different artists that sort of take it upon themselves to portray certain types of stories and you're like, wait a minute. This is not even for you to be telling.
Melissa Alexander:
Right. The things that resonate with me most are the things where I see myself or I see someone I know. And it's very easy to tell when someone is just like, "Oh, this is the hood so this is going to get me views." Or whatever it is. But what's the story? What's the real story here? What is the ... Yeah, you're going to show me the woman maybe standing on the street corner or whatever it is but did you know that her child attends this particular school and this child does this and the mom helps out with that? It's just, there's layers. There's layers. And again, if you just sit down and just wait, you'll hear the stories. You'll see the stories unfold right before your eyes. And what a blessing it is to witness and to be able to be in it and to sometimes connect with those stories.
Melissa Alexander:
Again, I don't know that this doesn't happen on another side of town. To me though, I don't feel it. You know what I'm saying? And it's not just because my skin color is different. It's just that I don't feel it. I don't see it. I see people walk over each other. I see people walk over homeless folks. Just yesterday my daughter and I were walking down Ralph David Abernathy and we walked past this one homeless woman that we see. She's the neighborhood ... We know her. And I had offered some ... You know those hot pads? Those pads that you can heat up or they heat up and then you could stick them in your pocket. I had gotten a pack of them so that when I saw her, I could give them to her. Because it was really, really cold out. I can't give her everything I would like to give her but this is something.
Melissa Alexander:
And so I offered the whole bag to her and she was like, "No, I don't want it." And I was like, "Okay. That's no problem." Put them in the house. When I walked past her yesterday, I said, "Hey Jackie." And she said, "Hey. Hey, by the way, do you still have those things I have to shake and put them in my pocket?" I said, "Yeah, I got them." She said, "Okay, cool. Well, can I come by later?" I said, "Yeah. The next time I see you, the next time you walk by, I'll have that bag for you." Because again, that's what a neighbor does. And even though she doesn't maybe have a house or ... I don't know her situation. She's still my neighbor though. And we look out for each other. Yeah. My art has to reflect that.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, that idea of neighbor is so powerful. And whether we decide it intentionally or not, how we make our art will reflect who we think is our neighbor and how we think we are supposed to walk alongside them in life. It's really interesting to think about, but also it feels very much like a charge to me inside of myself as an artist. I really want my work to reflect that and it is possible to be intentional about that in the lives we live and in the things we make.
Melissa Alexander:
Absolutely.
Amena Brown:
Speaking of the things that you've made, I would love for you to tell us who and or what is Phyllis Iller?
Melissa Alexander:
You know what, my nickname was Phyllis for many years prior to Phyllis Iller coming about. And it started on a night where my friends and I were a little lifted. We'd been drinking and hanging out and laughing. It was really late. So everything becomes funnier after 2:00 AM. So a friend of ours was telling this story about ... I don't know. She just kept saying, Phyllis did this and Phyllis did that. And she had a really heavy Brooklyn accent so she was like, "Phyllis was going crazy." And I was like, "Yo, that's wild." And then afterwards I realized, I was like, "Yo, I don't know no Phyllis." So I was like, "Yo, who is Phyllis?" And it turns out that my friend Cici had been talking about a cat named Fearless.
Melissa Alexander:
And I was like ... So ever since then, my homeboy Mo would call me Phyllis. And he'd be like, "Yo Phyllis." And it was just ... It just kind of stuck. But he would call me these different names with Phyllis. So like it would be Phyllista Flockhart or Phyllissa Milano or all these different things. And one day he called me Phyllis Iller. And I still have a screenshot of that Facebook comment that he made. And I remember saying to him, "I'm going to use that." And then I used it. And I'm just waiting to get enough money up so that I could pay him for that name and I don't have to worry about him coming after me-
Amena Brown:
Right. That part.
Melissa Alexander:
Because he did come up with it, but I'm always very vocal about where it came from. And so Phyllis Iller obviously is a play on Phyllis Diller. This has nothing to do with Phyllis Diller the comedian. But this has everything to do with ... It has everything to do with the around the way girl. The woman who is most authentic. What does it look like when the around the way girl grows into a woman? That's the land that I deal with. She has children. She has a career. What does her career look like? Has she embraced her vulnerability? Has she embraced herself as a woman? What is she like as a mom? What is she like as a lover? As a wife, as a girlfriend? Those are the things that interest me because that's often where I'm at.
Melissa Alexander:
But even more than that, she takes care of herself. She takes care of her family. She takes care of her community. She gives and she receives and she grows. She believes in sisterhood. So a lot of the things that Phyllis Iller has become are the very things that people see in my work. So people will say, "I feel like that know everyone that you take a picture of, but I've never met them before." I'm like, "That's because you're seeing a reflection of you." So as a brand, I always like to think that my interest in gang culture in the 1970s in New York will rear its head one day. But right now where it's at in this moment, Phyllis Iller is for anyone who seeks to embrace themselves. Their most authentic selves.
Amena Brown:
That's so powerful. And hearing you describe it and thinking of so many of the images that you've taken that I have loved and some of the images you've taken of people that some of them I know personally or professionally. Worked with them in the past. Some of them I just know because I knew of them, but had never seen a photo of them like what you took of them. And so it's really beautiful to hear you describing some of your inner process and the inner motivation behind why you do what you do and the space you're hoping to create for the person on the other side of that camera as well.
Melissa Alexander:
I'm an empathetic person. I'm always willing to see another point of view for the most part. I mean, sometimes I could be stubborn but it doesn't usually to come with how I relate to people. It's more like things to myself that I'm stubborn. But I always seek to help. And what's funny is that ... Let me ask you this. Do you have an app called The Pattern?
Amena Brown:
No. Tell me more.
Melissa Alexander:
So the Pattern will tell you ... It'll tell you about yourself. It'll tell you the patterns that you have in your life. You do put your birth chart stuff in. So it is technically based on that, but it never mentions your sign or your rising sign or your moon or your mercury or any of that stuff. It never mentions that. It just tells you that, okay, judging from this information, you might be a person who exhibits this type of pattern. And so it told me ... It's so funny. An app told me. But The Pattern told me that as you've gone throughout life, one of the biggest things that makes you feel alive is when you are diving into your work and when you're helping others. And I was like, yo, that's really true. It took an app to tell me that, maybe.
Melissa Alexander:
But it is what I always felt in my heart. And so when I have a session with someone we're sitting down and it's just me and them and we're dreaming together and we're talking about what makes them tick and we're letting go. And I'm helping them shed those agreements that they made where they said that, "Oh, my eyes are too far apart. Oh, my forehead is big. Oh, my arms are too big. Oh, I don't like my stomach. Oh, I don't like ..." All these things that they tell themselves that they don't like, I take it to focus on what they do like and I breathe life into them. And I say, "Oh my God, you may not like your eyes, but this smile is killing me right now. Let's get some more of this smile."
Melissa Alexander:
Or, "I love when you raise your head like that. Keep your head up. You are a queen, you are a king. Don't lower your head for anyone. You're proud to be who you are." These are the things I'm speaking into them because I know what it's like to not have those things spoken into you. And so if I can give in an hour session, in a 20 minute session ... Shoot, some of my sessions are only 15 minutes. You know what I'm saying? For headshots. But in those 15 minutes, if I can make you walk out feeling better than when you walked in, then my job is complete. The photos are the icing on the cake. The photos are the cherry on top. We're going to get good photos. Don't worry about that. But what is the work that I can help you do on your inner self? That's what I really care about.
Melissa Alexander:
And so I kind of take photography to be a ... Yes, it is a means to an end. It does help me to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly and clothes on my daughter's back and all of that. And I am so thankful. So thankful. Every day I'm thankful that I get to do something that I love. However, at the end of the day, I know that I'm affecting lives in a positive manner and that's what really keeps me going in those days when ... Or those months. I'm freelance so every month is not the same.
Amena Brown:
That's right.
Melissa Alexander:
You know what I mean? I know you know. So it's like when there's a light month, that's when I really have to hold onto my why. I really have to hold onto the fact that I've been called to do this. This is my calling. To enhance the lives of others through the love that I have for them just off of GP. Don't cross me, but-
Amena Brown:
Right, right.
Melissa Alexander:
Don't cross me. But even then I'm still able to say, "Well, what happened in your life to make you feel like you had to do something like that?" I may not want to be around you, but I'll forgive because life is just too short to be dwelling on the things you don't like about yourself. Everybody's different and that's our superpower.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. One of the things I love about your work too, is you have this special and specific way that you are capturing what it means to be Black. Whether that's the love, the joy, the childhood, the playfulness, the softness. What is your process of how you decided to approach that as a photographer? As I've seen in your work sometimes those are family photos. Sometimes they may be artist photos or they could be just anybody that's decided they want to have some photos taken. Talk to me more about that.
Melissa Alexander:
It's kind of like society spins a narrative about Black and brown people. I've charged myself with the task of dispelling that. And you had mentioned Blackness before. I've come to realize that Blackness is not a response to anything. It simply is.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Melissa Alexander:
Right?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Melissa Alexander:
And so with that being said, I'm going to document our joys. I'm going to document our wins. I'm going to document our tragedies. I'm going to document when maybe we're not as strong. But even in documenting that we're still together and we still have each other's back. And that's the thing that gives me joy. Seeing us together. And usually in whatever manner. Obviously not anything too negative. But Blackness is ... It's the ... How can I put it? There's a scene ... I watch a lot of the movies. There's a scene in this movie called Wattstax where ... And Wattstax was like a ... Stax Records went to Watts in LA and did a concert. And in this documentary they interview some very, just regular folks. And there's this one woman who I can never get out of my head, but she says Black is beautiful because it feels so good. And that right there, that right there is it. Period. It feels good. We have a light and a spark within us that can't be found nowhere else. We are resilient. We are loving. We are ... I don't know if we cursed on this.
Amena Brown:
You're allowed. We're allowed.
Melissa Alexander:
Oh we the shit. You know what I'm saying?
Amena Brown:
Yes. Yes. Accurate, accurate.
Melissa Alexander:
And like I said, it's a blessing that I get to document this beautiful Blackness three to four times a week. This is what I get to do. This is what I'm called to do. This is when people reach out to me and they say, "I love the way you capture Black women. I love the way you capture Black men. I love the way you capture Black children." Because if I don't do it, someone else may do it, but they may not do it like how I do. If I don't do it, someone may take our narrative and spin it in a completely different way. And Zora Neale Hurston said ... I'm paraphrasing but she said, "If you take it, but you don't say anything, they'll say that you loved it."
Amena Brown:
Right. Right.
Melissa Alexander:
And I love Zora Neale Hurston. And so I was like, "Well, look, if mama Hurston said that, then I'm going to tell them when I don't like something." And I don't like how sometimes we're represented in the media. Now, of course we're on a high. We got all these different celebrities that are just really Black. I'm rooting for everyone black. And now I love that we can say that with pride and that's a complete sentence. And that's a complete sentence. But on a regular man, I don't have quite the reach yet that a Issa Rae or Regina King or anybody like that has, but where I can affect it, I'm going to. And that's the joy. That's the joy right there.
Amena Brown:
You have been a full-time artist for ... It's been some years for you now.
Melissa Alexander:
I've been a full-time artist since October 16th, 2017.
Amena Brown:
Wow. What makes you know the exact date?
Melissa Alexander:
Because ... I know, right? When I was turning 31 I think and my birthday's October 13th. And so it was on a Friday that year. And I had just an amazing weekend. At the time I was working at State Farm doing like ... If somebody got an accident, I was the person they would talk to. "Thanks for calling State Farm. This is Melissa. How may I help you?"
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Melissa Alexander:
I hated it. I hated it. I hated corporate. I hated corporate. I really hated corporate because they didn't really care about me or my daughter. It'd be things like, I told them ... I was the very candid about my situation. I'm like, "Hey, look, I'm a single mom and my daughter has the flu. I can't come in." They'd be like, "Wow. We're really sorry to hear that but it's going to count. It's going to count as a no show." And I'm like, "But my daughter's sick. She has a 105 fever." "Oh, wow. I know. It's going around. It's crazy isn't it? But it's still going to count."
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Melissa Alexander:
Realized that they didn't care about me. And after that birthday weekend of being loved so hard by my friends, by my family, I walked into work that Monday morning and I got there ... My shift started a little bit earlier than the rest of my team. And I remember walking down the aisle to my little desk and I looked at that phone and I was like, "I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore." And I gathered my things. I gathered all the good pens.
Amena Brown:
As you should. As you should.
Melissa Alexander:
I gathered all the pens. Got all the good notebooks. And I went back downstairs and I took my badge off and I handed it to the guard. And they looked at me and they were like, "What's this for?" And I was like, "I quit. I'm not coming back." And she looked at me and she said, "Dang, you're the fourth person this week."
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Melissa Alexander:
And so when she said that, I was like, "Oh, well, hey, I guess I'm lucky number four because I'm out." And I left. And I called my homegirl who was also an entrepreneur. My friend Anita. She's the caterer. Well, at the time she was a caterer. She's was starting to take her business ... I called her, I said, "Girl, I left." And she said, "What?" I was like, "I left." She was like, "You left where?" I was like, "I left State Farm." And she was like, "Girl, look, I'm at the Goodwill in the West End. Meet me here." And so we were walking down the aisles of Goodwill and I remember looking across at her and she was like, "How do you feel?" And I was like, "I feel fantastic. I feel like everything is possible now."
Melissa Alexander:
And then a couple days later, I was on my back porch talking to my best friend, Nika. And I said, "Nika, what did I do? I don't have no money saved up. I have one more check coming from State Farm but after that I'm on my own. What do I do?" And she was like, "Girl, look, I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. You done left every two weeks you get a check. You done left healthcare. You've left dental care. You've left all of this stuff. Security. You've left security for something that you don't know is going to work. What are you doing? You didn't struggle all these years leading up to this." She was like, "Think about when you cooked that meal for your daughter and she was still hungry but there was no more left so you gave it to her off your plate." She was like, "Think about that." And I told her, I said, "I am thinking about that."
Amena Brown:
Right, right.
Melissa Alexander:
I am thinking about that. And that is what I have always kept in my mind. I've never seen ... There was fear, but I let that fear drive me. I didn't let the fear get to me. I used fear. I used fear to propel myself. And I said, "Okay, well, look, it's October. I'll give myself until ... Let's see about March. Let's see what happens in March." So that was the middle of October. By the middle of November, I was feeling the crunch and I was like, "Holy crap. What am I going to do?" I'm having these sales. I'm doing all sorts of stuff to generate money. And then I got a phone call from my friend Makeba at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. And she was like, "I've seen your work. We have this exhibit coming. Would you like to do portraits at the museum? We'll pay you this." I was like ... She was like, "Is your schedule open for it?" I was like, "It is."
Amena Brown:
Yeah. It will be if it wasn't.
Melissa Alexander:
I was like, "Let me look." And I was like, "You know what? It's funny. It is open." A week later I had a friend reach out to me. My friend Carlton. He's a professor at Emory, but he also runs Beautiful In Every Shade and Black Men Smile and stuff. So Carlton reached out to me and said, "Hey, look, I got this class and we need an artist to come in and mentor with these students with a nonprofit. We're going to work with a nonprofit as well as a group of students and create some kind of content for the nonprofit." He said, "Are you available?" I said, "Let me check my schedule. I think I am available."
Melissa Alexander:
And little things just started like that. It was just coming and coming and coming to me. When March came, I realized ... It was the middle of March and I realized I haven't even looked for a job.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Melissa Alexander:
Because I was so in my zone of I will win. I will win. And I didn't see any other option. I said to myself that, "Why can't I have the life where I can go to my daughter's field trips, but also still make money? Why can't I go on trips to other places and still make money? Why can't I be comfortable and live the life that I would like to live? I don't feel like I should have to be relegated to a job that I hate for the next 40 years until I retire. That's not the way I want to live."
Melissa Alexander:
And so I made the decision that I wasn't going to live that way. And again, there's been some hiccups here and there. [crosstalk 00:43:37].
Amena Brown:
Right. For sure.
Melissa Alexander:
I'm like, "Wait a minute now. Maybe I should look for a job or maybe I should look for a part-time." But every ... Amena, seriously, even to today, today I woke up and I was like, "Golly, what am I going to do? I done paid my bills, but that doesn't leave much left over." And then I had someone reach out and say, "Oh, you need your deposit right now? That's no problem. How much is it? 50? Okay, no problem. 50%, boom. Here it is." Things come through like that when I feel my most lost. The universe comes back and says, but I got you. Just trust me. And so I do. And that is how I have accomplished what I have accomplished in the way that I have accomplished it.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's inspiring to hear how when we decide to open up our hands in a way ... And I'm saying this, like I'm preaching to myself when I say it, because I'm a person who on the one side loves to make plans. I love to have a thousand plans for a thousand things I'm going to do. But a lot of the amazing things that have happened in my life happened in a moment where I just went, this is what I want right here. And I just had this moment where I was opening my hands to let's see how it goes. And there was something of a path that sort of rose up to meet me in this way. And I totally hear that theme in your story of transitioning into being a full-time artist. That there's this way almost leaving one thing can put us to arriving at the very thing that we're supposed to be doing in that season of our life, which is like you said, scary.
Amena Brown:
I totally remember that. I worked corporate. Worked for a corporation here. I hated it so bad.
Melissa Alexander:
I know girl.
Amena Brown:
I hated it so bad.
Melissa Alexander:
Girl, I know. I know.
Amena Brown:
At the beginning, it was going to be like my dream job because they were hiring writers. And I was like, "When would a company ever be hiring writers? Oh, I'm so excited about it." Six months in, I was like, someone please save me from this. And I'll tell you what's interesting. I'm not a mom, but I'll tell you the moment that made me go, I got to leave here. There was a woman that I worked with ... She was ... I was sort of an entry level position. So she was a manager. She was a couple of ... Probably more than a couple of positions above me. One of the few black women managers actually where I worked. And she got pregnant later in her life. I want to say she was in her late 30s, early 40s. And it changed her. Before she had her child, she was all about whatever these corporate initiatives, whatever goals y'all got, how I can help y'all achieve it. Great. She was all about that.
Amena Brown:
And she had her child and her whole priorities ... I just watched in her womanhood ... Her womanhood was just shifting all over the place and it wasn't that her career or her work wasn't important to her, but she was like, "I don't want to be emailing you at 6:00 at night. I want to be with my family. And I don't want to be thinking about these strategic objectives on a Saturday because I want to be with my family." And I watched her get a lot of resistance to that. And sort of this implication that because she was choosing to step back from what would typically be hours you don't work at this job. She's wanting to pull back after five and on the weekend. She was like, "I can give you this work. When I'm here sitting in this office, I'll give you this work. But after five and on the weekends, I want that time back to myself."
Melissa Alexander:
That's right.
Amena Brown:
And she got a lot of resistance to that. And it was very hard for her, that transition. And I'm in my mid 20s watching this happen to her. And I just remember filing that away and going, I don't want you to get to decide my womanhood journey or my motherhood journey or however that unfolds with me. I don't want you to get to choose what I do to take care of myself, to care for my family or however that looks for me. And that was the first time that I thought to myself, then I need to do this thing I love full time.
Melissa Alexander:
Yes ma'am.
Amena Brown:
It scared me to death. And I still had several mornings that first year, year and a half where I would wake up out of my sleep and be like, "What am I doing? What is you doing? You don't have nobody to tell you what to do. What are you doing?" Oh man, all the freak outs. All the went broke. Experienced so many things and still, I am like ... And I love it. Even on the days-
Melissa Alexander:
But I was just about to say that. I was just about to say that even with that craziness, that range of emotions, is that still not better-
Amena Brown:
Than how I felt Sunday night going to that job? Look.
Melissa Alexander:
Yes. You feel me?
Amena Brown:
Look.
Melissa Alexander:
That is so much better. I want to phrase this in a certain way so that the universe is like, oh, okay, well you would rather ... Well then you going to feel that all the time. No, no, no, no. I enjoy the range of emotions. I accept the process of the range of emotions that we feel as entrepreneurs. Me being a photographer, you being a podcaster. All of these things that you do. Writer. All of these things that you do. But that's still so much better than walking into a place where it's stale and you know the smiles that you see are not real. And you know that people will throw you under the bus because it'll help them get further. And you have someone looking at you saying, "You cannot eat until 2:00."
Amena Brown:
That part. That part.
Melissa Alexander:
Things like that. Things like that. No I'm going to eat whenever I want to. That's why when we initially started talking, you were like, "What did you have for breakfast today?" I'm like, "I had coffee because that's what I wanted to have." I don't want anyone telling me when I can and cannot do in the way that I cannot do it. Now granted, you do have to learn a level of ... I mean, this is not for the faint of heart, what we do. It really isn't. Because you have to have a level of discipline. And so what I learned to do was take some of the structure that I did learn in the corporate world, I learned to apply that to myself so that it's like, "Okay, Melissa, between the hours of eight and 11, you need to be working. And then at 11 you can take an hour, hour and a half break. Maybe catch up on some Netflix show. Whatever it is. And then you need to get back to work. And then when your daughter comes home at three o'clock, you got some time with her."
Melissa Alexander:
There does need to be a level of structure. Do I adhere to that every day? No. But the point is that our time is our own and we don't have someone breathing down our necks saying, "When is this done? When are you going to do this? And you need to be here at this time. And I don't care if you have a child. I don't care if you have a family. I don't care if it's your anniversary. I don't care if it's your birthday. I don't care if you're sick. You need to do what we say to do, because guess what? We're paying you."
Amena Brown:
Right.
Melissa Alexander:
And when something as simple as money ... Something that you don't even see on a regular basis ... Something that you could just send to someone if you open an app like Cash App, "Oh hey, I just sent you a thousand dollars. Really? Where did it go? I didn't even see it." When something as crazy as the idea of money is the thing that keeps you depressed, is the thing that holds you to a job that makes you feel inadequate, it holds you to a job that makes you feel like you don't have time for your family or that you're missing ... I realized that I was seeing my daughter ... Monday through Friday, I was seeing her a total of 10 hours a week.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Melissa Alexander:
You feel what I'm saying? Because the morning commute, the coming home commute, then dinner and then bed. She was spending more time in after school than I would've cared to. I mean, she still goes to after school if I have something going on, but after school is an option now.
Amena Brown:
Right, right.
Melissa Alexander:
So you really have to just ... I would say anybody who's listening, you really have to think about what is most important to you and find your passion. It sounds like you love to write and you love this communication. You love communication. You've found a way to make it work for you.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Melissa Alexander:
Right. I love connecting with people. I found a way to make it work with me. I mean, honestly what I do is still no different than what I was doing when I was working on the phone. I'm still helping people.
Amena Brown:
Right.
Melissa Alexander:
It's no different. It's no different.
Amena Brown:
So true.
Melissa Alexander:
It's just I chose to find a different way to do it.
Amena Brown:
It's so true. It's so true. I mean, I worked on the phones, customer service for a company here too. And my husband and I joke all the time because we both had separate ... We worked for different companies but both had experience in customer service. And I was like, you will not believe the amount of times I recall back those lessons in this line of work, because you could be working with a client, you could be partnering with a company or whatever. You have all these different sort of work relationships that require the type of finesse that you had to learn being on the phones with people who may be in a highly emotional situation. They may be angry. They have all sorts of things going on and you have to try to get information out of them, information to them while you're trying to keep things from hopefully escalating to a point where nobody can understand each other. So it is interesting how even all the things that you do that may not have been the thing you feel called to do, you can pick all these lessons from that and all of that plays a role in the type of business owner and entrepreneur that you've become. I love that.
Melissa Alexander:
Oh yes. It all comes full circle really. At the end of the day it all comes full circle and you sit back and you say, dang. For example, me wanting to be a art historian. The very masters that I studied are the ones who are still showing up in my work. It's a story. It's a never ending story. I just watched that with my daughter for the first time a couple weeks ago and she was blown away.
Amena Brown:
Oh man.
Melissa Alexander:
She was blown away by that. I was like, "Yeah, girl, this is the kind of content we had when we were kids."
Amena Brown:
Come on content. I can only imagine someone your daughter's age going back and watching that now. As far as some things have advanced more and the effects of the CGI or whatever.
Melissa Alexander:
Absolutely. Absolutely. But look, here's the thing though. Her mouth was stuck open. Remember the part where Atreyu was going through the swamp of sadness with our Artax and the horse gets stuck and he's pulling him and all of a stuff. I mean, I felt something, but it was probably my inner eight year old coming out again. But I looked at my daughter, who's 10. I looked at her face and her mouth was just hanging open. And she was like, "Mama, what's going to happen to the horse?"
Amena Brown:
Oh my gosh.
Melissa Alexander:
And I was like, "You got to watch. You got to watch and see." But it is a never ending in story. It's like our story is just being continually written and if we're not looking at those past chapters we may not really know where we're going to end up. But there's still a common thread and the common thread is us. And as we grow and as we get better and as we get to know ourselves even more ... Again, this is why I say that vulnerability is so important. Because you have to be open and vulnerable in order to really grow.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Melissa Alexander:
And when you see that growth, you're like, "Oh my god, I opened myself up to fear. I opened myself up to failure. Possible failure. But look at that. Here I am. I'm still here. It's, Miss Celie all over again. I may be Black and I may be ugly, but I'm here."
Amena Brown:
But I'm here. Come on Miss Celie. It's always a lesson right there.
Amena Brown:
So good always to hear from Melissa and to be inspired by her work. Since this recording Melissa's work has included documentaries and art activations of her provocative and poignant photography, centering Black women and Black girlhood. To check out and support Melissa's work, make sure you visit her website phyllisiller.com. See you next week.
Amena Brown:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.