Interview with Robin Strickland, intern

By Nayo Watkins

Nayo Watkins: What’s your name?

Robin Strickland: My name is Robin Strickland.

NW: And you are a student?

RS: Yes. I am a student at Knoxville College. I’m a junior this year, but in January I’ll turn a senior. Yeah.

NW: And what’s your major?

RS: Sociology with an emphasis on criminal justice. And my minor is political science. I’m trying to be a judge.

NW: So what brings you to this kind of work? How did you come to work with Carpetbag?

RS: Intern, actually. It was the summer of ’99 and it was the first time that Carpetbag was to come back to this campus [Knoxville College] since they started here. That’s what we were told, that Carpetbag started here and then moved off campus. And I originally met Margaret Ann Miller at the little conference that they had. They said that Carpetbag would be coming on campus and staying in residency for about two years and this would be a place for work levels 1, 2 and possible level 3 students that come here. I was on level 2. "Do you like theater?" Yeah. "Do you like drama?" Yeah. "Do you like filling out information and applications and stuff like that?" Yeah. "Here you go. Carpetbag Theatre." And from that summer on, I was working with the TRY Ensemble, helping them rehearse on stage, putting together packages for some of the other groups that Carpetbag is in conjunction with to come into campus, putting information packets together, faxing people, getting reservations put together. Everything that they do, and everything that Margaret Miller did, I was right there learning how to do the same thing. And I’ve been with them ever since. Ever since.

NW: What are you learning or what are you gaining in terms of being a young woman who is on her way to being a judge?

RS: Well, it’s a lot so far. I’m gaining just basically more people skills. I started in the work field at Burger King. Then I worked at the Limited. This right here is – I’m learning from them how to talk to people, not just on the basic politeness, thank you’s – I’m learning how to get information out of people. I’m learning how to go down different avenues to get information about people. I’ve learned a whole bunch of skills, whether it be technology or people skills. I’m learning everything. I learned how to get a passport so that I can go to Greece and be in one of these workshops that Linda goes to sometimes.

I’ve learned that the work program can set you on any goals. I’ve just been awarded "Who’s Who of American Student Colleges and Universities" and that is like, whoa! ’Cause I know they did assessments on us, I know they did a fifth-week assessment about two-and-a-half weeks ago. Things like that are telling me, oh, I really am doing something. My research that I have to do for my psychology and my sociology class, it’s really been paying off. And I see the LPB [Linda Parris-Bailey] is saying that I’m doing something good, you know for me to get on that list. I know there is a whole scale of accomplishments that I have made, and I just can’t think of them right now – but those are some of the few. Putting together workshops. We did one in North Carolina and we did one in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Putting together those workshops to get people to think on the same level, bring the old and the new together. What type of art would help accomplish these tasks?

NW: Did you attend the conference in North Carolina? SRDI [Southern Regional Development Initiative] I guess it was –

RS: Yep.

NW: In terms of your research and your work in sociology, how does that connect to those workshops and some of the things that you are doing?

RS: Well, at the conferences, luckily, we talked about ageism, sexism, racism. We talked about things dealing with revenue, money, school, black schools, colleges. I’ve had classes on dealing with the family, dealing with social problems, social stratification, global stratification. And both my studies and the conference helped me to actually see how the people can influence laws and policies and stuff like that. Social stereotypes. And it showed in the conference. Gave me a chance to look back on not just the history of black people. Since I am at an all-black school, that seems to the general focus, the African-American experience. But at the SRDI meeting I couldn’t just look at the black-people causes. My sociology class, it says that it’s everybody that’s involved in this economic, political pool. The conference opened my eyes. It showed me that we as citizens do more things than go to work, put our kids through school. We do a little bit more. We focus on what businesses we want to put into our community. What those businesses are to represent to our community. What people, who are they? Like reading a book. Don’t just read the book, read who the author is. Read who those people are. Read how certain natural resources like oil and coal – we were talking about we, we are our own resources. It is upon us to go out there, and not to use the regular words "make things right," but to make things easier as we get into the 21st century. My sociology class compared to my political and in conjunction with the SRDI has showed me that, you know, it really is up to us. That SRDI meeting, I still have all that information. I brought that back to my class and said, "Look, this is what we need to focus on."

The arts is to let you know what has happened in the past. In my class I took a few semesters ago, "Civilization of Contemporary History," I believe that was the title of it, they went through the Renaissance and they showed how the Renaissance changed a lot of political views, not just here in America, but over in Europe. And I’m like, whoa – art? Just art? You mean the way that they painted the lady’s face and the way that her eyes popped up off the picture, people were like, "No, that has to go" just because of a look? And that started a political war? No. No – not the "Mona Lisa," not her smile. Not none of that. The art.

They have plenty of books on the plight of African Americans here and in other countries. They just did one on Paul Robeson. Oh – now that was a man who did a lot of things that I never knew a black man during that era, that time, his time, could even do. The arts is not just a sculpture. Art is not just pretty. It’s not just something to look at. Art is something for you to dissect. Art is something for you to see how it shaped Knoxville. I didn’t know the Underground Railroad was runnin’ through some parts of UT. Whoa. That’s art. That’s art right there, you know.

NW: Had you been involved in theater at all prior to this?

RS: No. I’ve always been told I’m shy, but I’m outgoing. I like to have fun. The arts, I put them on with the stereotype that you had to have your nose in the air. You had to know how to tap dance, you know. Had to know how to sing. Carpetbag even had me do an audition out here, you know.

NW: So how has this changed your sense of what theater is, or what it can be?

RS: It has taken me on new avenues as to how I’m going to change the way that children are being abused here in America. It started off when they had the university law students work with some of the TRY Ensemble children. Their plays are designed after the issues that the children talked about, whether it be pregnancy, money, cars, drug abuse – that’s how they usually come up with the plays they are going to perform. The UT law students they came down and they shared information with the children about what the rights are of teenagers. How they can protect themselves against the laws and other people.

I want to do the same thing. I want to do the same thing. I want to be a judge. I want to help children. That’s a good idea. I can go to other young teenage performance groups, tell them what my cause is –there’s a start right there. The arts. There’s a start right there. "I know a great other TRY Ensemble that you guys can get together. You all don’t have to do a play, you could make a movie. Ohhh. Can I write a book? Ohhh." That’s how you’re going to change.

NW: What do you think is the most important thing or the most important accomplishment for Carpetbag? What do you think is the most significant thing that it’s done?

RS: Being here on campus for us, for the intern and the work-study. Them having the Café Noir to bring us out. When I got here in January of ’98 and Carpetbag wasn’t here yet, we be bored. But them having Café Noir and putting on the productions that LPB has done, that’s a very big accomplishment that Carpetbag has done. And we thank them for it. Just because of Carpetbag, that they had Café Noir, Charles S. Dutton was able to come and sit with us. Whoa. Now if they weren’t on campus, he would have just went came here, did his speech and left. But because you had Carpetbag, you had Café Noir out here –

NW: Café Noir is done on the campus?

RS: Yeah. Usually we have it in the choir room upstairs and we’ve had it out here in the breezeway.

NW: And what is that, a reading?

RS: It’s a reading of poetry, stories that haven’t been finished yet, your thoughts, your feelings, your chat that you had online, anything and everything, just about.

NW: And who is that, students?

RS: Students, faculty, public, everyone. We try and get out flyers. The house, the outside does get pretty packed, you know. All the tables are filled and we even have some chairs out by themselves.

NW: Have you ever read?

RS: Mmmm no.

NW: That’s not your thing?

RS: No, but I would like to make it my thing. Cause it’s so fine. I thought it would just be poetry, but people are coming up here with books they are reading on and starting and just a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s just like, whoa – not just your regular biography or autobiography stuff or the regular poetry. They’re coming up there with a lot of different things and it’s fine. I like the arts, even though I’m in the criminal justice field, I like the arts. I really like the arts.

Nayo Watkins is an arts and community consultant who lives in Durham, N.C. She is sole proprietor of Bodacious Consulting and Organizing. Her work has included helping to build collaborations and partnerships between artists and communities that explore the relationship between art, culture, activism and empowerment. She served as coordinator for the Mississippi American Festival Project and for the N.C.-based Alternate ROOTS Community Artist Partnership Project. She was writer/facilitator for "Parables to Policy," an Internet project of Southern Rural Development Initiative and was consultant to the Mississippi Young Person’s Cultural Exchange. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, she served as executive director of the African American Dance Ensemble (Durham), At the Foot of the Mountain Theatre (Minneapolis), and the Mississippi Cultural Arts Coalition (Jackson), and as program assistant for the Afro-American Studies Program of the University of Mississippi. As an artist, Watkins is a poet, essayist, playwright and performer. Her poems and essays have appeared in literary anthologies and journals. As a playwright, she draws upon oral histories and participatory research to create plays rooted in place, people, culture and community. Productions of her commissioned plays have been staged in Port Gibson, Itta Bena and Oxford, Mississippi, and in Durham and Wake Forest, North Carolina. Her work is included in the repertory of actors John O’Neal, Cynthia Watts and Yolanda King.

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