Francis Mead illustrates her truth

Meet Francis Mead, the Oakland-based artist who designed our logo and whose Etsy I have fawned over for years. She's a brilliant woman with a creative practice that blends activism, spiritual reclamation, and the poetic beautifully with the personal.

KMA: Tell us a bit about yourself.

FM: Greetings. I am a mother, I am a dreamer, I am an artist, I am a witch, I am a lover of the earth and my people. I am a deeply sensitive being learning how to care for myself, my children and my community in a deeply sick world. I create art that comes from my spirit with the intention to heal and nourish others.

I am a teaching artist as well, and I love being able to affirm the importance of dreaming and creativity in young people — how important it is to be able to envision the world we wish to live in and believe in the power of our imagination to bring it into being.

KMA: How did issues around activism and spirituality become a main focus of your art practice?

FM: Reading this question brings a quote from Assata Shakur in mind: "I think that in order to struggle you have to be creative. In my life, creativity has been something that has sustained me; it awoke my spiritual struggle."

I remember reading this in my mid-20s and it just made sense. At the time I had just left a revolutionary organization that I had dedicated three years of my life to building. We formed after Oscar Grant was murdered here in Oakland and where a resurgence of revolutionary movement was happening.

Within this org my political consciousness expanded, but it was limited. There was no room for creativity or spirit in the work we were doing, and I felt my own spirit being burned out. I knew that without art and spirit the full truth of our liberation work couldn’t be possible, so I left that organization to answer a deeper spiritual calling and to use my art in service to the liberation and healing of my people.

It was an organic process though. I didn’t decide 'Oh I’m going to make these things the main focus of my work,' it just flowed that way as I answered the deeper calling of my spirit. The ancestors gave me these gifts to create and share my story and I’ve done that since I was a kid.

Becoming politically active gave me a new audience to share my work with, and the political truths I was seeking led me to deeper spiritual truths to get the full answers.

KMA: What issues are at the forefront of your practice and why are they important to you?

FM: As an artist my work is always gonna reflect me and the journey I am on, which is both political and spiritual so my artwork became a reflection of all of that. Within my work I try to spread the importance of knowing oneself outside the conditioning of this colonial system. Everything about it, from the school system to media, is designed to make us sheep and doubt the truth and power of who we are and who are ancestors are.

They have tried to remove us from our ancestral practices and the land and impose a lot of divisions on us in terms of identity, and folks internalize that. So a lot of what I do is a reclamation of traditional practices and spirit and an honouring of the land that connects us as a people.

Spirit is a lot more expansive than this material reality and all its divisions. And until we can get over the divisiveness and hierarchy that’s been put on us and learn to care for one another then we won’t be able to bring a new world into being. A lot of my work is trying to reach the spirit of folks — the parts that haven’t been brainwashed — so that we can feel connected and empowered together.

KMA: Have you worked in other media?

FM: I went to school for film and used to study it and make short films. I haven’t done that in a long time but I still believe in the power and magic of cinema. For me all art is storytelling, whether it be painting, writing, film, or music. Creation is an opportunity to tell a story, share a feeling or experience that connects you with others.

I started drawing as a kid, since I can remember doing anything, and I also saw it as a form of storytelling. I would write out and draw my stories. I used to want to be a writer too. That’s why I often incorporate text and quotes in my work. I love the way different art practices relate and inspire one another.

I am often inspired by a quote from a book or a song and then I’ll make a whole visual piece inspired by it. Music is so important to me as well. I’ve never made music but I hope to become more musical in the future.

KMA: In your early works, what were some of the issues that were important to you then and how did those seeds grow into the practice you have now?

FM: In my earlier work, I felt like I had to be more militant in a particular way. It had to be confrontational against the state, it had to be about fighting the police and armed self-defense as Black people and women and queers. I did a lot of portraits of other rebels who dedicated their lives to decolonial struggle.

We were in the streets fighting the police and occupying public space here in the Bay. I wanted my art work to be in service to those uprisings, and I was able to create a visual presence here in the Bay through that work.

As I began to deepen my healing and spiritual work, I realized that I don’t have to fight all the time and how worn out I felt fighting my whole life, and feeling like my creative work had to be limited to a certain kind of political art. I started to understand the intimacy of politics and to be more expansive with what I created.

I think identity can limit us. When you are a Black queer woman there is this pressure to represent the whole community in your work and centre oppression, and that just became less inspiring to me.

I’m still a militant. I still believe in everything my earlier work expresses, but I’ve allowed myself to connect more with the expansiveness of who I am and to share that with the world too.

KMA: What do you hope people receive from your art practice?

FM: I hope they feel nourished and empowered and know how truly capable they are in this world.

KMA: Community groups have commissioned you to create works for them. Which projects are you most proud of?

FM: I am proud of a mural I did at my daughter’s school honouring Indigenous mothers and children. It was my biggest mural project and I did it solo and learned so much in the process.

As ICE raids continue and this violent anti-immigrant hunt is happening in this country, it makes me happy that these children have a mural up honouring their migration and their families’ migration — and understanding we are a part of nature, which moves and changes, and that borders are violent and not real.

I’m also proud of a poster I made for the Akonadi Foundation during the same time I worked on the mural in spring 2023. The poster honours the legacy of Black resistance here in Oakland and is an intergenerational image with children in the centre: a Black mama and cowgirl on one side honouring the legacy of Black horse people in the Bay, and an elder farmer holding tree collards on the other side.

A theme that will always run through my work is connecting us back to nature.

KMA: What’s next for you? What projects do you have upcoming? And how can people reach out to you?

FM: Right now, I am working on developing an art show that focuses on ecology and Black and Brown Indigenous liberation. I’m drawing from our Maroon ancestors and how they lived with the land and each other despite cultural and language differences.

I’m also looking at historical figures and medicine people like George Washington Carver and Harriet Tubman who used plant medicine for healing and liberation. I’ll be partnering with local POC-led farms and land projects for programming and community building to be a part of the show. Details coming.

To get a hold of me, check out my website: illustratedtruths.com