Part 2
SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

BY MORGAN MONCEAUX

Throughout the 18 months that I was homeless, music was my comfort and haven. I had a boom box. Music allowed me to slip away. I take music very seriously.

I would put Grace Jones' "Slave to the Rhythm" on repeat on my boombox. That piece was my mantra:"Breathe to the rhythm...work to the rhythm...love to the rhythm...."The song led me to understand that all of the passage ways
and detours in the dark lead to a beautiful light at the end of a tunnel. I listened to the lyrics and music and pulled from them in order to do what I needed to. It's my life, these sounds.

I was also sustained by memory of my mother and family,the story of Job from the Bible and, because I love to read, the public Library. Crack heads had started coming in the bukilding in the South Bronx where I was squatting. So, I movedinto an abandoned building iin South Hampton, Long Island, where some migrant workers had been staying.I got everything I needed from the dumpsters--food ,clothes,furniture. One day, while foraging through a bin, I found art materials, some pastels and paper. My first works were the jazz abstractions and portraits of jazz musicians. I had never drawn or painted befor and I wasn't consiciously trying to create in an adstract way.These "abstractions" reflected images of the music that was running through my head.

I usually worked at night to the light of kerosene lamps and candles. Some of my works from this period have wax drippings from the candles. But I really didn't need the light. I knew exactly what was going down.The door was poen and this stuff was going to come out, one way or another. It was all flowing so fast! Once I produced 12 portraits in less than four hours.

One day in 1992 changed my life. As I was walking to Lil's , the night club where I worked as a jainitor, I passed a gallery which was showing an artist whose work looked like mine. I went in the gallery and told the owner Morgan Rank, that I knew someone who could paint like that. "Nobody can paint like that," he said. I invited him to my place to see the work ans aweek later, my show opened in his gallery: portraits of the American Persidents, "From George to George." The Jazz,my Music , My People book and other opportunities followed. Morgan Rank became and remains a part of my family to this day.

I had another pivotal experience. I had become friends with two artists and, through them, joined the SouthHampton artists association. The curators for the association's group show, believing that my work really didn't belong there, pushed it to the back, but at least it was being shown. I also had the opportunity to presentan installation/performance piece entitled Congo Square.

From Long Island, I moved to the Catskills where I lived with a friend, Roz. She was also an artist. I spent an entire year working there. In the end, I felt too isolated. In 1994, I came to Providence to visit a friend from New York. When the bus rolled in, I knew I wanted to live there.

I now live in an old factory building where I look out at a glass-blower’s studio. The AMTRAK train rumbles past my building 4 times a day. I have music in my workspace and living space 24 hours a day. My workspace is full of stuff. The factory space provides a special ambiance that’s private, isolated and very funky.

My life these days is busy and full of grace and yes, I continue to scavenge . So this is where I have ARRIVED: a Slave to the rhythm!