Meet Cambria Kelley | Poet, Artist & Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cambria Kelley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cambria, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk plays a significant role in my life. My life has been full of risks, big and small and has taken me very far. For example, continuing graduate school right after college and uprooting my life in LA to living in NYC has been part of that. I could have stayed and waited a year and everything aside, but I chose not to. Risk is just a natural part of life in my opinion and everyone has to take risks some way or another. My practice as an artist, writer, poet, and educator is a risk in itself. I am making myself and my truths vulnerable to the world and that is risky because people might not understand or accept it but it’s not about them, it’s about me. I have to center myself. Navigating my way through the museum world/art work from a non-traditional lens has its perks and withdraws but that’s just natural when you are risking instability. My every existence is a risk too because I always felt the need to conform and set expectations on myself as a young Black woman. At the end of the day, nothing matters but as long as I did what I felt what is right that’s all that matters to me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
At the moment life has thrown a curveball at me as 4 months ago, I was a victim of a hit-and-run as a pedestrian in NYC so I had to leave for a semester to regroup and recover.. This unfortunately, put a damper on my previous progress so I haven’t made anything new at the moment. Since then I have returned and will be continuing my program. Even though I haven’t made anything new I still believe my art is an extension of myself. At the moment, I am really excited in expanding my thesis as an installation and I am at that stage where it will come to life soon, so look out for that! In my writing, I touched on themes of memory, nature, yearning and I use my lived experiences as a vessel for it. Professionally,I jumped from museum to museum early in undergrad to now. From UCR Arts to the Petersen Automotive Museum (briefly) it was challenging transitioning to contemporary artwork to machines and vehicles. It was challenging unlearning and relearning at different institutions but I’d like to think it made me stronger and more open-minded. I learned a lot of lessons especially since every museum is different and you have to utilize different skills at your disposal. I learned how to be adept at adapting to different models of visitor engagement and digesting information for one’s own approach to education. I took every experience whether good or bad as-is and took accountability on my own end when needed. It’s a very humbling experience and shatters the ego but sometimes the ego just needs to be shattered in order to be the person you truly want to be. For me, I would interpret my knowledge in a way that appeals to visitors of color, women, etc and used my own judgement. It’s been interesting but I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback from it. I just want to let the world know that I love what I do and I think we need more people to be multi-faceted.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would first go Downtown LA and take them to Grand Central Market for all the good food spots. In other parts of LA even towards the Southbay area there’s this Black-owned vegan restaurant called Compton Vegan that is really good. Museum-wise I recommend the Broad, MOCA (Geffen and Grand), and the CAAM. Visit the Rose Garden on Expo Blvd and if you want to go to Santa Monica I would take the Metro Expo Line. Of course I would hand out in Sunset Blvd and take them to this Brunch spot called the Butcher, the Baker, and the Cappuccino Maker. I would also recommend my friends to go down Fairfax Ave. I also recommend the Getty for best sun soaked flicks.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to give UCR’s BlacQout, African Student Programs and Chicano Student Programs for the support. I had a wonderful experience at UCR and it gave me the motivation to carry on into my studies. I also want to give a shoutout to several people: Celeste Gomez, Victor Marroquin, Timothy LeBlanc, Joseph Diaz, Rita Souther, Lydia Turner, Jayshawn Lee, and many other people on the list that has supported me . I also want to thank The Curator’s Pick, and ArtApassionproject too for allowing me to use their platforms to express my artwork and myself. I also want to thank muses Noname, Solange, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Funkadelic, Celia Cruz, and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

Website: https://linktr.ee/camburguesa_