Amanda Page Stephens
Meeting artists like Amanda brings me back to my days living in downtown Richmond - tucked in a little apartment surrounded by art and people with both a unique and intense appreciation for it. Her space was reminiscent of my own back then and I loved getting a tour of her work: from found objects to mixed media paintings to lamp shades made out of tea bags. We even share a love for messy painting techniques, like reusing veterinary medicine syringes to splatter paint on a canvas with no rhyme or reason other than the catharsis of its process. She really brought me back into that space where I wanted to make some messes and keep experimenting with mediums I’ve never tried. By the end of it, I walked out of there feeling a little more enriched and inspired. Talking with her was a pleasure and working together on portraits was a blast. She is not only a skilled and knowledgeable artist and a strong, amazing woman… but she is also a total goofball... which I will never not appreciate. Without further ado…
Meet Amanda Page Stephens:
Local artist, activist & human.
In which we talk about art, family history, mental health and the importance of living for today.
So, you’re an artist! Tell me about your art and what it is you do.
I’d like to start by saying I was raised by the Norfolk art community. So I didn’t really have a choice. It was either be an artist or be a rebel from the art world. It didn’t feel right not being an artist, so it was an easy stepping stone.
What do I do? I eat, think, and breathe art. And I like to share it. I’m definitely a communal artist. When I was in art school - at the Art Institute of Chicago - I studied performance art, video, sound and installations. I really like reconstructing spaces, interacting in them and also bringing other people into the art making process - whether it’s on stage or in a corner where I’m making a bunch of messes. Kids are my favorite subjects. So putting them to work and getting them to make art... It’s my favorite thing to do.
My great grandmother was a key factor in the Norfolk art historical preservation. She was an amazing poet. Right now I’m kind of exploring performance, intertwining it with her poetry and bringing my art into that medium... of poetry, words, play on tone and inflection and just how to deliver the spoken word.
For the past two years, I’ve been on hiatus.
Last October, I moved to Richmond. I ran the course of the Norfolk art scene for 41 years. I went away for three years for art school and then I came back and continued to go down every avenue and I needed a change. I uprooted myself because of my job... they had an open position available and my neighbor across the hall - who is also an artist - she’s also from Norfolk. We met at the Kingshead Inn, which was a punk venue in the 90s, and I came to visit her. And she’s like, “There is an apartment across the hall available!” and I was like, “Well, guess who’s moving to Richmond!”
So, art school took me ten years. In the middle of the whole project of doing art school, I got misdiagnosed bipolar. So, I got a doctor’s note - I get to go to Virginia and study, yay! - but I also got heavily medicated. Three years ago, my doctor at the time put me on some meds that I had already been on. I had already known with these meds - they made me insane. So … I ended up in the hospital. That was a wild ride. But the thing that kept me going despite the fact that I can’t remember eight of the nine days is my great grandmother’s poetry.
A Poet’s Reed
A song is in my heart today
I take my reed, like Pan, and play
O lilting notes of joy and praise
Dance out of me, dance into days
Of fear and tragedy, among
The folk to whom these words are sung
We have today! today! today!
Tomorrow is not real. It may
Not hold the dark anxiety
We think it will, So quietly
I take my reed, like Pan, and play
We have today! today! today!
This poem kept me going and it also gave me this sense of living for today - the main line in the poem. It’s pretty epic. My great grandmother’s only daughter, Betsy Tazewell - her actual name was Elizabeth Newton Taylor - and she married my grandfather and became Elizabeth Taylor Tazewell. But she got dementia in the early aughts and towards the end of her cognitive days where she still was forming some words, she would only say three words and they were: “today, today, today.” Until the very end, she was reciting her mother’s poetry and sending us this message of living for today.
While I was in the hospital, drugged out of my mind, I kept on reading this poem and it’s really brought me back. I found out I was misdiagnosed three weeks later. A great doctor kind of fell in my lap and I started getting into his program. I’m borderline, not bipolar. There’s a fine line that a lot of people and a lot of doctors dance around and throw meds at and say, “Oh you’re bipolar, here’s a bunch of meds.” But I wasn’t. And for 17 years, I was drugged and that’s another avenue in my art ... playing with pill vials that I’ve collected over those many years.
I’m almost totally off most of the meds. And it’s a huge issue that I’m starting to address in my work. That and the cotton are my two focuses right now.
Tell me about the Cotton.
Right before I moved here, I was staying with my aunt and uncle in Isle of Wight County on Lake Burnt Mills. And my last day, right before I moved up here, I had already pulled one full grown cotton stalk out of the ground... All the green leaves and the roots - all of it. I was just enamored with it. I was like, “I need more of this.” So, the last day, out in the middle of nowhereville, I’m driving and it’s early in the morning and dewy and it’s beautiful and there’s this cotton field. So I go out and I grab two more stalks. I felt so rebellious and bad... but good at the same time… because I really want to address the issue of white privilege and how we - how my family especially - have dealt with the privilege of benefiting from cotton and how other people suffered to make the cotton a viable resource for my family. My middle name is Page, and that’s from Page Plantation. Page county. I’m half Tazewell. They were heavily involved in the establishment of William and Mary and then if you go back again - Roberta Page Newton Taylor, my Great Grandmother - the Newtons built a church in Norfolk that’s gorgeous… but I just recently found out that it was built on the backs of slaves. So basically, my family was heavily involved in the slave trade and heavily involved in the production of cotton.
But on the flip side, I also have a lot of rebel-rousers in my family. Abolitionists, anti-prohibitionists, boot-leggers… all kinds of majorly outspoken rebel-rousers. Taylors and Tazewells and Stephens and Howards of Howard University was built by my Father’s side of the family. Two very old Virginia families came together and that’s me. That’s what I came out of.
My great uncle Bob was probably my favorite great uncle. He died in ‘99… but when he lived, he was a priest. He went to seminary in Chicago with his wife, Carvell Taylor and ended up as a freedom rider. So he went on a bus down to Selma and the bus in front of him was the bus that was bombed. He got thrown in jail with Martin Luther King and everybody. Then he proceeded to help with a halfway house in Chicago. He was for real revolutionary.
Then there was my mom - she was in a caravan right when she got out of college from Norfolk to Colorado and in Colorado, they were having their first Yoga besharam emergence - this was the ‘70s -. and then she joined this group of hitchhikers and started hitchhiking to Brazil. Her boyfriend left the group in Mexico and she just stayed on because she’s this tough little 23-24 year old Tazewell and she ended up hitchhiking all the way to Brazil and then getting a job [as] paid crew on a sailboat. Then finished the trip sailing across the Caribbean.
...Then I showed up. I can definitely say that I’m the love child of the flower children.
Dad was an economics major, art minor. He’s brilliant when it comes to visual art. And my mom was this hippy, radical, nude model. Their first date was on St. Patrick's Day in 1976. So that’s March 17th and I was born in January… so if you do the math, I didn’t take long to show up and demand a presence. One of my nicknames is “Demanda” and it totally fits.
So I kind of have this foundation of speaking up and shaking the tree… or shaking this raw cotton…
Right now, they’re installed on my wall upside down. They’re about four feet tall and I have two up and one next to me. There’s not a lot of cotton left on them because I fostered a cat that decided that it was fun to rip the cotton off and try to eat it. Amazingly, she didn’t walk out with an obstruction.
It sounds like you explore a lot of different mediums. What leads you into these mediums and how does it evolve?
Up until my hiatus, I was big on process. The actual making of the art was the art. And having something come out of it was a bonus. I think it comes from being a performance artist, studying it for so many years and just knowing that I have a relationship with my medium. I want other people to get in on the medium.
But once I took that hiatus, I kind of stepped back and I had to think about what my role as an artist is.
What I got out of those two years of thinking and processing… was that I am the canvas. So, as a performance artist, that’s what I am first. ME. The canvas. This is art. I really love thinking about the simple act of dressing because clothes [can be] inviting or they can close people off.
And also being raised by a nude model and a free spirited artist... you know, clothes were extra. And why not have fun with it?
I’ve done quite a few series just playing with clothes. The first one I did was when I was initially misdiagnosed. It was called “Baby” because I felt like I had to throw out the bath water and reinvent the baby as a bipolar person… and what did that mean?
I put to rest the person I thought I was and tried to accept this new idea of my mind… I think now looking back and analyzing those 17 years, I was a different person because they labeled me as unhealthy, drugged me to many levels and I feel like it silenced me. (That’s really hard to do, so good job!) But at the same time, I’ve got more to say now than I did before and now I know how to articulate it.
Now I have theatre background. I studied at Push Comedy Theatre for two classes and just observed and learned. That’s what I do! I sit in the audience and I take notes. Not of the people on stage… but the people in the audience. I like to be the secret plant… the lady in red that jumps up and “shoots” the person on stage. You know what I mean? And that was actually one of my characters in my last semester in Chicago. We had a puppet troupe called “Unstrung.” They had a character called Artemis Star. He was an artist and his art was throwing his fellow puppets onto the canvas and a lot of the times they died. So, he went on trial… the whole series was “Art on Trial” basically. There was this really great chase scene down Michigan Avenue and in reality, it was a scroll that was on display and it was great. They were really brilliant puppeteers and I wish I knew them now. But at the end of the chase, Artemis runs into the gallery where we’re watching and gets arrested. The last one is Art on Trial. And I was the lady in red who stood up and shot Artemis and killed Art.
What do you enjoy that is outside of your art?
I really love animals. I’m vegan. It’s a lifestyle for me. My parents shocked me when I was a young teenager by asking how much a horse costs. At the time, I was working at a horse farm and paying for all my riding lessons by child labor and competing. I had the last horse show class of the day. My pony was always exhausted, so my dad turns to my trainer and was like, “how much do horses cost?” and I’m brushing the horse, probably dropped the brush and was like, “We can’t afford a horse. What is he thinking?” And flash forward six months later, we’re purchasing a horse.
I’m still shocked to this day, even though she’s been gone since May 16, 2013. Still shocked to this day that we pulled that off.
So, horses and animals are my hobby. It’s hard for me to walk down the street if there are any dogs or cats. I’ve already fostered one beast. (She’s the reason there’s less cotton.)
I’m really passionate about [Politics]. I was raised by a very political mother and I was politicized from day one... That’s the only way you can live - by being aware and tuned in. You don’t have a choice.
Comedy is a big thing for me. Supporting others, promoting others, promoting Norfolk. Dragging my tribe everywhere, even if it’s not physically - just sharing them with the world... people I really believe in. I’m still new to Richmond but I’ve already tapped into some of my outlets. I’m really excited because I - through [my job] - made friends with Paul Rucker and we’ve already started picking each other’s brains on the art level. He’s really made me think about my elevator speech that doesn’t exist. [It’s] kinda long-winded... like a stuck-in-the-elevator speech. But he made me think about two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. And it’s important just to promote yourself.
So far, what are some places you like to hang out in Richmond?
The Anselm Keifer piece at the VMFA. That room and the room around the corner with all the iron burns... that’s Willie Cole. Those are two of my favorite pieces in Richmond. I really like nature. I really like Pony Pasture (and it’s not just because of the name). I appreciate walking around in general. I love not knowing where I’m going. I like being anonymous. I can’t really go very far in Norfolk without running into somebody… just because of my family, growing up there and investing 41 years…
I’m just really into Virginia period. I love the history. I hate the history. I think it’s something we can learn from and I think the leaps and bounds that have been made… and not made at the same time… are huge and very evident in Virginia. Richmond actually preserves some of that more so than Norfolk. There’s a lot more celebration of the backstory here.
I love the river. I grew up on a river called Tanner’s Creek, also named Crab Creek… it didn’t just supply us with crabs, but also with hours of entertainment growing up. No video games for me. One of the biggest regrets I have from my childhood is not learning how to sail because I was so horse obsessed. My whole family knows how to sail except for me. Like, I was galloping along the edge of the river and my brother was tearing it up on the water and I regret that... but at the same time, I learned a lot from my equine world. I was really shy until Joy - my horse. So that was probably the best investment. She brought me out of my shell to say the least because I was very very shy.
I work with a woman - one of the celebrities of Norfolk, named Hollywood. Her given name is Linder Lue Lawrence. She’s developmentally disabled. She had a really horrible childhood. But she wants to be known, she wants to be a movie star and she wants to spread her love. I don’t think she realizes the last one, but she’s an infectious, positive-mental-attitude kind of person.
I’ve been making movies for her every summer and the next one has to be a surprise because anticipation is really bad for her. She gets anxious - it builds and builds and builds and she just stresses - it’s too exciting. I leave the details out until we’re ready to shoot and she’s the best actress. She’s very intuitive naturally and very little direction is needed. There’s a production company I started for her with a lot of help from a lot of friends - which she calls soul family. She completely redefined family - she had to! So she has a soul family and it’s not hard to be a part of it. It’s just all loving and all accepting and she is definitely our matriarch.
So… Space Mustang Productions is my heart because it makes her so happy. I only do it once a year for the 48 hour film festival. We don’t know anything about what we’re going to do. Basically, you have 48 hours to do everything. At 7:00 you get released to the wolves. But from 6 to 7, you learn four elements - prop, line of dialogue, character and character’s occupation. And you draw from a hat your genre. We discovered Space Mustang Productions because our first film was Hollywood going to the moon in a mustang. So she’s our star.
What are some of your primary focuses?
I really want to make an impact. Even if I don’t leave the house, I want to make an impact... even if it’s just on this apartment. I want to be doing and making. I think it’s important to have that drive, even if it’s subtle. I’m not a very competitive person, but I have a drive. I’m used to being a part of a team, not a solo act… even though I am the art. First rule of improv is, ‘make your partner look good.’ and I take that to heart. I really think that as a human race, we need to constantly be considering our partner. Whether it’s relationships, or just walking down the street… just exude that energy that it’s okay… because if it’s not okay then the worlds going to fall apart. And it’s already starting to. But live the moment… live today. It’s the poem. It’s all about being present. It’s so important.
Goals are great. Ambitions great, but if you die tomorrow, it’s for naught.
“Today! Today! Today!”
What inspires you?
Human interaction and energy. Making people walk away with good feelings. Everybody always says that I smile a lot and that I’m always in a good mood and it’s like... well, why not? Do you really want to affect someone’s day by being grumpy?
Other people making, other people doing... just human interaction. I’m a big people person. If someone’s got a project and they want to share everything about it, then do it. I’m a sounding board.
Music is a huge thing for me. I’m pretty ridiculous about it. I have soundtracks for everything. There’s always something in my head. I have a major relationship with live music, local music, musicians I can interact with. Not just having rockstar status - I don’t do that. If you’ve achieved rockstar status, it’s very likely that I’m not interested.
What are some of your most rewarding experiences through your art?
Going to art school. Governor’s school was huge for me, I went there my senior year. But right before I did that, I got into a pre-college program at MICA. I went to Baltimore as a 17-year-old, lived there for a month and got immersed in art school. It really helped me focus and realize that’s my passion … then I went to Chicago. It was just so great and so powerful and there was a wrench that got thrown in and I came home to deal with the mental health stuff but even that was a good experience. Because now I know and I can advocate on a lot of levels.
Having a horse taught me responsibility. Taught me that I’m good at taking care of things and getting things done and being focused. Being in punk rock in a time where it was super political and like… vegan straight edge Riot Grrrl. That was my teenage years… and it made a huge difference! If I didn’t become straight edge, I’d be dead. I was so wild… and wild without alcohol or drugs… I can’t imagine throwing that in the mix. So being a part of that movement drug-free and then getting involved in animal rights really young... but that wasn’t a main focus, it was more drug-free, riot grrrl, third wave feminism and all that and being surrounded by spoken word artists.
Having this tribe of women who will literally kick your ass for real. But also being involved with these men who were my equal in Chicago. They were holding these ground-breaking workshops called “Men Against Sexism” and they were all about men coming to terms with their male ego. We had all women festivals where we would sit and talk for hours about privilege and feminism and it was really educational. [During] those three years in Chicago… I seemed like a different human being.
I was also involved with this group called the National People Democratic Uhuru Movement. Ohuru means freedom in Swahili. But the NPDUM was the solution of the issue the Panther’s had of how white people could be involved in the liberation movement of black americans. And it was powerful. We were talking about Democratic Socialism in the 90’s. We were talking about all kinds of heavy white privilege issues and we weren’t just talking about it in a corner with other white people. We were talking about it with people it really effected. A lot came out of that in my mind.
There’s a band called Racetraitor that got reunited right before before Trump got into office… or maybe right after. They were the band that was kind of delivering the message from NPDUM and the punk scene. We were mean! We were harsh. Nobody liked us. But the message was out there and now they’re back together because the political climate required it. It’s really intense and powerful and loud and noisy and angry. In the same sense, riot grrrl came out of that time and I didn’t realize I was a riot grrrl until it was over. Because I was just doing me!
I’m not stuck in the 90s but my experience in the 90s kind of shaped me and 17 years of being drugged makes a difference - but now in the past three years I’ve had this awakening and I’m finally realizing that the person I was before the drugs is the person I’m supposed to be and not the person that society pigeon-holed me into. Because I was so outspoken and because I was wild. I wasn’t doing anything that dangerous. I wasn’t doing drugs. I wasn’t hurting anybody. I was just an energy I couldn’t harness yet. And instead of letting me learn how to harness it, I had to go back to Virginia and I had to get on medicine. We can get through all this crap in our minds without all that poison and all the madness that it causes… a lot of the shootings and the mental health stuff they all talk about... it’s not something that’s going to be solved with a pill. It has to be solved societally.
I know it’s held me back on a lot of levels because I defined myself as someone who was sick. And until I realized I was using it as a crutch, I didn’t get better.
Do you have any advice for anybody wanting to break into the art world?
Be true to yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. Because they’re wrong. With that foundation… just listen to yourself. There will be all kinds of voices inside and outside that are negating. Play the game “yes, and” and it helps your positive mental attitude.
There’s a quote on my wall, it says - “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The Purpose of life is to give it away.” (Pablo Piccasso). As far as artists merging out of what they think might be a creative path… have a financial back up plan. No matter what... if you’re living your passion, there’s a very big chance that it’s not going to pay the bills. I wish someone had told me that. I’m pretty sure they did but I didn’t listen. Because I was raised to live your passion. I was always encouraged to the fullest to really be me and that’s great... but it doesn’t pay the bills.
Go for that crazy dream and you’ll find your way on that route. That goal is great and all but just use it as a fuel, not as a requirement. Big dreams are good for fuels… they’re not required for living.
And that’s a huge thing because for the longest time I was like, “I’m going to be a successful artist... I have failed because I haven’t become a successful artist.” Wait until you’re dead, then you’ll be great right?
I never really knew the correct financial path that I should be on. Making ends meet wasn’t a priority. Being healthy was a priority. Because I was told by a professional that I wasn’t healthy. And that professional was wrong. So second opinions are really important. Sometimes it’s a fifth opinion…
My best advice is: don’t stop asking questions and believe in yourself - even when everybody’s saying you’re crazy.
Be patient. Trust the world. And you can add what comes after. Trust the world and your dreams will follow, trust the world and everything will work out… but just trust the world. Because when you stop looking is when you find the answer.
If you are interested in checking out more about Amanda and her work, she formally invites you to google her. She is all over the internet, guys. (Seriously!)
Otherwise, it would mean a lot to her to check out more about :
Virginia photographer and artist.
