I Used to Read to Relax
LeVar Burton: Right now I’m stuck on the SiriusXM soul station because it’s the music I grew up with.
Altoon Sultan: Skowhegan was a more conservative place close to 50 years ago.
Burton: It really was. [Laughs] Yeah.
Sultan: Even when a piece gives me a hard time, or fails and ends in the trash, I am not terribly discouraged, but take it as part of the job.
Burton: Always. We have no resilience if there’s nothing to bounce back from, right?
•••
Sultan: It’s no longer in print but used copies can be found, and it’s available on Google Books as a free pdf download or an ebook.
Burton: Words have power in my universe. I used to read to relax.
Sultan: I love the sumptuous surface of parchment, and love the intimacy of small images.
Burton: I felt the love. That’s how powerful the medium can be.
Sultan: It made an artist’s life seem more real.
•••
Burton: Me being able to see myself in [original cast member] Nichelle Nichols was not simply inspiration, it was validation.
Sultan: The most wonderful thing she did that semester was to invite the class to a figure drawing session at her loft residence.
Burton: Can’t argue with that.
Sultan: And because I return to some of the same nearby farms year after year, we’ve gotten to know each other casually.
Burton: That’s when my soul gets replenished at a real elemental level.
—Raymond Cummings has contributed to Splice Today since 2010.