Unfazed, she sat in on the first presentation, and opened her sketchbook with Baldwin on her mind.

Four women sit and pose for a photo at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland. — (L–R) Jazz artist and educator Dr. Angela Wellman, art curator Ashara Ekundayo, gallery owner Joyce Gordon and interdisciplinary artist Sabrina Nelson at Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland. (Courtesy Ashara Ekundayo)

“I started drawing his image, and I felt something touch me spiritually,” Nelson tells me during a video call, motioning to her forearms as she revisits the hair-raising sensation. “It was the first time I’d drawn his image.”

She looked around the room, checking for open windows or a sign of a breeze that might have caused goosebumps. And then, Nelson says, she addressed Baldwin’s spirit directly. “If you’re in this room, Mr. Baldwin, I don’t know you like that,” she says with a slight laugh, admitting that she was no Baldwinite.

Nelson, who’d studied the Yoruba faith, was clear with her request to Baldwin’s spirit: “If you’re here, and you’re trying to touch me in a spiritual way,” Nelson said, “teach me how to know you.”

Filmmaker Celia Peters stands in admiration of an image of James Baldwin on the wall at the Joyce Gordon Gallery. — Filmmaker Celia Peters admires an image of James Baldwin at Joyce Gordon Gallery. (Ashara Ekundayo )

Nelson continued to draw Baldwin’s image throughout her trip, but stopped for a few months when she returned to the states. In October of that same year, however, she was tasked with drawing a superhero for the month-long artist exercise known as Inktober. Nelson chose Baldwin, and instead of drawing one image per day, or 31 total, as the challenge called for, she drew 91.

From this body of work, she started sharing the art with high schoolers who also participated in Inktober — and soon realized that schools weren’t teaching Baldwin to their students.

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