Reginald Baylor’s ‘Community Facing’ Art

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Reginald Baylor

Reginald Baylor

Reginald Baylor is an enterprising fine artist because he has turned his artwork into a brand, adding licensing to his visual repertoire. 

I recently met Baylor in his studio on the 25th floor of the Downtown Ascent Apartment Building on Kilbourn. The wraparound wall of windows illustrated tops of buildings foregrounding Lake Michigan below a sky as blue as the blue hues in a Baylor painting. A long wall along a long table comprised the Baylor studio. Large-scale paintings leaned sideways against the back wall. His titles are as colorful as his artworks: When a Rectangle Becomes King or The Story of Adam and Eve to the Melody of an Apple Jacks Cereal Box or Ovular Foliage. 

His works are on exhibition in permanent collections at the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Corporate collections include: Mandel Group, Pfister Hotel, West Bend Mutual, African American Chambers of Commerce, Ascent MKE/New Land Group, Baird Center and Interstate Parking. His work is also in many private collections locally and nationally.

At 57, Baylor is Ascent’s inaugural artist-in-residence, his two-year tenure ending in 2024. “My studio is part of the huge 25th floor community room, allowing residents access to my artwork,” he explained. “I am part of the Ascent living experience, and my service is for-profit. I call it a job.” He was also artist-in-residence at The Pfister Hotel and served as a resident artist at Ragdale in Lake Forest, Illinois.

A tall fit man with mellow voice and a salty beard, his verbal expression is woven with metaphors. Listening to his conversation is like staring at his artworks.

Tell me about your background—where you grew up, your parents, schools, and what life was like for you back then. 

Middle class. My parents both had careers. My dad was a self-employed truck driver. My mom was an MPS public school English teacher and then a social worker and counselor. We lived in the Custer High School area, 41st and Hampton. When I was in sixth grade, my parents moved to Mequon. I went to Homestead High School and then to the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh. I was lucky to have teachers who encouraged me in art. I had no artistic obstacles in my upbringing. But I found out that it’s hard to make a living in fine art.

As I recall, you dropped out of college your senior year.

Yes, I had to earn a living. In 1989, I opened up a bar in Oshkosh, Dalmation Bar & Dance. That was at the beginning of techno music, meaning house music. Two turntables and a microphone, me and my brother doing the deejaying. It was also the beginning of MTV, which added the visual component. I’m a visual guy, and MTV blew my mind. Those videographers weren’t using paint. We were at the beginning of the rap and hip hop music movement.

How long did you run Dalmation Bar & Dance?

Two and a half years. I moved to California and got married to my college sweetheart. I lived there for five years, worked at the Laguna Beach Art Museum and different art galleries. I liked the cultural and economic diversity. Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and even the economic classes mingled together socially.  

Were you painting at that time?

Yes, I did paintings and sold them at coffee shops and clothing stores. Then, we moved to Chicago. For a while, I was driving a truck as an independent for Mason Dixon Trucking. By that time, my wife and I had two sons. In 1998, we moved up to Milwaukee. But I was always making art, and I had built a portfolio. I shipped my artworks to my art rep in California, and she sold them. 

But why live in Milwaukee?

My family was here. And Milwaukee is pretty cool. In fact, Milwaukee became my story. The artwork that comes out of me is because I deal with Milwaukee.   

How and when did you develop your artistic talent?

Here is the metaphor. If I want to build a car, I need a generator, carburetor, pistons, and so on. I would go to the parts store and buy the parts. I took the alternator from David Hockney, the catalytic convertor from Keith Haring, but I found I liked straight edge design, and so then I only went to the straight edge parts store. I bought all the parts to do straight edge “car building.” I bought a roll of tape to design my shapes. 

On occasion, I have taught photography to young people. I told them if you want to be really good, you need to develop a recognizable style, for example, Ansel Adams, Gordon Parks, or Diane Arbus. I think unique style is true of any art form, music, writing, painting, film.

That’s true. Focus in on a really good piece of art, and you will recognize the artist.

How would you describe your artistic style in terms of color and design? You seem to use bright colors and flowers or flower-like shapes. Your humans seem to be drawn from cartoon styles. I also see the influence of graffiti.

I think that might be true, but most artists don’t quite know where their style comes from. I recognize that I just like drawing. At one point, I wanted to be an architect because I love looking at blueprints. I liked looking at lines, at the straight edge concept. I don’t know if I developed a style, but rather I studied a style. I study lines to get where I want to go artistically.  

I see what you mean. Your work is crisscrossed with lines, which creates the shapes, then you cluster in the colors.

That’s my coloring book concept. I have created four coloring books, essentially my artworks without the colors. When I make a painting, I limit myself to a box of crayons. It’s like when you are a kid, and you have a box of 10 crayons and a white sheet to color on, you are elated. That’s how I feel about my artworks, that I am filling in spaces with color crayons. Color in my work is very childlike.

Let me get this straight. Your coloring books give people the chance to color your own art?

Yes. I am engaging with my audience by saying, “We can connect. We love blue, orange, and green.” 

When did you come up with the coloring book idea?

(laughing) Ironically, before the coloring book boom. I created a coloring book based on artwork in the Milwaukee Art Museum. They printed 400 editions and sold them all. 

Here is a quotation from you. "I'd say about 80% of my work is done machine-manufactured or is a digital version of something.” What do you mean by that?

From my truck driving experience, I was able to see the difference between a manufacturing plant and an art studio. Manufacturing plants are designed to efficiently produce a product to make it less expensive so that more people can have it. I thought, that’s the kind of art I want to create. I want an art process to make really good work that is inexpensive so that more people can afford it. My skill is limited to the paintbrush machine. I try to align with people who have the Photoshop, illustration and fabric machines.

So you provide the machinist with your painted art design, and …

…and say, “I need your fabrication help.” It’s like an architect instructing a carpenter to build a house from his drawing.

You call yourself a community-facing artist. How does that concept apply to your artwork?

The Joyce Foundation out of Chicago originated this concept, pairing an artist with a nonprofit community organization. The artist provides work to help the community with education, health, civic infrastructure narrative, and so on. I’ve tried to create artwork that represent Milwaukee’s underserved communities. For instance, my artwork appears as outdoor exhibitions on walls or benches in central city neighborhoods like Lindsay Heights, Harambee, Sherman Park, and Burnham Park. I created the world’s largest free book shed, nine feet tall. Every window was a door containing about 80 books. The outer walls were covered with quotations from community residents. kind of like graffiti.  

I sense that you like to get out of the studio to work on art that can help reflect the neighborhood stories.

Yes, I think this community-facing, outdoor concept is the trajectory of what a fine artist will be in the future. More and more, art is becoming self-expressive, almost like a social media post. Traditionally, art and design were two different things, but I think the new fine art is about design.

Over the years, I’ve spent time walking inner city streets, and I see a lot more public self-expression in those communities than anywhere else—paintings, drawings and graffiti on walls and buildings and train cars, even on abandoned houses. 

Which reminds me that, back in the day, MTV looked way more artistic because it was filmed expression. I always wondered if graffiti is really fine art, and I’d think “hell no” because it came from the streets. But I want a place where graffiti can be fine art.

Graffiti, I think, is reflected in your artwork.

Yes, I started to paint neighborhoods that most people would not think are beautiful. An older house in the inner city has a similar style to one in Wauwatosa, but if you paint the inner-city house in hip hop style and bright colors, there is a difference. After the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, I did a painting titled, Cityscape with Black Clouds. Normally, you’d see a white cloud over a house, but if the house is burning, there is a black cloud.

Another thing. sometimes, when drawing people, I start with the features of white people and then paint them black. 

What is the purpose of that technique?

It’s power of paint, the power of deception.

On your studio website, you are selling limited edition digital prints to enhance home and office, for instance, showing each digital print alongside a credenza, table, desk or in a bathroom. You even design shower curtains and bath towels. Would this be called interior design or making your artwork a brand?

Either or of those and both apply to me. I was alive during the commercial pop art movement, Andy Warhol’s studio as a factory, and street artists like Keith Haring doing clothing, watches, and T shirts. 

If I have a nice home, and I want to spend time and money on decorations, can I come to you and say, “can you do my living room or bathroom or bedroom?”

I can definitely do that, and it does not have to look like my normal artwork. I can design your interior based on what you have in mind, and this is creative challenge for me. I am building a brand in which one part of it is fine art where I cater to fine art buyers. The other part is catering to clients who want building and house design.  

You are an advocate of licensing reproductions when it comes to some of your artwork. Quoting you, “The labor that’s invested in an original canvas is tedious and expensive, and then it goes to one buyer.” How do you apply the licensing concept to your artwork?

As an example, let’s take Juiced!, a local Milwaukee company, that licensed me to design their cold-pressed juice bottle labels. Now my artwork is on Juiced! bottles nationally. 

Your major solo exhibit, “My Afro’s Future,” is currently on display at Milwaukee’s Var Gallery. Here is a portion of the description, “… an invitation to explore the boundaries between creation and deconstruction, between the whole and its parts.” Can you expand on this? 

Artistic manufacturing. All the artworks in this show, except one painting, are fabricated by me along with the machinists. I provide a blueprint - measurements, size and colors—and I hand that blueprint to my contractors. Included in my work are textiles, acrylics, and mirrors. All the artworks are for sale.

To find out more about his art, check out Baylor’s website -  

https://link.edgepilot.com/s/12e7906b/4S7z7UGztEeTwfwnldxvcQ?u=https://reginaldbaylorstudio.com/

For his new exhibition, “My Afro’s Future,” visit the Var Gallery -

https://link.edgepilot.com/s/c1a72bb2/UjxQJaGWt06ZZQkGYyiYyA?u=https://www.vargallery.com/