Rupert Kinnard held a gallery talk on his artwork Friday, Feb. 11. His artwork, From Cornell to Cathartica: The History of Cathartic Comics” is on display at Cornell College’s McWethy Hall until March 11.
During the talk, many former classmates at Cornell spoke with Kinnard about their experiences at Cornell College and the artwork.
“I just love having the opportunity to see so many people enjoying my artwork,” Kinnard said at the gallery. “You can see some of them enjoying just the drawings, but something in some of the strips keeps them reading before moving on to another.”
One of the ways Kinnard knows Cornell set him up for success was his embracing his teachers and adults as peers and not sticking with one student clique or group in his years at the school.
“I was roughly two years older than many of the other students at the school, so I viewed the administrators and professors more my peers,” Kinnard said.
After graduating from college, Kinnard moved to Portland, Oregon, opting not to return home to Chicago, Ill.
“For me, Mount Vernon was always a little too small, and my hometown Chicago, Ill., was too large,” Kinnard said. “Portland was just the right size.”
When he moved to Portland, Kinnard started as an art director for Willamette Week. By 1983, he was one of the founders of the publication “Just Out.”
“At the time, so much of the perspective in the gay press focused on what it was like to be white and gay,” Kinnard said. “Just Out was a way to give voice to others and their experiences.”
Kinnard also was a member of the Portland Town Council, where he helped push for more diversity in the community as well.
“I was politically savvy to know my appointment was most likely as a token, but I wanted to make a difference to that council,” Kinnard said. “That’s why I started the Diversity Alliance, to bring together more people of different experiences.”
Kinnard said that one of the things he liked about the exhibit was the way it detailed his progression as an artist.
“I can see some of the early strips, and I note the ways that some of the line work is simpler, or some other minor mistakes I made, but I also see the chances I was taking at Cornell at the time,” Kinnard said.
One of those chances was his character the Brown Bomber coming out of the closet in the late 1970s. They’re some of his favorite strips, even today.
“To Cornell’s credit, there were never any challenges to those comic strips, and it allowed me to come to terms with something I was realizing about myself very early on,” Kinnard said.
And while some Cornell students may just remember his artwork on the yearbook that year, finding the original design for that cover lets people see more of the details he put into that piece.
Another of his favorite pieces of art in his collection are not creations of his own, but of another artist.
When he was honored at a gala in Portland years ago, another artist made wooden puppets of his characters the Brown Bomber and The Diva.
His advice for any student at Cornell College or artist in general – take in as many experiences as possible.
“Use the fact you’re at a liberal arts school like Cornell to take a class on a subject that interests you or join a club you’ve never been a part of.” Kinnard said. “Realize and embrace the opportunities you have to grow as an individual at this college.”
Kinnard noted his lifetime achievement award from the college in 2020 probably opened the door for his artwork to be featured at the school, but it was a joyous return to the Cornell campus, where he had an opportunity to present a documentary he was a part of and visit with multiple classes during the day.
And it gave him a chance to note some of the differences between his time at Cornell and now.
“One of the big things is there is a LGBTQ student organization on campus now,” Kinnard said. “That wasn’t something I ever thought would exist. The other is how people of color have more representation on campus as well. Cornell has really worked on increasing the diversity seen on campus.”
Rupert Kinnard’s characters, the Brown Bomber and the Diva, in wooden puppet form.