Mari Evans’ “Ethos and Creativity,” which was commissioned by the Indiana Humanities Council and originally appeared in the collection Where We Live: Essay about Indiana (edited by David Hoppe, Indiana University Press, 1989), examined Ethos as a shaping matrix for creativity, which is the response of the human spirit to the variety of its experiences. In Indianapolis, Evans observed an Ethos of trauma and stress for Black people, and any creative response was “not empowered or enabled to produce positively because that possibility [had] not been disclosed.” In such conditions, the result is, she wrote, an atrophying of the creative fruit or expression in negative and socially destructive ways. She diagnosed a double injury to the Black creative spirit: first, an Ethos of discrimination and destruction of communities for the “economic convenience and pleasure of [the city’s] dominate White population;” and, second, denial of opportunities to creatively and positively explore this Ethos. Hence, she argued, it makes sense for Black artists to leave Indiana, which in fact happens and results in world-class creative work by Black Indiana natives appearing elsewhere.

The public conversation on 8 March 2018 considers the continuing relevance of Evans’ diagnosis of art and race in Indianapolis by inviting Indianapolis artists, Phyllis Boyd, David Hoppe, Adrian Matejka, Carl Pope, and LaShawnda Crowe Storm, to talk about significant passages from the essay in relation to their own experiences. The audience also is invited to ask questions or comment on the essay and the artists’ remarks.