An Interview with Merrill Pusey

By Avery Quinn

Merrill Pusey is Evergreen’s Multicultural Initiatives Coordinator and has been in that role for two years. Merrill is an incredible advocate for justice, bringing that passion to us through her work with students every day. She is also a painter of vibrant and evocative works ranging from scenic landscapes to abstract interpretations of our nation. I had the pleasure of speaking with Merrill recently about art, work, and her thoughts on Evergreen’s approach to multiculturalism. 

What is your work and what brought you to it?

I help bring cultural training programming and advocate for students. From racial to gender [issues], it might be that a student’s homesick or not knowing how to navigate college. We’re a one-stop there.

When I started school I was fifty. I was getting out of my addiction, a twenty year addiction and had just gotten out of a domestic violence situation. I relocated from Thurston county to Tacoma and it was just people helping. I wouldn’t be where I’m at if there weren’t people there to help. So I enjoy doing that. If I could get where I’m at because somebody shed that light to me or showed their kindness, their empathy and helped me, why can’t I do it for the next person? Just to see how somebody smiles, to see how they might come to you all sunken in and after you help them you just see them rise up and elevate. It’s the best feeling in the world, you know?

How did you get started with art?

I always dabbled in stuff. I did Sip ‘N’ Paint with my daughter-in-law and her mother. It was okay. How did I start? I was living with one of my colleagues and I don’t know how I got even started. That really is a question. I’m wondering if it was from being at my job and the students doing art, that’s probably how I started. Yes, that’s how it started. Between that and my friend Tara who works at the Rainbow Center (Tacoma). That’s how I got my art started and then I started buying little by little. Then I started with YouTube videos, the step-by-step, and that’s how I started doing the scenery. Then during this pandemic, I’ve always been an activist, and I just felt like I wasn’t doing anything and I just had all this within me. So I just started painting what I was feeling. My first painting was the eye. I was like, you know, I always have to watch. I always have to watch because there’s a target on me so I have to watch to see who’s watching me.

What has been inspiring recently?

The last one I did was the flag. The street that I live on, we had the ‘Blue Lives Matter’, across the street we had the ‘Black Lives Matter’, and then we have ‘BLM’, ‘Biden Loves Minorities’, ‘Biden Loves Miners’, and here I was—I had ‘George Floyd’ in my yard and I took the sign out because during the inauguration, during the election, I didn’t feel safe. So I put on canvas how I was feeling. Here I live in America, I am totally American. If you want to put the Afro-American or whatever on it but I am American, I was born here on this soil. And this is how I live, this is how people that look like me live. Especially the one in the center. I’ve been in correspondence with somebody who has been incarcerated for the last four years in Ohio. Even though they are incarcerated they uplift me. It’s sad, you hear about the sentences that are handed down to these people, unjust and egregious sentences. And it really is. There is so much talent and knowledge in there and the sentences they give are so unjust. And they’re using them in there, this person that I’m in contact with, Armando, they have Armando being a mentor. They’ve actually got shirts and they have their own cells and this, that and the other. They’re doing stuff for the guys in there, since the pandemic that’s ended. But I’m like, so you chose him to do this because you see the potential of the things he was doing before. All the sudden now you grab these people to have them as mentors. Don’t you think he would be doing a better service out there on the street? But you want to give him a sentence. And when I leave my house, I don’t know who doesn’t like me because of the color of my skin. And who might want to do me harm just for that reason. The top is supposed to be red, white, and blue and then red, black and green around the continent of Africa. I had the noose, so it’s like, you brought us over here, to help build – or not help, to build this that we’re on now – and this is how you treat us. People go over and fight in the wars and they come back to what? Nothing. Because of the color of their skin. So yeah, that’s why I drew targets on people because that’s how I feel.

How have you been impacted by your work with Evergreen?

So, Evergreen. There was that statement at the beginning of the pandemic where they said they’re gonna give space for Black people. And now we’re asking for space just to have affinity groups and that’s not able to happen. Why can’t we say this space is for people of color or Black people? We have to say that all are welcome? I’m like, that’s not what your statement said. Your statement says that you’re gonna make space for Black people.

Would the affinity groups be for the faculty, administration, students?

Even for students. One of my students was having a thing called ‘Black Joy’ and that wasn’t able to happen because of funding, they’re saying. So what I need to do, is it going to be an issue, say if I get somebody to donate money and then I’m gonna have this program just for Black people. Is it still gonna be a problem?

So there’s a lack of clarity around what the issue is with these events?

Evergreen is trying to hide and shelter. They don’t want to shake anything up. And who’s suffering? Because I feel like I’m suffering, always having to worry about somebody else being offended or whether they feel left out. What about me? I always have to worry about everyone else but no one is worrying about how I feel about not being able to have space to do what I need. We had a retreat and it was asked at the last moment to have affinity groups. It’s necessary to be able to feel comfortable to speak. It’s hard to compare, being Black, experiencing oppression and microaggressions. I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking in a group where somebody who’s white is talking and not understanding. It minimizes or ends up in me having to explain because you’ll never understand. Or you might understand but you wouldn’t be able to feel. Sometimes you need to let it out and just talk, not even have anybody give you any feedback, just know that there’s somebody listening.