Sydney James is the 2024 Distinguished Alumni

Muralist Sydney G. James, College for Creative Studies’ 2024 Distinguished Alumni, has had a big impact on the art world — and not just because of the size of her artwork.

“I really have been floating this entire time, wherever the wind kind of blows me to where I think I might want to go or do,” said James (Illustration ’01). “And even if I’m not doing exactly what I thought I’d be doing, where the wind blew me put me somewhere else where I needed to be.”

The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes CCS graduates who best exemplify what it means to be a creative leader through outstanding professional or artistic achievements, exceptional leadership in their community, a dedication to service and a commitment to the advancement of arts education.

James, a 2017 Kresge Arts Fellow, received the award at the spring commencement ceremony, which was held at the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre in Detroit on May 9. She was chosen after a selection committee of CCS students, alumni, staff and faculty leadership completed a monthslong process of accepting and renewing nominations.

James’ artistic talents surfaced early; she began drawing at the age of 3. In kindergarten, her art teacher pulled her parents aside and suggested they look into enrolling her in art classes. They enlisted the help of her aunt, Kathryn Johnson, who’s also an artist, and at 7, James began attending CCS. Only the age-appropriate classes focused too much on crafts than art for her liking.

“It really wasn’t doing anything for me, so I started sneaking in the older classes probably when I was 8,” she said. “I knew I was going to CCS for college when I was 9. And that’s what I did.”

But once she started at CCS in 1997 as a freshman, James realized it was far different than the environment that had helped shape her talent as a youth. She was surprised — and disheartened — by not only the lack of diversity, but also by the lack of representation of city of Detroit students among the school’s small Black population. “The reality of the art world set in,” James said. “Racism and sexism play a very large part in the art world.”

But James — a self-described strong, possibly combative and definitely competitive person — isn’t one to be put in her place. “It prepared me to compete in this industry, because it’s not all painting and just doing things that you love,” she said. “It’s competitive. It’s real. It’s a real work environment.”

While at CCS, James packed her schedule with electives, such as industrial design, sculpture and photography. She was grateful for having taken so many classes in other curriculums when she realized that working as art director in advertising, which she did for three years after graduation, wasn’t for her.

James headed for Los Angeles with the idea of selling a cartoon she’d created, only to discover that she wasn’t willing to make the leap from illustration to animation. Instead, she became a ghost artist for television shows and movies.

“Anytime there’s a character that’s an artist, they’re just acting,” she said. “They’re not really doing the actual work. The work is actually a real artist behind the scenes.”

For James, that was the character Cassie Sutton, who actress Erica Hubbard portrayed on “Lincoln Heights,” and Jim Powell, a police sketch artist portrayed by Michael Chiklis on “No Ordinary Family.”

Much like working as a ghost artist wasn’t a career option she’d learned about in art school, being a mural artist entered James’ life in much the same way. A couple of years before she left the West Coast, a friend who’d recently returned to Detroit from Brooklyn began turning vacant lots in the North End neighborhood into community gardens.

“I didn’t have a green thumb,” James said. “But I did want to take over a vacant lot, so we ended up erecting art.”

She and other artists painted abandoned doors and created an art garden. When she moved home in 2011, the Grand River Creative Corridor invited them to build structures outside of its now former home at 4731 Grand River. A year later, James began painting walls, which led to her participating in the inaugural Murals in the Market, now an annual mural and public art festival in Detroit’s Eastern Market.

“My mural that I painted for that activation was listed as one of Detroit’s top 18 murals,” she said.

James has been busy ever since. She’s created upward of 60 murals around the world, including Girl with the D Earring. Not only is that her most significant work to date, it’s also the largest at 8,000 square feet. James worked with a team of five to paint the now landmark overlooking Grand Boulevard in five and a half days.

“It’s crazy because I didn’t even know it was an industry,” she said. “I didn’t know it was a thing. And of course, even since 2015, it’s grown vastly. It definitely didn’t look like what it looks like now. But yeah, mural painting is a whole career.”

It’s also the medium that now defines James’ career. In 2020, she cofounded BLKOUT Walls, a biannual street art festival that brings together artists to create murals on private and commercial structures in Detroit.

Her bachelor’s degree in illustration prepared her for the commercial arts — creating art for money. She’s now able to find ways to make fine art projects work financially, for both her and everybody involved.

It also allows her to pay forward the help she received as an up-and-coming artist. Since her days at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School, James has counted Marian Stephens among her mentors. The former art teacher and longtime artist “literally tailored programming for us even outside the school system,” James said. That included arranging for James to study with renowned Detroit artist Hubert Massey and take extension classes at CCS.

James sees herself and the many other artists who Stephens taught as “proof of the pudding of the hard work she put in.”

Because of that lasting and thriving relationship, James considers mentorship the biggest part of her practice and counts Detroit artists Centurium Frost (Illustration ’13) and Ijania Cortez as mentees. She not only mentors through BLKOUT Walls, but she’s also taught at CCS and elsewhere, as well as shared techniques, clients, and the skills an artist needs to thrive and be paid.

“I’ve been paying it forward as long as I’ve been getting it,” she said. “I have mentored people to become my peers.”

James credits CCS for her motivation to change the narrative of the art world — and is excited by the changes she now sees to increase diversity on the campus so central to her youth.

“It did help build that part of my character,” she said. “CCS did that.”