Nora Grace-Flood
Flahn Manly.
“Black coffee, four sugars,” ordered Shelton-based artist and entrepreneur Flahn Manly on a July afternoon. He then slid three neon pink face masks across the coffee house counter for the workers.
“Dream & Manifest,” the theme of Manly’s most recent “artivist campaign,” was printed on the fabric in bold cursive lettering.
For Manly, a career in the arts is just that: a child’s impossible dream made true. Now he’s planning to share that dream with other kids around the United States through Renaissance Fire, an initiative to offer affordable and accessible art classes to youth of color.
Manly hopes the project will serve as a “lifeline” to its students. “Because art is what’s helped me,” he stated.
Manly fled Liberia during the first civil war when he was ten years old. His family moved to Minnesota, where Manly entered school for the first time.
In high school, he was placed in “The Other Side Program” to help him catch up on the credits he needed to graduate. Given the chance to create his own program of study, he centered the extra work around visual art.
When Manly moved to New England to start his college education, he realized he could use art as a framework to understand the subjects he struggled with the most, like history and science.
“Before I started practicing art, I was very cold hearted. I had a different character. I was failing and disrespectful,” Manly remembered. “Nothing like the Flahn you see here today!”
The idea that “no kid is the same” is foundational to the mission of Renaissance Fire. Manly recalled a famous Albert Einstein quote to illustrate his experience: “Everyone is Genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
Manly doesn’t expect all of his students to become professional artists. Rather, he views making art as an important practice for strengthening self-expression and imagination.
Before coming up with the idea for Renaissance Fire, Manly partnered with the Shelton Boys and Girls Club to create “Masterpiece Mondays.” Every Monday for six months, Manly would spend an hour working with the kids in the club. He remembered one boy who painted an elaborate picture of a boat. “I told him immediately that he was going to be an engineer,” Manly said.
Manly himself felt creatively “stifled” growing up. His father was focused on academic success, and Manly operated under the belief that he would not be able to survive as a Black, lower-class artist.
Once he recognized that art was what allowed him to “thrive,” he decided that “whatever idea you have in mind you must invest all of your energy into.”
Now Manly asserts that “there’s money to be made from art, you just need to know your audience and what you want to make.”
Manly makes a lot: in addition to his paintings, he’s also a clothing designer. His studio on Center Street, where he has worked for six years, is named “ICD Creative Studios,” which stands for “Incomplete Designs.”
This refers to the evolution of Manly’s creative process, style, and brand. When he was a teenager, Manly would paint complicated imagery on his clothes in order to attract attention to his work.
Over time, he began to simplify those designs, identifying underlying statements of empowerment and bringing them to the forefront of his brand. His printed T‑shirts read “HUMAN” and “LESS GUNS MORE ROSES.”
As Manly continues to expand his business and to produce more, he is driven by the desire to make change as well as capital. And according to him, the two go hand in hand.
“I strongly believe there’s no transformation without transaction,” Manly said. This ideology holds true even in Manly’s fundraising efforts. Renaissance Fire’s GoFundMe page has raised $8,000 out of the $55,555 Manly needs in order to pay teachers and to cover art supplies, marketing, and space rentals. Everyone who contributes to the fund receives something in return: a T‑shirt, face mask, or a print.
“Donations are passive,” Manly said. “I want people to engage with the creation: to become brand ambassadors!”
Paying for classes will work in a similar fashion; students will offer what they can afford. “I might ask some students and their parents to just contribute a dollar; those who can pay more might give ten dollars,” Manly reasoned.
The initiative will launch in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, where Manly first located in the U.S. “Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, has Minnesota’s art scene, but Brooklyn Park is cut off. If you’re a kid, you have no access to that.”
As schools throughout the states lose funding for the arts and families face new financial struggles, Manly maintains that art should be recognized as a necessity for all rather than a privilege for the few. He also plans to have pop-up events in Shelton, and wherever else he can employ artists and teachers to organize classes.
He pointed out that Shelton relates to New Haven similarly to how Brooklyn Park relates to Minneapolis.
“I am the art community in Shelton,” Manly said. While he named several local artists who he works with and admires, he said that working as a Black artist in the town can be uncomfortable and lonely.
He hopes that by reaching out to children he can “plant the seeds to grow a forest of artists and entrepreneurs.” In other words, he can build his own network and community through engaging young artists.
“I’m just a big old kid myself,” he joked. “Working with kids teaches me patience and how to focus my attention, but it also reminds me of how to just be a kid again. Sometimes I’ll just go to the park and roll around in the grass. People look at me funny, but it’s about being playful. The adult ego is so rigid.”
As many cite feelings of isolation and devastation due to the pandemic and protests over police brutality and systemic racism, Manly asserted that “this is the norm for us,” meaning for Black creatives in predominantly white communities. “I always aim to be disruptive, even when it means that I’m losing money because people don’t acknowledge me.”
He also said that discomfort drives productivity. “This is my space; it’s been my pilot. Six years of working and testing out different things.”
While famous artists like Lil Yachty have commissioned paintings from Manly, he said he is influenced and inspired by those in his community who are rebellious, hardworking, and entrepreneurial.
“I have a friend who works at Caloroso, the restaurant down the street. I see myself in him; he’s always out there working and grinding. I see that everyday; in people cleaning the streets, in school teachers. They do the work, and they inspire me to do the work.”
Manly shared that he is conservative when it comes to asking people for help: “The American and African way is to do it yourself, he said.” He said that he only feels he can ask for support from those who witness his work ethic: how he paints until 2:00 a.m. each day before waking up early for coffee and a ten mile run.
Renaissance Fire has received 150 monetary contributions since the fundraiser launched in June, highlighting how many people are financially recognizing Manly’s work and vision.
“It’s about being proactive instead of reactive,” Manly said. He expressed frustration over people’s surprise to mass racial injustices and their passive attempts to show solidarity.
“Renaissance Fire was born before all of this, and it will hopefully live long beyond this moment.”
