The Righteous Reality of Artormiss Bonner
Bonner setting up for The Poetry Circle
Artormiss Bonner moves, lives, and breathes like something straight out of a Wes Anderson film; haphazard yet sharply focused with a mind perpetually torpedoing at 500 miles per hour while his person and affairs are serendipitously cradled by the universe. He’s aware of this and is slightly cautious because of it. However, like a true Andersonian, he remains poised (save for an occasional charmingly erratic reaction) and ready for the various opportunities that continuously bloom before him. Curator and founder of The Circle Poetry Night, art director and booking manger for APACHE XLR, and self-declared “plug for all creatives”, Bonner graciously allowed me to shadow him for a day to illustrate a day in the life of a bona fide event curator and promotor.
He greets me warmly with–what I’m starting to recognize as a typical rather than indicative–mischievous grin outside an Ace Hardware parking lot in West End, Georgia. This was our third attempt to meet up for an interview. The morning after one of his shows, he texted me “Grand rising friend! I’m a lil bit under the weather right now. Can we postpone. I apologize.” I had assumed he was probably hungover from the night before but he revealed the real reason as we walked to West End Print Shop to pick up a job for his event that night.
He started feeling ill the morning after his show; there was a tightness in his chest and he found it difficult to breathe. Panicked, he dialed 911. With no other symptoms other than severe nervousness and nausea, it was clear that he was experiencing a panic attack. “The EMT guys didn’t tell me that when the ambulance came, though.” he said. “They just laid me down and drove me to the hospital.” I winced at the thought of his bill. He noted my reaction and laughed. He said that he felt a lot better after having a cup of water and resting for a bit. When they tried to get his information, he thanked them for their service, told them of his newly improved condition, and slipped away.
He believes that his initial symptoms were a delayed reaction to the previous night's event. “It’s a lot of stress,” he admits. Bonner can become obsessed with ‘winning’: Snagging every event possible to try to elevate his career, influence, and network opportunities. Sometimes, he finds himself taking on too many roles and pushes through his body and mind’s retaliations in order to get things done in a timely manner. “So, I’ll get a bit sick the day after big events,” he told me matter-of-factly. He added that he was trying to slow down, but it’s obvious that this is not a part of his nature.
At this point, he was growing impatient with the apathetic girl half-heartedly attempting to help us fulfill his order of flyers and promotional tickets for The Poetry Circle, a weekly spoken word event he manages every Tuesday at The Loft on Delowe. “She has to be new,” he surreptitiously texted me as she struggled to understand what he wanted even though he frequented this shop to print similar projects. Regardless, he calmly repeated himself for over half an hour trying to get her to understand what he wanted. At the end, he asked her when he would be able to pick them up. She gave him a dull stare and responded with similar enthusiasm, “I don’t know.”
“An estimate?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Will they be ready by tonight, though?”
“I have no idea.”
Faced with no other alternative, we left to continue the day’s errands.
His car smells like weed and there’s a partially filled ashtray in the cupholder. He smokes the last of a blunt on the way to our next location. “We got to regulate speed, people.” He mumbles at the slow moving traffic around us. I ask him what he could tell me about The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner. His face immediately lights up. “The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner is a book by Walter Dean Myers, one of my favorite authors growing up. It be about, like, realistic stories about Black kids in the ‘hood type of thing. But The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner is a story about a Black kid in the Western Times…And long story short: He travels from New York to California to seek revenge on his uncle's killer, Catfish Grimes!” He laughs. “Walter Dean Myers has some dope ass names, man.
“I don’t know specifically why I personalized with the story so much but … Artemis was, like, just a really determined person. You know what I mean? I think, me naming myself Artormiss [was] like manifesting who I am now ... Determined. Not purposefully, it just came one day… I mean–[It really was] purposefully. But it was gradual. So, I didn’t really notice ‘til one day I was a completely different person. My friends used to call me…” He laughs. “My rap name used to be Oddball … And I don’t know. That kind of used to be the type of person I was.”
He said that he wasn’t even thinking about college or university until he got kicked out of his high school and had to attend an alternative school to graduate. “I didn’t really give a shit. I was just doing whatever I wanted. I used to bark at old people in Lenox’s mall … I was a good guy, but I was just really wild.”
Bonner on the phone during a meal at Alibaba
At one point he found himself facing up to seven years in prison for alleged credit card fraud. “And I didn’t do that shit! [Eventually,] the case got dismissed…” But before that, he had to spend four days in a cell “with career criminals”.
“But, low key, [it] was one of the most relaxing times of my life.”
He spent most of his time telling his fellow inmates about the ins and outs of video production and was eventually released on a signature bond.
“Cause my mom–she’s a fucking wild girl–but she was also a paralegal … And my dad graduated from Columbia … but they kicked him out of the bar or whatever because of protests.” That’s the type of people he comes from; ardent, tenacious, and defying simple categorization. “So, like every time someone tries to try me because they think that I don’t know what’s going on…” He shakes his head as he trails off. He was just focused on getting out and taking his dad to his chemotherapy appointment at the time.
He laughs again and says he talks too much just as we park somewhere in Little Five Points. “This is my favorite store,” he reveals to me outside of Rag-O-Rama. He also tells me of the importance of balance when one doesn’t work a typical 9 to 5. “You have to mix in a little bit of fun into your day.”
We’re inside less than thirty seconds when he gravitates toward some darling baby blue socks with white clouds. He inspects them for a moment, contemplates what would bring someone down the path of designing socks in the first place, and plucks them off the rack with conviction. He scours the shoe section and almost immediately finds a pair of pristine gray Nike’s with baby blue accents. Done. We check out and head to lunch.
Rag-O-Rama in Atlanta, GA
Alibaba is a quaint and shabby little Mediterranean restaurant next door to Rag-O-Rama. The seating area is draped with richly colored textiles: ancient looking tapestries, oriental rugs, Moroccan looking tablecloths. Bonner lowered his voice the whole time we were inside, as if he had entered a temple, and devoured his meal of falafel and tabbouleh. Throughout the day, he had made and received what seemed to be phone call after phone call and lunch was no exception. He was securing vendors, trying to get ahold of the owner of The Loft, hashing out the details of a future event, Divine Masculine (Happening on June 16. More details below), with another curator, among other things.
Most, if not all, the vendors Bonner hires for The Circle are small, locally run businesses that are closely tied with the community. Take Autumn Brown from Sunflour Sweets: She sells vegan and gluten free treats (such as some stupidly delicious Mojito Mango Balm popsicles) made with ingredients she and her partner, Baba Sol, grow in their community garden. They began working on a plot in March of 2020 and when the neighborhood gained interest, the SCOUT (Search, Conquer, Organize, Unite, and Teach) and Grow program was born. Since then, they have opened their garden to teach the principles of sustainability, food sovereignty, and survival preparedness.
On the way to The Loft, Bonner told me that he never planned to become an event curator. “I never really had a plan. Period.” Most of his jobs just happened to be in the event industry. He has been part of a catering group, he took a year to study branding and marketing, helped out in wedding planning, set up Cardi B’s famous baby shower, worked as security for music events, the list goes on.
“I’ve worked just about every type of job at every level in the event industry, so I really got to see how the people in charge think … They’re ego driven motherfuckers. Not all of them, but a lot are.” Bonner told me about a guy he worked for that refused to hire a cleaning crew and wanted to avoid cleaning the restrooms himself as much as possible. The guy’s solution was to install stall-less toilets in the men’s room in hopes that they wouldn’t be used nearly as much.
“A lot of them are outsiders … that suck up the culture and then move onto the next new thing.” They’re not here to help foster or uplift the community. That’s how Bonner likes to distinguish himself, by “being [in the industry] for everything” rather than just profit. Profit doesn’t hurt, though.
Then the first wave of COVID-19 hit the United States and event work came to a sudden, indefinite halt. Bonner was working for Tracy Jarvis at CRUSH, a specialty rentals division of EventWorks Rentals. Bonner stressed how Jarvis was different from most of his previous bosses. Though absent or apathetic owners usually allowed for “more creative control”, Jarvis was present and encouraging. She would always remind her team of her humble beginnings: She started out with a single sofa. She rented the sofa out for a reasonable sum, invested the money into more furniture, rented the new furniture out, and continued the cycle until she eventually started landing gigs with the NFL, Cardi B, and Rick Ross. And though Bonner already absorbed the importance of creating opportunities within opportunities, Jarvis was living, breathing proof of it. When things started slowing down in early 2020, she acknowledged that Bonner was restless and was ready to forge his own path.
“Everybody was bored because everything was closed. There was nothing to do.” He knew that there was a large group of “sea-moss drinking” “loc-heads” that thrived off of community interaction and did things as a tribe, despite government sanctions. “Those people weren't scared of COVID.” Regardless of ethics, Bonner saw a major opportunity. He started promoting events such as garden bonfires with ease and success. Those events (along with the inspiration of his best friend and first muse, Indica Jahil) later culminated in his event and music group RWEHUMAN and the creation of THE ARTORMISS PRIME SHOW, which he was quite fond of. Though no longer (currently) active, PRIME SHOW consisted of a variety of creators and creatives performing their talents. “We would host magicians, singers, poets…” He wanted to expose his community to a different set of dreams than the ones they were usually sold. “Everyone wants to become a rapper. I used to want to be a rapper. That’s how we thought we would get rich.” But Bonner now knows that there are other ways to amass fame or fortune other than the hackneyed rap-pipeline. “I wanted to create a space where anyone could try out a talent. Maybe they’re good, maybe they’re not. But I wanted to create that opportunity for them.” This also allowed new, unknown, or underground creatives to be seen and heard while receiving critical feedback in real time.
Photograph by Vlad Bagacian
We arrive at The Loft and find the owner, Cory Holt, in his office under a mountain of phone calls. I hadn’t seen The Loft during the daytime, let alone empty and in absence of the heavy cannabis smoke that usually permeates the air and lends the atmosphere a celestial, Spielberg quality. Holt manages to crawl out of his office for a moment to help troubleshoot the speakers for The Circle. Someone has stolen the microphones and some of the speakers are refusing to work. A pair of negative reviews regarding previous hosts are brought up, but Bonner is unconcerned. He understands that people mainly want to come to The Circle to kick back, listen to some talent, and unwind with their friends. But he wants to keep different “waves of vibes so [the show] doesn’t get stagnant.” And it’s true. One never gets the same show twice, especially with the variety of hosts he keeps in rotation.
After fixing the speakers (and with the mics still missing), we head back to West End Print Shop although they haven’t called him back. He answers a phone call, merges into the freeway, and pulls out some Backwoods to roll a fresh blunt all while keeping a frankly shocking amount of control over his vehicle. Randall Poster really ought to compose this man’s background music.
He calls the shop and it’s obvious that the same young woman that initially took his order answers the phone. She fails to find his print job and tells him that she’ll call when the order is ready and hangs up. “Damn, I needed those for tonight, man,” he tells me looking disappointed rather than irritated. We stop to get gas and he receives another phone call once he gets back in the car. It sounds like the print shop manager, a long time acquaintance of Bonner, got wind of the situation and had his order printed and ready to go. Elated, Bonner drove to the shop and back to The Loft to set up for The Circle which was to start in about an hour.
He starts assembling the leather couches into a circle and gets a ladder to set up a glass chandelier. He reflects on the journey that brought him here. He loves The Circle; it’s his favorite creation. He literally dreamed it up one night and decided, “This is something I have to do.”
Bonner hanging up a chandelier for The Circle Poetry Night
