Five minutes’ walk from the Branch Avenue metro station in Southeast D.C., Street Sense vendor Reggie Dakari, 57, rents a room filled with light furniture. In the evening, the place is home to Dakari and his girlfriend. In the daytime, the bed is folded back into a soft sofa, the canvases are taken from their hiding space, and the room becomes Dakari’s atelier – a calm place where art can bloom.
“I like beauty and I love colors. I like the serenity of it, the peace of sitting here by myself. I’m not out there in a dog-eat-dog world,” Dakari said as he pointed out the window.
In the last couple of years Dakari has been able to sit in front of his canvases gently applying one layer of oil paint after another, and though also selling Street Sense to get by, he defines himself an artist. This is where his heart lies.
Superman Sketches Led the Way
Dakari is able to trace his interest in art all the way back to the lunch breaks of preschool. In those days, Reggie and the other kids enjoyed seeing who could make the best drawings of Superman, the Hulk, Spider-Man and other comic book heroes. Dakari not only had fun participating; he found out he had talent. Back then he dreamed of growing up to be a painter, a musician and a businessman. While over time many of his classmates stopped drawing, Dakari
did not. When the time came to go to college, Dakari chose Bowie State University in Maryland, where he was able to study art. Later he studied business administration and urban studies at University of the District of Columbia.
Through his studies, Dakari experienced a growing sense of how to build a livelihood around his art. But the career had to be deferred for almost two decades.
A self-portrait tells the story. Dakari holds up the painting, which he has been working on for some time. It not only includes his smiling face but other images too: a heavy book for his years of study; a sunrise for his hopes and goals. Then there are the chains, emblematic of the 18 years he spent in prison after his time “doing the street life,” which resulted in a drug conviction.
Still, looking back, Dakari sees the positive side of what happened.
“When you are on your down, it is time to practice,” he said.
He spent his time honing his art skills.
After leaving prison in 2004, Dakari found a variety of jobs. He made good money doing construction work, but there were lean times too, and he lost a nice place he was renting on Connecticut Avenue. After that, Dakari lived with friends for awhile. But in the end, he had to sleep in shelters.
At one of the shelters, he discovered Street Sense.
With the money he earned selling the paper, he was able to get his new place and again, pursue his art.
“Street Sense opened a door for me to support myself, and also this way I meet thousands of people every day. I love that, ‘cause I am a people person,” Dakari said.
A Layer of Color, Pearls and Fur
At his studio, Dakari continues to develop his art. He pores over art books and magazines that he has collected. He even has old VHS tapes with art lessons that he puts on sometimes.
“I am constantly educating myself,” he said. “You learn from others and improve your own style. It’s like I am still in school.”
He also keeps a portfolio filled with photographs of the paintings he has done: portraits of friends, relatives and church and community leaders.
He paused at a portrait of his mother wearing pearls and a mink coat.
The painting was created as an expression of love and respect for the woman who raised not only him and his two brothers but 31 foster children. Today, at the age of 75, she still takes care of three children. “My mom should be honored,” Dakari said. He gave his mother the glamour and beauty he felt she deserved, but he worked from a snapshot in which she was dressed very simply.
“She only wore a T-shirt, and her hair was in an African bush. I found a fashion magazine, and in it, I found the mink coat, ‘cause she needed to be dressed up. I gave her pearls on, and I gave her a new hairstyle,” Dakari said.
“She loved it. It is in a gold frame in her house,” he added.
That is typical of Dakari’s approach. He does not put everybody in a mink coat, but he likes to paint people looking their best.
“I like to paint people in elegance and formal, because it will be hanging at their walls for years,” Dakari said. “And,” he added with a grin, “it will be worth millions when I die, ‘cause that’s how it is, right?”
