Kiki Symone inspiring artwork celebrates Windsor's first Black police officer
January 12, 2023
For two decades until his death in 1989, Uncle Al’s Kids Party was a summer highlight in Windsor.
In 1969, Alton Parker – the city’s first Black police officer hired in 1942 – and his wife Evelyn started the festivity at Broadhead Park – renamed Alton C. Parker Park in 1976 -- that attracted over 100 children and their families.
Kiki Symone learnt about the yearly event through her mother.
“She once told me that when she was younger, she attended the parties with my grandparents, cousins and a few of her school friends,” recalled the artist. “She also said it was a huge deal for the Black community and everyone looked forward to it each year.”
Symone was honoured when Windsor Police Service (WPS) contacted her last October to do a commissioned artwork celebrating the trailblazing officer.
The ‘Dream of a Saturday Afternoon in Alton C. Parker Park’ award will be presented annually to a community hero in the city.
“It is meant to celebrate the life of this dedicated officer and leader who made every child’s dream come true with parties that had giant balloons and delicious cotton candy,” Symone pointed out. “At the time I created this work, I was teaching full-time in a predominantly White city with little to no diversity. I was born and raised in Windsor, so depicting Detective Parker with children and their families of different ethnicities came very naturally to me.”
Parker served 28 years on the WPS and his promotion to Detective in 1951 made him the first Black officer to achieve the rank in Canada.
Acting WPS Chief Jason Bellaire is very familiar with Symone’s artwork.
A couple years ago, he bought three prints that hang in his office.
Bellaire’s Executive Assistant Melanie Kish-Lewis and Ed Armstrong, who became WPS’s first Black Inspector in November 2021, contacted the artist, saying her artistic style was a great fit for what they were looking for to pay tribute to Parker.
“I don’t think anyone other than Kiki could have so perfectly captured the life and work of Alton C. Parker,” said Armstrong. “Not only is she an incredibly talented artist, but her family has a personal connection to Mr. Parker, having taken part in his parties. She was the natural choice to create this beautiful artwork.”
Born and raised in Windsor’s Westside, Symone loves creating art for the southwestern Ontario city.
“For a great chunk of my life, Windsor was all I knew,” she pointed out. “Like most cities in North America, I feel Windsor still has quite a ways to go when it comes to addressing the issues of homelessness, drug use and addiction. However, despite the ignorance and insensitivity, I feel a lot of community members are still instilling in their children the same values I was raised with which are honesty, integrity and treating everyone with compassion and respect.”
Though Symone’s parents were concerned that their daughter might not be able to stand on her own financially as an artist, they supported her.
“They wanted me to have a post-secondary education so that I had something to fall back on in case art did not work out for me,” she said. “Within the past few years, the endeavours I have taken on have proven that my skills as an artist have not been overlooked. My parents are very proud of my talent and the art I do, considering my work is featured in many areas of their homes. Their support means the absolute world to me.”
Symone, whose favourite medium is chalk pastel, discovered her talent for art while in high school.
“I secretly love it more than my Huion and stylus pen,” she said. “I want to thank Ms. Srdanov and Mrs. Harper-Reid, my high school art teachers for that as they let me explore and get messy with this medium on many occasions. It was in their classes that I discovered my talent for Art. I would say chalk pastels are soft and I love using my fingers to mix and blend the colours together.”
Kiki Symone (Photo contributed)
In the last few years, Symone has transitioned to digital art.
“In my early adult life, I have become quite a perfectionist, so I feel digital art is more suited to me and my style,” she said. “Not only that, but technology is advancing. I taught myself fast and I adapted fast too.”
Symone’s faceless digital art depicts the everyday life of Black communities.
“I capture cultural themes of family, history and education as well as racism and social inequality,” she noted.
Late Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, whose works were inspired by her country’s popular culture, is Symone’s favourite visual artist and painter.
“I appreciate her work and I admire that she was a tortured artist,” she said. “”I love that she had a great sense of self. She full-heartedly owned who she was and she was extremely unapologetic about it. I love that she was open about her bisexuality and that she balanced her feminine and masculine energies so well. She was so ahead of her time. She was fiery, she loved hard and, through all her pain and suffering, she still had a deep passion for her craft, her culture and her roots which is quite evident in her works. She is my kind of woman.”
The affinity is so strong that Symone named her cat after Kahlo who was known for painting about her chronic pain experience.
Enrolled in French Immersion school at a young age, the 2017 University of Windsor graduate teaches French when she is not in her studio.
“It was never really a dream of mine to become a French teacher,” she said. “I always knew I wanted to be an artist. That is the main reason I have not yet taken a full-time contract. For now, I love the flexibility of working as a substitute teacher. This way, I can focus more on my Art. I enjoy the schools and classroom environment and students have even told me I am a great teacher. But I do not see myself being a teacher for too long. That being said, children will always be my biggest inspiration. I truly believe they are the future. I frequently use them as subject matter as I love their inquisitiveness, innocence, resilience and perseverance.”
