Downes: Pride Means Community | FEATURE

“Pride, to me, feels like community, people coming together to stand for something outside and bigger than just them, something that feels like it's uniform, something for everybody, whether they identify as queer or not. Pride is a space and time to where everyone can be accepted, loved on, and together.”

Those words word spoken by De’von Downes. The Glassboro, New Jersey artist had that thought in mind while creating the Devils’ custom Pride jersey for the team’s Tuesday Pride Night celebration against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Downes’ main inspiration and theme for the jersey was for the jersey to feel like a sketchbook featuring watercolor and pencil sketches incorporating symbols of community, growth, pride and hope. The front of the jersey has the Devils logo inside a ripped-out page of a notebook surrounded by those symbols and images.

“Besides the color and the vibrancy, which is important to my work, it feels like it came out of a sketchbook, which is what I wanted,” Downes said. “I wanted it to feel like something that wasn't super specific or detailed. I wanted it to feel like something that anyone can do, like a bunch of doodles. Like you ripped it straight out of a sketchbook, and it does feel like that.”

Among the symbols in the sketchbook that Downes used were a butterfly to represent change and beauty, pencils and crayons for expression, beetles for protection and joy, ladybugs for maternity and good luck and a ribbon honoring those whom past during the AIDS epidemic.

“It's not a still life, but an ensemble, so basically it's a collection of pieces strategically placed to represent different things,” Downes said. “So, this is my way of representing things that feel like pride and queer representation without being super specific.”

As an African American queer artist, Downes’ contemporary realism style is inspired by folklore, nature and love. And while he loves the finished product of the jersey, it truly was a labor of love.

“Honestly, although that (jersey) is beautiful, I would lie if I said that the main part of the art and even what this is about is the final piece itself,” he said. “It's about the process. I make art because it makes me feel better and I do the work I do in public art and private settings because art is really about healing.

“Healing yourself, loving yourself, and the jersey is great. I love the jersey, but it was really making the jersey and finding the symbols to represent queerness and identity and putting it together, that was the nice part.”

Downes glanced at the jersey in his hands.

“But now that I'm seeing it, it does feel nice,” he smiled, “but it was definitely the process that made me feel really good about it.”

The custom jerseys will be worn by the players for their arrivals Tuesday and will be auctioned off between Dec. 10 and 17 with proceeds benefiting Hyacinth. Fans will be able to place their bid at newjerseydevils.com/auction.

The Devils are creating a safe space for all people at their games and want everyone, regardless of who they are, to feel welcomed. Downes and others in the LGBTQ+ community unfortunately know all too well the feeling of being unwelcomed. It’s something upon which Downes reflected.

“When I give advice, I'm really just giving advice to myself and the advice I feel like I would have needed when I was younger would have been: the people who love you and the people who care for you will always show up,” he said, “and the main person who should show up for you is you. And I think that means being comfortable with yourself, loving on yourself, defending yourself, standing up for yourself, but also keeping an open heart. I think that never letting someone cancel out love and your ability to spread love is what it's really about. Love on yourself, love on your community. Stay warm.”

Downes has chosen his artwork as a way to spread that love.

“I feel like art really does heal, and art should be accessible for everybody,” Downes said. “I feel like art should be a tool that's taught for healing. I do the work I do, and I love what I do, but I love it because art saved me and it saves a lot of people, and I want people to know what art can be used for.”

Art can mean so many different things to so many different people. And the same can be said about Pride. Downes used the jersey to give his personal expression on the meaning of Pride.

“I feel like personally this project was important to me because I wanted to address something that I feel like I've been thinking about a lot lately which is what does Pride mean? And to me Pride means community,” he said. “It feels like growing together and in together helping each other and that's why this was so important to me.

“The main part of this, what this whole jersey is about, is about a queer expression. And not just queer expression, but expression in general.”