Today’s house tour features Genn Franks. Genn is a Memphis, Tennessee based artist who takes it to the max when it comes to her home. She leaves no wall behind when decorating her pad, because every blank space is the canvas for imagination. Genn’s eclectic home shines light on the Black experience, highlighting everything from Black films to Black music. Her space is a creator’s dream. Luckily, her neighborhood is artist-based living, with a community filled with like-minded individuals. While a lot of artists reflect on Black tragedy and trauma, Genn and her home highlight Black joy to the fullest extent. Her love for the culture, abstract artwork, and exclusive yarn tapestries add maximalist touches to her eye-grabbing modern style.
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PeopleTranscript
00:00 Hi, my name is Jen Franks.
00:01 I'm an artist.
00:02 Welcome to my home.
00:03 (upbeat music)
00:06 I consider myself a maximalist.
00:19 I love color.
00:20 I love texture.
00:21 I love black film.
00:23 I love black music.
00:26 So I think a lot of the texture in my space
00:28 has to do with me being an artist and a visual person.
00:32 I remember when I first moved in,
00:33 I just graduated from University of Memphis
00:37 and I was dealing with a lot of anxiety
00:39 and I would be up to like five in the morning
00:42 painting my walls or doing a mural
00:44 or designing something that I wanted to go on my walls
00:47 and by the end of painting, I would feel so much better.
00:50 It was very therapeutic.
00:51 The only reason I have blank areas or blank wall spaces
00:55 because I haven't figured out what I'm gonna put there yet.
00:57 I'm a visual person.
00:58 So I have my wall of black creators and black artists
01:03 who I look up to or who I feel like are important
01:05 or who I think are essential to our history.
01:08 Also just black film and what we see,
01:11 the black experience.
01:13 I need to see that around my home
01:14 because it reminds me who I am.
01:16 It reminds me where I come from
01:18 and I think that's very important to me.
01:21 So I have a home girl named Brittany Boy Bullock.
01:23 She's a really big artist here in Memphis, Tennessee.
01:26 I have been wanting to get something from her for forever.
01:29 So I kind of called her one day and I was like,
01:32 I need you to be thinking of something for my home
01:34 and I need you to be thinking of it fast.
01:35 And she was like, I got something for you.
01:37 And so she came and installed their piece,
01:39 their yarn piece that's over there in my home.
01:43 Brittany's work is about the black experience.
01:45 Her work is about black joy,
01:47 how often artists reflect on black tragedy or black trauma.
01:51 Her work is like, I wanna change that up
01:54 and I want y'all to see that.
01:56 No, we can smile, we can laugh.
01:59 There's beauty here.
02:00 That's what my home is about.
02:03 That's what my space is about.
02:04 That's what I wanna experience day to day
02:06 and especially here.
02:07 I can't really control what goes out,
02:10 but I can control this area.
02:12 And so her doing that for me
02:14 just kind of helped me bring my space all together.
02:17 (upbeat music)
02:20 (upbeat music)
02:22 I get my inspiration from the black experience.
02:31 I get my inspiration from black creators,
02:34 from the child in me that needed space and room to create
02:39 in ways that I couldn't when I was younger.
02:42 This was actually a piece for my thesis.
02:45 And I was thinking about how black women,
02:48 specifically black moms,
02:51 are expected to carry a lot of weight.
02:53 They're expected to make sure the kids good,
02:56 make sure their husband good,
02:56 make sure they're good at their job.
02:58 And they carry a lot of weight from their homes
03:01 and everyone else's problems and situations.
03:05 And they're expected to just shine
03:07 and just be bright and just hold it down.
03:10 And I entitled it, "Black Women Be Tired."
03:13 So I had been peeping this rug for years.
03:15 I hadn't even had a home yet.
03:17 Okay, but I peeped this rug and I was just like,
03:20 oh my God, when I get a space,
03:22 if this rug is still available, I'm gonna get it.
03:24 And I said that and probably like a couple of years passed
03:27 and I came back when I had a space and I got this rug.
03:31 And I felt like it combined all the colors
03:34 that I would be using in one way or another
03:36 in my whole space.
03:38 So I felt like it was the perfect,
03:39 it was the perfect purchase.
03:41 (upbeat music)
03:43 (upbeat music)
03:46 I discovered these apartments online.
03:55 First of all, it was artist-based living.
03:56 So I thought they would be pretty dope
03:58 to be around like-minded people.
04:01 And I was just like, I really liked the space.
04:04 First of all, it was huge.
04:06 It's only me.
04:07 And it was like a clean slate.
04:08 It was blank, a lot of wall space.
04:11 I was excited about turning the space around.
04:14 It's really not much mythic to my madness.
04:17 It's just, I see it and I try it.
04:20 Sometimes when you get in the meat of it,
04:22 it's like my plan didn't work.
04:24 So I have to pivot and I have to figure out
04:26 what works best for what I have.
04:29 Sometimes it's literally based off one thing
04:31 that I know for sure, concrete that I want.
04:33 And then I base everything else off in the space,
04:35 off of that.
04:36 In my bedroom, I wanted three sets
04:39 on each side of abstract artwork.
04:41 Even early on, I understood that I could just
04:43 purchase one thing or have in mind one thing.
04:47 And from there, everything else will fall into place.
04:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:53 I'm Jen Franks, and you're watching
04:59 Home & Texture House Tours.
05:02 you