James Charles Palmore traces his family’s journey from Arkansas to Kalamazoo, and how that history shaped a lifetime devoted to art and community.
Palmore was born in Hope, Arkansas, in 1943 and moved to Kalamazoo with his family in 1947, at age four. His parents had roots that ran deep in Arkansas and Louisiana. On his mother’s side, his grandmother worked as a midwife and herbalist in her community, while his grandfather was known both as a skilled watermelon farmer and as a self-taught metalsmith who crafted rings and chains by hand.
Palmore grew up in a large family, and by his own account, the early 1960s brought a run of loss as several siblings and his father all died relatively young. “I don’t have tears anymore for death,” he said, reflecting on that period.
His path into art began after he returned home from the Army in 1968. His brother, himself a photographer, videographer and self-taught artist, brought him into an art colony that friends had started on an upper floor of the old Burdick Hotel, where music and visual art studios shared the same space. Palmore said he knew how to draw at the time, but not how to paint. The Burdick Hotel years were where that changed.
Looking back on decades spent making art and building community in Kalamazoo, Palmore described art as more than decoration and as a tool that can address root causes rather than symptoms. “Art can play a big role in that,” he said.
