James Bernard Short
For updates/inquiries/information: info@jamesbernardjames.com
The Artist
The impulse to “put pencil to paper” has always been strong. When I was four, my mother bought me a sketch book and pencil set. Her goal at the time was simply to stop me from scribbling on the walls, and the inside covers of her books. This was a story she told, not something I can recall from memory but for as long as I can remember, I’ve been engaged in one form of creative expression or another, translating colors and shapes into new ideas.
Shortly after completing my undergraduate studies, there was a point at which I put the pencils down. I’d been searching for perfection, but perfection was elusive. Frustrated, I became disillusioned with the process. Drawing was more work than fun, and I wanted no parts of that.
In time I made peace with my imperfection. I believe my art—like my writing—is a gift, and as such, must be cultivated and put to good use.
Graphite and colored pencil are my preferred mediums of choice. In addition to honoring ancestry and Blackness, I’m also interested in exploring themes that live at the intersection of my twin passions of literature and art. “Married to Trouble,” “Harlem Girls,” and “Arc de Triomphe (The Bridge)” are just a few examples.
The Writer
I came to writing much later than my peers. Unlike drawing, telling stories wasn’t always something I aspired to do, but it was something (according to others) I was able to do well.
The decision to use a nom de plume stemmed from a basic desire for anonymity, but I believe the fact that I chose not to stray too far from my actual self reveals something deeper about what the writing means to me, and how I want my audience to receive it.
I answer to multiple names depending on whether we grew up together, went to college together, or met as creatives during workshop or fellowship opportunities. Bernard—including its Bern and Bernie derivatives—represents the unmasked, most vulnerable version of myself. While it is no longer an explicit goal, my drawings still quietly yearn for adjacency to perfection, but what I write thrives at the opposite end of the spectrum, and facing my imperfections is not something I could honestly do as anyone other than Bernard.
Writing under the pseudonym Bernard James, my singular ambition as a writer is to produce smart, expressive, and culturally authentic content that captures the broad spectrum of challenges and aspirations of the Black Diaspora. This site’s Read Me page, offers examples of my work and the journals that have blessed me with publication.
One final but important note: I was born in Pennsylvania and for the past 40+ years have resided in MniSota , but my ancestral roots—the soil that holds my family’s blood and bone—are in South Carolina, and it is from this specific and intentional vantage point that I engage most enthusiastically with the page.