Naptown is about to get a new documentary dedicated to the lives and creative journeys of Gary Gee, Israel Solomon and Johnson Simon.
Produced and directed by Chris Wilborn, “Moving with the Spirit” aims to foster a cultural dialogue about resilience within Indianapolis’ creative community through the stories of three local Black artists. Although the documentary does not currently have a set release date, Wilborn premiered the trailer at BUTTER 5 in August — where Gee, Solomon and Simon were each featured artists.
“You’re able to see them on this journey as they embark upon being able to embrace the power of faith to shatter the barriers that are standing between them and their ultimate victory,” Wilborn told the Recorder. “As they’re living artists here in Indianapolis, they create expressions that serve both personal testament and a communal force, illustrating resilience in a pursuit of purpose.”
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Originally from Dayton, Ohio, Wilborn earned a degree in film from West Kentucky University before starting his production company, Natural Born Leaders Visuals, in 2017. “Moving with the Spirit,” set to be Wilborn’s first feature-length film, is also the first project he has worked on that incorporates documentary storytelling. His goal with the documentary is to preserve Black voices, build community and “tell stories that deserve to be remembered.”
The idea for “Moving with the Spirit” came about after Wilborn met the three artists and began to notice common themes in their stories. After speaking with Gee, Solomon and Johnson as a collective, and hearing them discuss their shared experiences, Wilborn realized there was a powerful story to tell about the resilience of Black creatives in Indianapolis and beyond.
“This is bigger than a film; it’s a movement,” Wilborn said. “It’s a cultural dialogue, where you could take this outside of Indianapolis and go to another major city or a smaller town, and these stories resonate with them too, because it’s kind of like the same old song.”
Solomon, who grew up in Kokomo, is a resident artist at the Harrison Center as well as a member of the Eighteen Art Collective. His work, which has been featured in Conner Prairie’s Promised Land as Proving Ground and Ruth Carter’s Afrofuturism exhibit at the Children’s Museum, is easily recognizable for its incorporation of bright colors, geometric shapes and rhythm within the composition and storytelling.
Simon, also an artist at the Harrison Center, creates paintings with bold colors, heavy lines and broad sweeping motions to express movement.
“As someone with a disability, movement impacts me on a daily basis,” Johnson’s artist statement reads. “My artwork is a way for me to express how I would move if I could do so freely and uninterrupted. On canvas I can run, walk, jump, and I can dance without being bound by physical limitations. In that way, the paint brush is an extension of me.”
Gee, a multidisciplinary artist, educator and curator, is known for combining elements of street art with the traditional gallery aesthetic within his work. His work ranges from drawings to murals to ceramics, and he’s one of the original members of The Eighteen Art Collective.
“Moving with the Spirit” is about the journey of three different artists, but it’s also about the content and culture of the city, and the visual impact of the art and music scene, Gee said. The documentary presents a “unique situation,” as none of them are rich, and it’s being produced and released during a time where Gee said a lot of Black stories “are being buried in the world.”
“We’re in the heart of the Midwest, more or less, when you think about it,” Gee said. “It’s just an interesting story, I think, the more that unfolds. … I know the story of my life, but it’s the interesting perspective when you have someone else shooting it, and it’s like. ‘How does this story come out?’”
Unfortunately, after one year of filming, Wilborn lost the footage when the hard drive was corrupted. After spending countless hours trying to recover what had been lost, Wilborn decided to continue moving forward, inspired by the same resilience he had seen in Gee, Solomon and Simon.
Wilborn had to go back to the drawing board, only this time he and his crew were intimately familiar with the stories they were telling, the visuals they needed to capture and the voices they wanted to include. However, it had been about a year since production had started, and Wilborn said both he and the artists had changed.
“That same story I was looking to tell, I had to lean upon about moving forward, about staying consistent, regardless of the trials and tribulations,” Wilborn said. “There was just a lot of different things going on where I had to sit with them and understand like, ‘All right, we have to implement this within the story, but we don’t want it to be so heavily focused on this that we forget everything else that we wanted to have within this documentary.”
Keeping in line with the theme of “Moving with the Spirit,” Gee said everything “happens for a reason.” Losing the footage from the first round of production was incredibly unfortunate, but it also allowed them to delve deeper and tell a more complete story the second time around.
Each of the artists got to know one another better and even introduced their families to each other through the second production process. Gee even said his mother got the chance to be included in the interviews because of the setback.
“Well, for me, it wasn’t like I lost anything because I was not putting a documentary together,” Gee said. “I gained a lot during this process. The second opportunity gave us all a longer amount of time to hang together. …Yeah, Chris lost the files, but I mean, we gained a new perspective.”
Despite overcoming various challenges during filming and post-production, the documentary is still a ways away from premiering, Wilborn said. “Moving with the Spirit” was largely funded out of Wilborn’s own pocket, alongside donations from sponsors, to cover the costs of filming locations, hiring a crew and equipment rentals.
Wilborn is currently campaigning through Fundrazr to secure the funds needed to finish production and post. Regardless of how long it takes, Wilborn said these stories are too important not to get out.
“It goes back to what me and Johnson was talking about … that God doesn’t make mistakes, that at the end of the day, all this isn’t just a coincidence,” Wilborn said. “It’s purpose behind it. It’s a form of alignment.”
For more information about “Moving with the Spirit” and the campaign, visit fundrazr.com/MWTSMOVIE?ref=sh_7EUv1c_ab_6sdPmaZXLcJ6sdPmaZXLcJ.
Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.
Chloe McGowan is the Arts & Culture Reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. Originally from Columbus, OH, Chloe has a bachelor's in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a former IndyStar Pulliam Fellow, and has previously worked for Indy Maven, The Lantern, and CityScene Media Group. In her free time, Chloe enjoys live theatre, reading, baking and keeping her plants alive.
