It took me a few minutes to draw this logo, but 48 years to think of it.

As a man who's made his living all of his adult life coming up with ideas, I think this may be my best.

No wonder it took me so long to come up with - and begin to understand- its possibilities.

I actually came up with the ORIGINAALS name about 15 years ago. In the early 2000s, I was just beginning to develop as a painter, although I'd been an art director in advertising for more than 30 years. The original ORIGINAALS idea was to create a collective promotional piece that I could share with other AfrAmerican artists. We could all put a sample of our work on the front and our contact info on the back. Then we all could pass them out and be promoting each other's work as we promoted our own.

It worked pretty well. But then I got busy with other projects, like writing my book, "African Americans in Chicago" for Arcadia Publishing, helping Tom Burrell write "Brainwashed", finding a cheaper studio in Chicago's Uptown area and even designing a piece of "street sculpture" that's supposed to be erected in front of Uptown's famous Riviera Theater. I've also written a few more books, "RaceMan Answers: America's Toughest Questions on Race, Inequality & More" and "Brand New Race", my first novel.

But recently the taste for ORIGINAALS suddenly came back into my mouth. I went to the studio and drew the logo you see above in less than a minute. I drew 3 more in single primary colors - red, yellow, blue. But this one said something to me the others didn't.

Now I'm working on an ORIGINAALS T-shirt. As soon as I get it done, I'll post it here to get your reaction. Please stay tuned.