Did you know that in 1960, Betye Saar collected pictures of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, and Little Black Sambo including other African American figures in areas that are also invalid with folk culture and advertising? Since, Saar collected pictures from the folk cultures and advertising she also makes many collages including assemblages, changing these into social protest statements. When her great-aunt passed away, Saar started assembling and collecting memorabilia from her family and created her personal assemblages which she gathered from nostalgic mementos of her great aunt’s life.
When Saar was a teacher at the University of California including Otis Art Institute since then has been changed to Otis College of Art and Design. When Saar started she used larger, room-size scale, which she created specific installations that may had altered shrines exploring the relationship among the technology and spirituality, also including the interests in mysticism and Voodoo. Saar discussed while continues to challenge the negative ideas of African Americans. Saar had done of the master a piece that is titled “The Liberations of Aunt Jemima.” This is a picture that was originally made out of a wooden box that had a full-figured, smiling black mammy, in a kerchief wrapped around her head. It shows Mammy holding broom in one hand and a gun in the other. Yet, Saar still resides and works in Los Angeles; she is the mother of Alison and Lezley Saar, both who are artists. In the Saar shop or known as studio is scattered with art all over the place. Tables and shelf are all scattered with mysterious objects and materials, pickanninny dolls, tiny minstrels, including slices of watermelon made from painted wood.
Saar was a very organized and very n...
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...through and seen as a child, she really overcame the battles of the community as an artist gathering bits and pieces of memories from the trash just to make something out of it. But, to Saar it meant the world to her to have that doll that was repaired for her on Christmas. She really didn’t see it trash but as treasure in her eyes.
Saar has accomplished a lot throughout her life and seen more than I have. I know if I was to meet Mrs. Saar that I wouldn’t even know where to start from, yet, I just wrote this essay on her. I have to say that she is a very strong person and has been through the depression and was once poor enough to receive a doll at Christmas that was repainted. Accepting the gift as it was means a lot to someone who has never had it that bad as Betye Saar. If you were to meet Betye Saar what would you tell her or ask her if she was in front of you?
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
Although Barnes’ marriage was not a successful one, he adored his newborn baby girl, and was heartbroken when his wife left him, taking his daughter with her. At North Carolina College, Barnes majored in art, and developed his own style (Artist Vitae, 1999). When Barnes was a freshman in college he went on a field trip to the newly desegregated North Carolina Museum of Art. At the museum Barnes noticed that there weren’t any works by black artist displayed, and when he asked the guide where the black artists were exhibited, the guide responded, “your people don’t express themselves this way” (Artist Vitae, 1999). That negative response encouraged Barnes to work hard at becoming an artist.
No matter where one is from or where one finds themselves today, we carry with us in some way or another a specific heritage. Certain events and circumstances can lead to someone trying to forget their heritage or doing everything in their power to preserve that heritage. Alice Walker’s “EveryDay Use” was published in 1973, not long after the civil rights movement, and reflects the struggles of dealing with a heritage that one might not want to remember (Shmoop). Alice Walker is well known as a civil rights and women’s rights activist. Like many of her other works she uses “Everyday Use” to express her feelings on a subject; in this case African American heritage. Through “Everyday Use” it can be seen that Alice Walker has negative feelings about how many African Americans were trying to remove themselves from parts of their African American culture during the time of the short story’s publishment. This idea that Walker was opposed to this “deracinating” of African Americans coming out of the civil rights
The unveiling of a piece of artwork symbolises the gradual revelation of the girl’s feelings. At the beginning of the text she seems to have no emotions, “Live. Survive. They’re the same thing” and “she thought the thoughts of a machine.” She is portrayed as robot-like and is not in possession of feelings or vulnerability. However, over the course of the story, she progressively gives in to her overwhelming, pressing emotions. “She took off her watch and bikini and lay in the sun” and “She ran naked down to the water.” This can be perceived as the beginning of the exposing of her emotion; her nakedness introduces a sense of vulnerability, a quality not associated with machines. In addition, the leaving behind of her watch reinforces the idea of the deterioration of her ‘robotness’. The watch is a symbol of time and regulation, the girl choosing to abandon it, represents her no longer needing to rely on regulation and control. By the end of the story, her true emotions had surfaced, “No, you old bitch” and “She cut through the water and filled up cold with anger”. She is no longer machine–like and automatic. This final display of emotion is represented through the uncovering of the artwork. The man whom is uncovering the piece symbolises the mother. It essentially was the girl’s mother who filled her daughter’s head with her “stupid, recurring statements” and as a result, emotion. Furthermore, the exposure of her emotions coinciding with her death implies that, although emotions are stereotyped as something beautiful to share, her emotions were engulfing and devastating. In conclusion, the disintegrating of her ‘robot-like’ armor is represented through the uncovering of a piece of artwork.
She also used a comparison, “Like a little girl, she smooths back her dirty hair and proudly puts it on” (5). She used the comparison to make the reader realize that although she is homeless, she is not any different than anyone
Kara Walker’s piece titled Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b 'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart represents discrimination on basis of race that happened during the period of slavery. The medium Walker specializes in using paper in her artwork. This piece is currently exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art. Even though this artwork depicts slavery, discrimination is still an issue today in America, the country where people are supposedly free and equal. Even though slavery ended in the 19th century, we still see hints of racial discrimination for African Americans in our society. Walker uses color, image composition, and iconography to point out evidence of racial inequality that existed in the
Harriet Powers’ quilts were first seen at a crafts fair by an artist, a Southern white woman named Jennie Smith. Ms. Smith, who kept a diary and upon first meeting Harriet, recalls -- "I found the owner, a negro woman, who lived in the country on a little farm whereon she and her husband made a respectable living. She is about sixty five years old, of a clear ginger cake color, and is a very clean and interesting woman who loves to talk of her 'old miss' and life 'befo de wah.' " At first Harriet Powers was unwilling to sell her quilts to Ms. Smith. Yet when she and her family came into financial difficulty she agreed to sell them. Ms Smith writes -- " Last year I sent her word that I would buy it if she still wanted to dispose of it. She arrived one afternoon in front of my door in an ox-cart with the precious burden in her lap encased in a clean flour sack, which was still enveloped in a crocus sack. She offered it for ten dollars, but I told her I only had five to give. After going out consulting with her husband she returned and said 'Owin to de hardness of de times, my ole man lows I'd better tech hit.' Not being a new woman she obeyed. After giving me a full description of each scene with great earnestness, she departed but has been back several times to visit the darling offspring of her brain.
The movie 'Ethnic Notions' describes different ways in which African-Americans were presented during the 19th and 20th centuries. It traces and presents the evolution of the rooted stereotypes which have created prejudice towards African-Americans. This documentary movie is narrated to take the spectator back to the antebellum roots of African-American stereotypical names such as boy, girl, auntie, uncle, Sprinkling Sambo, Mammy Yams, the Salt and Pepper Shakers, etc. It does so by presenting us with multiple dehumanized characters and cartons portraying African-Americans as carefree Sambos, faithful Mammies, savage Brutes, and wide-eyed Pickaninnies. These representations of African-Americans roll across the screen in popular songs, children's rhymes, household artifacts and advertisements. These various ways to depict the African ?American society through countless decades rooted stereotypes in the American society. I think that many of these still prevail in the contemporary society, decades after the civil rights movement occurred.
Harlem soon became known as the “capital of black America” as the amount of blacks in this community was very substantial. Many of the inhabitants of this area were artists, entrepreneurs and black advocates with the urge to showcase their abilities and talents. The ...
It was a dark, menacing night as she stood there in the shadows. Waiting for the finale of the show that was playing, she glanced toward the exit through which people would soon be leaving. The rich, as patrons of the theatre house, promised her a salary at least for today. Her tattered clothes revealed the effects of personal destitution; the emaciated frame, that presently existed, harked back upon a body she must have once possessed. Driven by poverty to the realms of "painted cohorts," she makes up her face daily, distinguishing her life from the respected (264). She is an outcast, a leper, a member of the marginalized in society; she envelops the most degraded of positions and sins against her body in order to survive. As she looks up, her eyes reflect a different kind of light, a glimmer of beauty that has not yet faded despite her present conditions. She was, at one time, a "virtuous" woman, most likely scorned by a dishonest love. Finding no comfort or pity for her prior mistakes, she must turn to the streets and embrace the inevitable - the dishonor and shame from her previous engagement will follow her unto death. Shunned from society she becomes the woman who sells herself for money and sadly finds no love. She is the abandoned, the betrayed, and the lost, embarrassed girl; she is "of the painted cohorts," the female prostitute of the streets (264).
Karenga, Malauna. Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press Third Edition, 2002.
In African American Studies/Literature I walked in thinking that I could be told nothing about African American culture or history because I’m African American. In some ways I knew that racism existed but I learned how it has been subtle in control the way we think. We have learned that colonization has not ended and that in many ways we are still being oppressed. In this paper I’m going to show how African American has used hip hop and black hair are two ways in which African Americans embrace their culture and fighting oppression. However, as we have review in many classes oppression is not easily escaped. So in this paper I’m going to show how cultural appropriation is used as a way of oppressing black culture. So this paper will be an expansion of what we have learned in the
. This story embodies how the author saw her experiences that she had lived through.
The image of African-American’s changed from rural, uneducated “peasants” to urban, sophisticated, cosmopolites. Literature and poetry are abounded. Jazz music and the clubs where it was performed at became social “hotspots”. Harlem is the epitome of the “New Negro”. However, things weren’t as sunny as they appeared.
It took ten years for Mathilde and her husband to pay off the debt of buying a new necklace. Those ten years were not spent with the luxuries she experienced so many years ago at the party, nor were they filled with the simple things she once owned and despised. She came to know “the horrible existence of the needy. She bore her part, however, with sudden heroism.” When passing her rich friend again in the street, she was barely recognizable. Who she was the day she ran into her friend was not who she was the night she wore that necklace.