Clementine Hunter

Clementine Hunter is a world-renowned folk artist from Louisiana.  Her artwork has had lasting impressions on my Louisiana natives.  If you have not heard of her, check out this bio and some of her pieces.


This excerpt was taken from: http://www.nadersgallery.com/ClementineBio.htm

Hunter was born on Hidden Hill Plantation near Cloutierville, Louisiana; a place so isolated and harsh that local legend claimed it was the real-life inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin. As a child, her family moved north to the Cane River area, eventually to Melrose Plantation near Natchitoches, where Hunter spent a lot of her life picking cotton. She attended school for just 10 days and never learned to read or write. Later, she cooked for the Big House, using her creative spirit to make dolls for the children, as well as quilts, baskets and lace curtains.

But in the late 1940s, one of the many artists who visited the plantation left behind some tubes of paint. Plantation curator Francois Mignon encouraged Hunter to try her own hand at painting. During the next four decades, she created thousands of paintings. Hunter worked all day at the plantation Big House and took home washing and ironing to be returned the next day. Once home, she took care of her worthless husband.
It was often midnight before she was free to ''mark some pictures,'' as she once said for her painting; using cardboard, paper bags, lumber scraps, milk jugs, the insides of soap boxes and other throw-outs. Almost all of her works were ''memory paintings,'' showing plantation life as she remembered it: picking cotton, gathering figs, threshing pecans, weddings, baptisms, funerals and other scenes of everyday life. Her titles were often intriguing, too.
Some simple ones were selected by collectors and were merely descriptive of their content: Watermelon, Flowers, Ducks and etc. When collectors did asked for a title, Hunter gave her own, such as Trying to Keep the Baby Happy, She's Not Pretty But She's Strong and Saturday Night at the Honky Tonk. Visitors to the plantation would buy her paintings, starting at 25 cents and 50 cents in the 1940s. Contemporary collectors consider these early works her best. Eventually, her various patrons were able to get her work into shows, the first big one being the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Show in 1949.
A June 1953 article in Look magazine brought her to national attention. In 1957, some critics dubbed her ''the Black Grandma Moses.’’ And, in 1979, Robert Bishop, director of The Museum of American Folk Art in Washington, called the artist, then in her 90s, ''the most celebrated of all Southern contemporary painters.’’ By the 1970s, there were large public and private collections of Hunter's work, and by the 1980s, several important traveling exhibitions featured her paintings. The prices for her work had risen from 25 cents to several thousand dollars.
In the last years of her life, Hunter left her rented cabin and moved upriver, living in a trailer she bought with money from selling her paintings. She painted until the last few months of her life, dying at the age of 100 on January 1, 1988. Hunter was more modest about her abilities. ''God puts those pictures in my head and I just puts them on the canvas, like he wants me to,'' the artist said.


Reference:
Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia
Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine
Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York
ISBN 0-926019-61-9


Here is another interesting tidbit I had found. She was illiterate so she couldn't sign her name to her paintings. She began to initial them by copying the initials of Cammy Henry, the owner of the plantation, but she worried that it would cause confusion, so she made a backwards C. Over the years the backward C worked its way across the H, until Hunter's identifying mark became uniquely her own.
Now for some of her artwork:


Washday, 1950s







Bowl of Zinnias, 1939



A funeral at Isle Brevelle, 1966

Here is a link for more information about Clementine Hunter: http://www.clementinehunterartist.com/index.html#anchor1487990

Gabby Girl Designs and Accessories



Greek organization pens




Greetings,

I ran across this fantastic designer on one of my friend's facebook pages and asked her to share her story with me.  I was going to re-type it but decided just to paste the email that she sent me regarding her start.  I feel as though reading it from her will give you a better perspective on her passion for her craft.  The name for the company is her daughter's name, Gabby.

Gabby Girl creator's words:
I am a mother of 2 girls, an  8 yr old and a 2 yr old. I am from Shreveport, LA.  I Love all things girly ...pink, zebra, bows, glitter, you name it!  In the past, I have always purchased my daughter's hairbows from custom places like boutiques or little girls specialty stores...money was never an issue for me in buying their bows...the issue for me was having to drive to the store, place my order & then come back later or another day to pick it up! I am the type of person that likes to go to the store, get what I need to get... AND GO!    ...the only time I ever really "order" anything is when I order online---and at least then I don't have to leave my house to place my order!  One day I decided to pick up some ribbon while I was at Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite stores--I LOVE to decorate!) to just experiment making some bows.  When I saw my final product, I thought to myself---"hey, I'm pretty good at this!"  I received lots of positive feedback from the pictures I shared of my bows, so I just continued to make them and tried to add more creativity to them as I went.  While I was making bows, I began to come up with other creative ideas...and began to put my thoughts into action   ---On my job, I have to wear an ID badge, so this is want led to the idea of decorating retractable ID badges...I decorated a few at first and got some positive feedback on those as well, so as with the bows, I continued to make more of them.  Many creative ideas just began to flourish when I sat down to make my bows and ID badges...this is what also led me to begin decorating flip flops, pens, t-shirts....etc.  Somehow, I feel as though I always try to challenge myself, because there are soooo many other creative people here in Northern Louisiana that make similar items...but the question is---what sets me apart from the rest????  I try to add a personal touch to all of my creations...

Now here are some pics of her items.  She can be reached at GabbyGirlDesign@aol.com for any questions or to order items.

Stay creative,

Charmel





ID badges



hairbow holder



personalized flip flops



 

adorable hair bows




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neon green and black hair bow









Xenobia Bailey - "funky" crochet

Greetings,

I am pleased to bring you this post about an extraordinary artist by the name of Xenobia Bailey.  When most people think of crocheting, they think of blankets, hats and scarves just to name a few items.  Take a look at her work and you will see that there is much more to crocheting.  I am going to post some pics of her work and also the link to her blog.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, and now living in Harlem, New York, Xenobia Bailey brings African American roots music into visual terms with vibrant room-sized installations of crocheted mandalas, tents, and costumes. Helping her parents with their cleaning business as a girl, Bailey realized from early on that the aesthetics of a given environment made all the difference in how she felt. Cleaning the restaurants that were nicely decorated felt rewarding while cleaning the "dumps" was just depressing. Her discovery of African aesthetics and culture, of jazz, blues, and fusion music in college contributed to her idea that the psyche was profoundly impacted by one's physical surroundings. She began to crochet her impression of these uplifting and empowering sounds, and soon began making enveloping installations that seek to uplift and inspire while establishing an African American aesthetic in everyday American culture.

Just wanted to give you a little Saturday funk!!!

Stay creative,

Charmel


Blog: http://xenba.blogspot.com/
Short bio info: http://www.answers.com/topic/xenobia-bailey

Now to the fun part...........pieces!!!

Romare Bearden

Jammin at the Savoy

Greetings,

Enjoy this informative work about the legendary Romare Bearden.


Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.

Romare Bearden began college at Lincoln University, transferred to Boston University and completed his studies at New York University (NYU), graduating with a degree in education. While at NYU, Bearden took extensive courses in art and was a lead cartoonist and then art editor for the monthly journal The Medley. He had also been art director of Beanpot, the student humor magazine of Boston University. Bearden published many journal covers during his university years and the first of numerous texts he would write on social and artistic issues. He also attended the Art Students League in New York and later, the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1935, Bearden became a weekly editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Afro-American, which he continued doing until 1937.

After joining the Harlem Artists Guild, Bearden embarked on his lifelong study of art, gathering inspiration from Western masters ranging from Duccio, Giotto and de Hooch to Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse, as well as from African art (particularly sculpture, masks and textiles), Byzantine mosaics, Japanese prints and Chinese landscape paintings.

From the mid-1930s through 1960s, Bearden was a social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services, working on his art at night and on weekends. His success as an artist was recognized with his first solo exhibition in Harlem in 1940 and his first solo show in Washington, DC, in 1944. Bearden was a prolific artist whose works were exhibited during his lifetime throughout the United States and Europe. His collages, watercolors, oils, photomontages and prints are imbued with visual metaphors from his past in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Harlem and from a variety of historical, literary and musical sources.
In 1954, Bearden married Nanette Rohan, with whom he spent the rest of his life. In the early 1970s, he and Nanette established a second residence on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, his wife's ancestral home, and some of his later work reflected the island's lush landscapes. Among his many friends, Bearden had close associations with such distinguished artists, intellectuals and musicians as James Baldwin, Stuart Davis, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Joan Miró, George Grosz , Alvin Ailey and Jacob Lawrence.

Bearden was also a respected writer and an eloquent spokesman on artistic and social issues of the day. Active in many arts organizations, in 1964 Bearden was appointed the first art director of the newly established Harlem Cultural Council, a prominent African-American advocacy group. He was involved in founding several important art venues, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Cinque Gallery. Initially funded by the Ford Foundation, Bearden and the artists Norman Lewis and Ernest Crichlow established Cinque to support younger minority artists. Bearden was also one of the founding members of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters in 1970 and was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972.

Recognized as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden had a prolific and distinguished career. He experimented with many different mediums and artistic styles, but is best known for his richly textured collages, two of which appeared on the covers of Fortune and Time magazines, in 1968. An innovative artist with diverse interests, Bearden also designed costumes and sets for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and programs, sets and designs for Nanette Bearden's Contemporary Dance Theatre.

Among Bearden's numerous publications are: A History of African American Artists: From 1792 to the Present, which was coauthored with Harry Henderson and published posthumously in 1993; The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden (1983); Six Black Masters of American Art, coauthored with Harry Henderson (1972); The Painter's Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting, coauthored with Carl Holty (1969); and Li'l Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story, a children's book published posthumously in September 2003.

Bearden's work is included in many important public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. He has had retrospectives at the Mint Museum of Art (1980), the Detroit Institute of the Arts (1986), as well as numerous posthumous retrospectives, including The Studio Museum in Harlem (1991) and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2003).

Bearden was the recipient of many awards and honors throughout his lifetime. Honorary doctorates were given by Pratt Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Davidson College and Atlanta University, to name but a few. He received the Mayor's Award of Honor for Art and Culture in New York City in 1984 and the National Medal of Arts, presented by President Ronald Reagan, in 1987.

This is the link for the site: http://www.avisca.com/artists_biographies/artists_biographies.htm

Now for some of Mr. Bearden's pieces:



Pittsburgh Memories, 1984



The Piano





The Collage

 

Crochet by Numbers

Greetings,

Once again, as I was searching the web for crochet patterns I ran across this great article about an artist, Todd Paschall, that has developed a technique by crocheting with numbers.  I remember when I was little and there were books in the craft store called painting by numbers.  Read about him and take a look at some of his work.



Todd Paschall is an amazing crochet artist who has developed an equally amazing crochet technique he calls “Crochet by Numbers.” Pictured is one of his pieces, and yes, that is actually made by crocheting with yarn, simple ol’ Red Heart acrylic yarn in fact. On his web site, he has free patterns, a gallery with more fabulous work he and his students have done, and more information about how this method works.
In addition to selling finished work and teaching others his technique, he also creates custom patterns from photos. He has recently set up a group on Ravelry for those who want to learn, share, and of course, get help along the way. When you see his work, you realize how he is not only an artist but an innovator, taking crochet to a level way beyond your typical granny square to say the least!

Here is the link to his site: http://www.crochetbynumbers.com/

Here are some of his pieces....Enjoy!!!



black threads blog

Hello everyone,

I know it has been a while since I posted anything.  I ran across a blog the other day called black threads and wanted to share it with you all.  I am going to post the link and take a look at it.  The mediator is Kyra from Arlington, Va.  Take a look at it.  I am going to post the crochet part of the blog but look around at the other goodies that are on there.


http://blackthreads.blogspot.com/search/label/crochet

Stay creative,

Charmel

Mother's Day Post - Elizabeth Catlett



Sharecropper - 1952



Learning - 1948

Hello,


While studying at the library in Nashville one day, I ran across a publication about a world-renowned artist, Elizabeth Catlett.  I wanted to share her story with you all.


Elizabeth Catlett is an African-American artist that was raised in Washington D.C.  Her parents were both educators.  She received her B.A. from Howard in 1936 and was the first female to receive a Master's in Fine Arts from the University of Iowa in 1940.  While attending the University of Iowa, she was encouraged by her professor to portray what she knew best which was family and women.

In 1946 she received a fellowship to study in Mexico with some very prestigious sculptures and artists.  She became the first female professor and head of the sculpture department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1959.  She married Francisco Mora in 1947 and later became a Mexican citizen.

Her pieces are heroic inspirations of African-American and Mexican working class women.  These pieces feature the endurance and strength of her subjects.  She has also been politically involved in improving the lives of women by picketing and protesting for women's rights.

She is still recognized today as a brilliant artist and sculptor.  Take a look at a few of her pieces below. 




Family



Mother and Child - 1983



Mother and Child - 2009