Black History Month: Bisa Butler
For Black History Month, I thought I'd share some of the visual and literary artists who inspire me. Let’s talk about:
Bisa Butler and her work. Photo credit: BisaButler.com
Butler is a New Jersey-based textile artist. She’s known for her stunning quilted portraits of Black people, which look like collages pieced together with West African fabrics. Even if you don't know her by name, you've probably seen her work by now: her portrait of "Black Panther" actor Chadwick Boseman is full of color, joy, and sorrow. I love her work for so many reasons, including:
her incredible skill at creating shading and depth
her frequent use of vintage photos as reference material, many of which I recognize.
The next time you see her name and work, look closely at the eyes of the portrait subject. They're unbelievably expressive, even though they're literally just bits of cloth.
Now that I’ve introduced you to a couple of outstanding visual artists, let’s take a look at a writer I love. Stay tuned for the next blog post…
Black History Month: Deborah Roberts
For Black History Month, I thought I'd share some of the visual and literary artists who inspire me. In no particular order, let's start with:
Artist Deborah Roberts with her work in London. Photo credit: Anna Watson/ Alamy/ The Guardian
Roberts is a collage artist out of Austin, Texas. She's known for creating life-sized and larger-than-life-sized pieces "critiquing perceptions of ideal beauty," as she says in her artist statement. I love her work for so many reasons, but the top two are:
she's a mixed-media collage artist whose work is unmistakably fine art
she talks about race in ways that are simultaneously beautiful and devastating.
Her "Nessun Dorma" series in particular stays with me. It centers around George Stinney Jr., a 14 year old Black child convicted and executed for murder in 1944. Although his conviction was vacated (70 years later) as an unfair trial, he remains the youngest American ever executed by the state.
Every weekday I’ll post a new artist, so stay tuned…
East, north or south? Take a collage class with me
No time to take a fun class? Depending on where you are and what you need, you and I can pull off the impossible: we can make time for collage this fall.
First option: Sundays at the Kirkland Arts Center. If you live on the Eastside, or you’ve never tried collage before, this is the class for you. From September 18th to November 6th, we’ll experiment with different collage techniques. Registration opened on the 26th, so you can sign up here right now.
Second option: this is the class to sign up for if you’re in the Central District, or if you’re only free for one day. I’ll be teaching a one-day intensive collage class at the Pratt Fine Arts Center on September 24th. Registration will open up in early August.
Third option: if you live further north, good news — I’m also teaching at North Seattle College. This class will be for three Saturdays in a row: November 5th, 12th and 19th. Registration starts on August 8th, so you still have a couple of days left to decide which class to take. But once you do, be quick about signing up — I don’t know how fast the classes will fill up!