Try not to over indulge today Obots…….oh wait, who am I kidding?
Today, as we eat and watch the parade and the football games, remember the less fortunate and if you can, volunteer or donate to an organization dedicated to the least among us.
Today we take a look at the work of Betye Irene Saar
Betye Irene Saar (July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, California) is an American artist, known for her work in the field of assemblage. Her education included a time at the University of California, Los Angeles, from where she received a degree in design in 1949, and graduate studies in printmaking and education at Pasadena City College, California State University, Long Beach, from 1958 to 1962. Her interest in assemblage was inspired by a 1968 exhibition by Joseph Cornell, though she also cites the influence of Simon Rodia‘s Watts Towers, which she witnessed being built in her childhood. She began creating work typically consisting of found objects arranged within boxes or windows, with items drawing on various different cultures reflecting Saar’s own mixed heritage (African, Native American, Irish and Creole).
In the late 1960s Saar began collecting images of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, Little Black Sambo, and other stereotyped African American figures from folk culture and advertising. She incorporated them into collages and assemblages, transforming them into statements of political and social protest. In the 1970s Saar shifted focus again, exploring ritual and tribal objects from Africa as well as items from African American folk traditions. In new boxed assemblages, she combined shamanistic tribal fetishes with images and objects intended to evoke the magical and the mystical.
When her great-aunt died, Saar became immersed in family memorabilia and began making more personal and intimate assemblages that incorporated nostalgic mementos of her great aunt’s life. She arranged old photographs, letters, lockets, dried flowers, and handkerchiefs in shrinelike boxes to suggest memory, loss, and the passage of time.
