I have been invited by Mary Stewart and
Adam Kallish to add a new category to the TT blog especially for high school
art teachers so that they may be more connected to the future of college
foundation art programs and to help them locate sources of inspiration and
resources on the web. I will post once monthly (usually mid-month) and include
links for artists, designers and institutions. I will also offer book recommendations and
lesson plan resources.
In honor of Black History Month, I am featuring some
prominent African American artists and resources in this post:
First I offer the rich textures and soul filled messages of
Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, an international artist and local legend from
Columbus, OH. A prolific art maker, she has a large catalog of "rag
paintings", assemblage/sculptures and has illustrated children’s story
books (Sophie, The Shaking Bag, To Be a Drum and others).
I love using story books as a resource with high school and college art
students for two reasons. First, it is the genre that introduced most of
them to visual art - they can be comforted by familiarity while encouraged to
look deeper into the communication of visual storytelling. Secondly,
children's book illustrators are making a legitimate living as artists, we all
need that positive reinforcement! I found a fantastic web resource for Aminah
Robinson created by Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) that is fun, interactive and
full of resources for teachers:
http://aminahsworld.org/
The second artist is a Somali-born photographer, Abdi Roble: http://www.abdiroble.com/
I saw his exhibit at CMA and have been sharing his images and
looking carefully at his Somali Diaspora project, http://www.somaliproject.org/index.elements/bios_abdi.html to
learn more about this new immigrant population in the US.
To purchase the book, The Somali Diaspora: A Journey Away,
you can use this link:
http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/mShowDetailsbyCatAmazon.cfm?Catalog=MU012&CFID=4108114&CFTOKEN=93854164
The third artist is
illustrator AG Ford who was my student at Columbus College of Art &
Design. He has just published his first children's book, written by Jonah
Winter called, Barack.
It came out in September 2008 and is a biography about our new President.
I got copies through Amazon and also saw it on the shelf at Target. www.AGFordIllustration.com
Another amazing
children's storybook that relates this month is Jazz
ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits by Winton Marsalis,
which combines jazz, poetry and illustration. It is illustrated by Paul Rogers.
http://www.paulrogersstudio.com/ check out his amazing sketchbooks
And one more illustrator is Kadir Nelson, his newest book features the words of President Barack Obama and his artwork is being featured in a Coca Cola Black History Month campaign: http://www.kadirnelson.com/
From the exaggerated hands in Aminah’s paintings and AG and Kadir's striking likenesses to Paul
Rogers amazing portraits and New Orleans street scenes, they all rely heavily
on figure drawing and the traditions of observations drawing. More great evidence for our students!
Brooke Hunter-Lombardi
Independent Art and Education Consultant, TT Board member
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