Betye Saar interview

betis or who's made art for many years and was the first to my way of thinking african-american woman artist to become so enormous li internationally successful betty where did you start where did the art-making start were you brought up in California yes I was born and raised in California born in Los Angeles raised in Pasadena California and making art well we wouldn't call it art was just drawing and painting and doing things with our hands our my family my sister and brother and I were very project oriented from kids we would go to summer camp and do crafts and whenever we would get bored we would always make something making puppets making dolls making gifts for each other and basically I'm a child of the depression so we didn't have a lot of money so we made things for each other and my mother was a seamstress my grandmother was a quilt maker so that's just part of our heritage her mother who was who died before I met her painted China so we always did things with our hands and it just seemed like the normal thing to do when did you get into the Fine Arts I did design for awhile I made greeting cards I did enamel jewelry I decided to go back to school after being married with two children and went to Long Beach State and was studying of concentrating on interior design getting working on a masters and they were teaching printmaking there and I was sort of seduced by printmaking and took a few classes and then just got in the role of doing printmaking and then from that that that sort of merged into assemblage art and it just sort of evolved I guess from design into printmaking into assemblage and sculpture and collage and what I do now and speaking about assemblages what was the influence of the Watts Towers on your work and please tell us a little bit about those early visits to the towers visited ah well when when I was young my mother was a widow and my paternal father's mother lived in watts so we would spend vacations there from school and she had no car she didn't drive her husband had a truck but he used that for working so we would go to market which would be in the city of watts we would walk down the railroad tracks and passing the Watts Towers when Simon Rodia was actually building them and I was always a kid who was impressed with fairy tales a really big imagination it still is big but but it was like with fairies and imaginary friends and all kinds of things and that just seemed like a really magical place and it wasn't until I was going to school down there one time that I sort of found wandered around and found it myself and and looked at it but I meant when I was an adult I would go back and see it because it was all completed then has the work always since the beginning dealt with your feelings about the African American influence no my earlier work sort of stemmed from my imagination and interested in the mystical and the occult and metaphysics was that that was been my primary interest and many of my early prints dealt with those themes I have one called phrenology man and the Sorcerer's window and collecting all sorts of things that that dealt with the other you know not put anything negative but mostly just the symbols the formulas for making gold for casting spells for all of that I was really interested in those kinds of graphic images and so I would collect materials and put that together that my interest in african-american evolved slower in the 70s I started collecting derogatory images and that of course was was after Martin Luther King's assassination and so forth and and all the horrifying images that you saw on television with the hoses and the dogs and the lynchings and all of that and in collecting the derogatory images I also found photographs of African Americans and I started collecting those and I think probably the earliest image that I have using an African American image or a black one was really the derogatory one which was the liberation of Aunt Jemima why Aunt Jemima and explain who Aunt Jemima was because we're seeing in almost 70 countries now Aunt Jemima was a character that was named for the mammy character the mammy was the servant the female nurturer and blacks were depicted either as an old man the Uncle Tom or the rebellious buck or the young woman who was a harlot or the older woman who was fat and unattractive who was the mammy those those were the roles that blacks were given to play and then there was a product for making pancakes and they had this woman demonstrate that and she was called Aunt Jemima the product was called Aunt Jemima pancakes there's whole books written about that but she was still basically a servant and not very attractive I have some had some early photograph Ohta grass but images I guess they were lithographs you know really big bulging eyes wide Mannie mouth and a scarf and very big and everyone thinks of mammy from Gone with the Wind but that was one character that that was in that book but that was part of the whole southern thing and she was when slavery was abolished well not really abolish but illegal they kept those images and they Spock served as cookie jars as salt and pepper shakers but still in a role of servitude you know to wait on on the whites and I was inspired by by that idea when I was asked to submit a piece for a exhibition up in the Bay Area in Oakland and it was to to do a piece about your heroes and I wanted my hero to be a woman and I wanted to do this piece about Aunt Jemima because I felt that she had been in a negative position long enough and I wanted to empower her and the the image that I used was a notepad holder which was the figure of a woman her apron was the pad where the paper went and her hand was holding the pencil and so and the other hand was holding the broom and so instead of the pencil I put a rifle in the other hand is holding a hand grenade and where the apron was I have a photograph of a mammy hold of a fist and uh price fit which was at that time the power symbol black power symbol and so I called the piece the liberation of Aunt Jemima to liberate her from the negative context that she had played all these years but that wrong do you think that was the beginning of the lead-up to your breakthrough I mean you you shone all over the world that piece has is known more than me I mean I mean my name is there but the liberation of Aunt Jemima it's like the peace now is owned by the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and every month I get a request to give the copyrights for a book it's their best most requested piece that use that image so the image is out there so I feel really blessed that I have an image that that's like a signature image that people know that people recognize and know that that's that's the piece of Betty sorry did so you've really empowered that image you've turned it around yes yes but at the same time it's still a derogatory image but that idea sort of caught on into like flipping things around which is like it's an old song I can't think of his name called accentuate the positive eliminate the negative yes Betty when you go across cultures with images like and aunt jemima how does it how do they relate to it you have to go into the historical aspects and then and then as a piece of art no because I'm not really that much of a scholar I'm I deal with the visual thing and the emotional thing and it was it's an emotional piece to look at that you know and especially if you'd seen the things with the the riots and the freedom marches in the South you know it's like you feel really vulnerable it was a mom with two or three young children so I couldn't go down and March some of my neighbors sons went down south to to March and protest and I have friends who who played music with those those freedom rides but what can a woman do that's home with two kids and so that's my artist is my weapon in that case you use a lot of derogatory images in your work and it has that been a long time thing it comes in well i'ma I say my work sort of divided into several areas the metaphysical which is the first and I and it's and that kind of goes in a spiral and I come back to that or sometimes I integrate it with other things then the black images and they're divided into the derogatory or political pieces or historical pieces or end or autobiographical pieces using the black imagery and then I sort of mix them up sometimes like this piece that's behind me this is a piece that I'm doing for a current exhibition called colored consider the rainbow and it's about a skin color and how people are judged by their skin color and in my situation how african-americans are judged by their skin color and the names that are given to us but mostly the names we call ourselves so it's like a racism within the race and the one behind me is called high yella which is a light-skinned a yellow tone to the skin and the one next to it the little assemblage there is called brown schoolboy now that is a more political piece but it isn't with a derogatory image it's just lovely young man who's standing there with a book that's padlocked and Jim Crow because Jim Crow is still prevalent there's still racism I mean right here in the city what schools get the books and the teachers and the buildings and so forth in which one still most kids go to private schools if they can afford that because there isn't the Equality and schools so they're all mixed together and sometimes I concentrate on the the derogatory images like I did a show in 1998 called the return of Aunt Jemima which I used a washboard format and use the derogatory images of Aunt Jemima Betty where do you get you your your your stuff to work with I walk looking down all the time and say things look hot down you know breast you can and so forth I go to flea markets I go to garage sales it but when you see my studio you know I've got enough of everything and I'm and then I always start out saying I'm only going to use the things that I have here I'm not going to buy anything new because I want to like we say it's all about recycling you know but materials give me my ideas just go back a minute because you mentioned a term which we all know in the states explain Jim Crow well Jim comes from a variety of sources and the image of Jim Crow was from what I understand a a man who was sort of crippled who danced for to make his living you know and he did this sort of floppy Wiggly dance and then a white minstrel took that dance and they sort of called it Jim Crow and then somehow Jim Crow became the image of the bird the black crow and was the symbol of segregation and there were Jim Crow laws like Oh blacks had to sit at the back of the bus or the back of the train or so forth and I was watching a show about Rosa Parks who was powerful in starting the liberation for for against segregation and the bus would come to the curb and these women would say we're not getting on this bus till Jim Crow gets off oh I said then Jim Crow became like a person like this this whole image but the symbol of Jim Crow is a black crow so that's the code you know so that's why Jim Crow the black crows is on is right in the boat and trying watching time watching education I find it you're you're very affecting to students to young people I very informally I showed your work in Namibia to some yeah students and there was there was such a sense of really being able to absorb what you were doing and it was it was wonderful to see how you went across cultures and and the found dog well that's that's one of the things that that I try to do and I'm not I don't know if I'm successful or not because we're dealing in something that you really can't verbalize on it's about feeling and it's about spreading the spirit and that spirit is universal you know about caring about I can't even verbalize on what it is I once had a really nice compliment at a show of an older man came up to me says I've never seen your work before but I really like it it and he starts beating his heart you know like it touched him that way and that's what I want my work to do to like reach out and grab you somewhere when you talk about the mystical in your work because we're going globally what do you mean by that well it's about um feelings and ideas and things that come to you that maybe don't have a logical explanation or well because I also include dreaming in that you know other altered states of consciousness that are that are natural and trying to communicate on that level trying to find materials that inspire that in me putting them together so they communicate something else I like for example this this painting behind me it's part of this series on colored and high yellow but that's only part of it because it also has something to do with like there's a tree if you see the tree coming up through it so the roots would be like what roots the black people from Africa like this could be mother Africa and goes up and in the belly in the in the emotional chakra right there is a mass that's an African mass so I said well this is high yellow with Africa in the belly you know that that you can't really ignore what your roots are that your roots are part of regardless of what color your skin turns and you still have those roots and then it turns into a tree so it's like woman tree which is a kind of spirit figure too not so much of Africa but maybe more in Scandinavia where they have the spirit that are doing the trees and so forth and then it also has to do death and rebirth it has leaves that are embedded which in their dried dead leaves and then I like the freedom in life of a bird of going out into the branches and also the top color is lavender which is the color of the the spiritual chakra so it goes to all of these colors and it's still a figure it's still a dress it's still all of that but it's all that transformation that so when I say metaphysical it's about the things that you really don't don't think about all the time but are really part of your life anyway you have two daughters that are very successful artists in themselves were they raised to be artists did they pick it up have you ever done work for them or about them they were raised like I was raised making things you know you always did something with your hand they went to craft classes they went to Barnes though they were always interested in their because their dad is also an artist so we always had art materials we always went to art exhibitions you know that was just they say well you know our family business is art you know the father is a not restorer and their mothers and artists that's our family business they say they married men who are sensitive to that well tom is an artist too and I was a Leslie's husband August is also nervous but he's in the film too but that's that's Arlene you know we didn't go into law we didn't go into other things we went into art and I think both of them sort of fought against it Allison was interested in art history non-western art history and then she started doing studio things and Leslie was interested in communications writing like Tracy is and then you know they said well my sisters and my mother does it but sooner or later it gets them and they do it we have had some collaborative exhibitions and we have one that's coming up in 2000 and that's originating and I think it's Auckland universe North Carolina there's a sense of timelessness in a way about your studio and all the work that's here and yet it is in time and there are clocks did are you interested in time and timelessness well that's one of the symbols that I use about that kind of goes over to the to the metaphysical thing and it's mostly about timelessness because when I use the pieces might want that one I can't tell there's a little watch face down at the bottom of the boat sometimes they don't have hands their clocks they don't have hands and the reason that the clocks are out because I was looking for a piece to go on top of a of an assemblage that I was making that I wanted to use when I but it had to be a certain color in a certain shape and so that's why they're all on an array but yes the things that I use that I consider my personal visual language are hands eyes especially something that relates to the mystic eye or the all-seeing lot I the heart I rarely use a full figure but I use parts of it like the hand the hand for telling your fortune like the lines in your hand that would be the mystical or metaphysical part phrenology charts feet but certain symbols I'm really attracted to it if I'm someplace and I see that I will buy that you know if I'm at a swap meet and there's like a chart of a hand I will buy that because that's what I collect to use Betty have you ever worked in the theater like designing sets or costumes costumes yes when right after my divorce I I wanted a job as long went to the theater and said you know I would like to design costumes and then I got this job you know as an assistant designer because one of the things that I had learned growing up was sewing my mother was a seamstress we made doll clothes we made her own clothes and I like the theater so so part of my little assemblies are like little theaters you know little sets with the characters in them and everything yeah that's how I earn money well like like sets or stories and you write as well well the writing you know that's that's that's my statement you know but I know but it's but it's true titles are important to me and that the piece tells the story is important my secret heart is seduced by Twilight it remembers the colors of dreams it longs for solitude and the exotic my secret heart is a wanderer it sails the sea of imagination it soars beyond the clouds seeking the mysterious it moves through time dream time and space mine space my secret heart seeks the dusty musty forgotten corners it constantly haunts hunts collects gathers objects images feelings it mixes matches embellishes simplifies camouflages fabricates to empower the ordinary to invent artifacts my secret heart bridges memory and vision it pays homage to lost rituals of unknown civilizations it expands horizons only to condense them into a frame a box a room my secret heart is ageless it beats within the rainbow babe in the woods and it dwells in the house of whispers there about six pieces that are titles of works there in here rainbow babe in the woods House of whispers is an installation and dream time in search of dream time so this started out as as a lecture of like reading this and showing a slide really quickly so it it illustrates that has there ever been a volume published with just the poems or are they part of the installation so that what they keep changing as the lecture changes is I do different work but that's one of the things I'd like to do you know and not only just my poems but sometimes people have written poetry about my pieces yeah that's nice too you use language like your assemblages they're each the words are so beautiful they're an object and oh thank you yeah that comes across in the reading it's really beautiful oh thank you to your left is a mannequin is this going to be a new piece or are you back to costume designer no we are doing this piece and it's it's an idea that I had a long time I can see it the date of the sketch is October 15 1999 so you see time is passing but only just earlier this year I found it and the piece is called morning skirt and I guess the 1800s photographers advertise that there are photographers by having their work on garments or those sandwich boards or something like that so I want to do this piece I hate to talk about it because in case I don't do it but a skirt that's black and the photos on it our photos of slaves that's what we have the chains there and see if I have a sketch here of what it is yeah photos of a slaves being punished it's not happy thing all the all the cruel kinds of inventions that they invented you know like there's one that a man is rolled up into a ball and then beaten you know or or things that are go on their wrists to keep them from our on their legs to keep them from running away when the slaves were transported from Africa to this country there is and I've done pieces of that of the slave ship and it's a diagram of the slave ship the children are all in smaller quarters all together the women are all together the men the women I think are chain maybe hand or wrist min or chain one ankle to the neck anchor the man next to them in the wrist the same way that's the way they're chained standing up no room to sit down or lie down it's pretty incredible it's pretty incredible so oh I see an image down there so it's that's like one of the ways that that I deal with the pain of that particular part of african-american history and so I wanted to make the skirt with maybe a blue ruffle that was like a train that would be be like a if you know fabric there's something called more a taffeta beret which has a watermark on it you know to be like the water or the waves of the ocean so it's called morning skirt to mourn and so it just sits there and then some of us this assemblages I make are like ritual like altars so those are all waiting to be made and the paint is up above are the chairs that were part of the installation in San Paolo they were chairs of the souls of the lost children or the abandoned children that that are in Brazil you know they were during that time and there was lots of items in the newspaper about the children how they were abused and so forth they're just you know out there so this is the soul so some of them have photographs some of them have spirit bottles on them and that was part of that installation is a spirit bottle a betis our invention or is there actually some it's an african thing of this of the spirit - and it's and it's like most are many metaphysical things there's like the it's positive and negative you know the glass attracts the negative image and it's captured in there also it attracts the spirit that's positive to go and visit that house and that custom came over to the United States and still in parts of the south they have trees where it bottles are out there to either it's called Robert first Thomas wrote about the flash of the spirit that's what it is the sunroof or the light reflecting on the glass for the for the spirit to attract a benevolent spirit to repel or capture a negative spirit I'm struck by by your kindness by your compassion you you want your work has so much caring in it you're honoring that great loss and even with this ya slave piece in there yeah and I think it a lot of my work has the element of loss but I don't see it as a negative thing because I've well it's like the derogatory images it's like transforming it or turning it around or releasing it and some yeah releasing it right that's true is there anything that you would like us to know that I'm very happy making art that that you know if you have to do something you know like I've really been blessed and fortunate that the jobs that I've had have some kind of creative aspect to them some of them have been really hard once I was a set designer for a film in in Washington State and I had to make a coal mine and that was really grimy grubby dirty work but it didn't last forever and sometimes it's it's boring but when there's a lot of pressure like this particular show to get to get these things wrapped and now today is a kind of anxiety time but most of the time I'm here and putzing around and I'm really blessed that I have a good imagination and one thing leads to another if people watch us that are interested in the arts that it's a good business to be in but I think it's most you have to have the technique you have to have some technical skills it's not all brain a lot of the art now is just about the concept of the thing but a heart and spirit have a lot to do with it for longevity well Betty sorry you are filled with heart and spirit thank you for talking to us thank you you

Channel: Netropolitan Artsconversations

Views: 9,507

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Interview, Painting, Drawing, Southern California artists, Betye Saar, Art, Netropolitan, Artist, African American art

Id: Lhq9o0KEsr4

Length: 31min 59sec (1919 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 21 2012