Welcome to
SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography,
the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical
art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help
with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help
with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration.
This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.
I'm happy to introduce to you,
Betye Irene Saar.
Betye Saar was born Betye Irene Brown on July 30, 1926, to Jefferson
Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson in Los Angeles, California. Both parents attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where they met. Betye spent her early years in Los Angeles. After her father's death in 1931, Betye and her mother, brother, and
sister moved in with her paternal grandmother, Irene Hannah Maze, in the
Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles. The family then moved to Pasadena, California, to live with Saar's maternal great-aunt Hatte Parson Keys and her husband Robert E. Keys
She attended college and during that time met and married Richard Saar and gave birth to 3 daughters.
Betye started her adult life as a social worker, and then later pursued her passion for art. She began her graduate education in 1958, originally working towards a career in teaching design. However, a printmaking
class she took as an elective changed the direction of her artistic
interests. She described printmaking as her "segue from design into fine
arts"
Betye's collected racist imagery and continued throughout her career. She was inspired to create assemblages by a 1967 exhibition by found object sculptor, Joseph Cornell. She was also greatly influenced by Simon Rodia's Watts Towers, which she witnessed being built in her childhood. Betye said that she was "fascinated by the materials that Simon Rodia used, the broken dishes, sea shells, rusty tools, even corn cobs—all pressed into cement to create spires. To me, they were magical."
Assemblage Art
The Grand Dame of Assemblage art.
Printmaking had allowed her to build symbolic worlds on paper. Assemblage allowed her to place history itself inside a frame.
She began searching flea markets, swap meets, antique shops and secondhand stores. Her collections of everything from clocks, bottles, beads, fabric, washboards, dolls, photos, boxes, bones and household objects held the spirit of those no longer remembered. She understood that objects absorb meaning from the people and systems around them. Some carried intimacy, others carried violence. Among the objects found in American markets and kitchens were caricatures of Black poeple produced during slavery's long aftermath. Smiling mammies, grinning servants, exaggerated dolls, advertisements, postcards and household containers had been created to make racial hierarchy look comforting, humorous or harmless.
They were not harmless. They reduced Black men and women to obedient figures whose exaggerated smiles concealed the realities of forced labor, segregation, economic exploitation and humiliation.
By the late 1960's the Civil Rights Movement had exposed the violence required to maintain racial inequality. Black artists were demanding control over Black representation. The Black Arts Movement encouraged art that did not seek permission for white institutions before speaking directly to Black History, identity, anger and possibility. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, many artists including Betye became more politically aware. With 3 children she couldn't always march, and publicly demonstrate so she made art into her form of protest.
In 1972, the Rainbow Sign, a Black cultural center in Berkeley, invited artists to participate in an exhibition about Black heroes. Betye could have chosen any recognizable leader. Instead, she decided to create a Black heroine from an image designed to deny Black women dignity. She chose Aunt Jemima.
Betye Saar continued to create art until the day she passed. 
Hope you learned something new today on SITAR
Nicole
I will be joining Gillena
Studio Museum in Harlem
