By Denisia Codrington, Adult Public Programs Intern
On Friday, February 19th, curator Asmaa Walton collaborated with the American Folk Art Museum on the program “Virtual Insights: A Reading from the Black Art Library”. This single event was a highlight of Black History Month programs featured on Eventbrite with turnout consisting of nearly 100 participants. For this program, I was tasked with creating an outreach list together with my colleague Ava Dennis in the Education Department. Together, we gathered a list of over 100 contacts including news sources, libraries, professors, teachers, and even friends. Anyone we knew who was involved in African American advocacy and Black Rights, with a particular interest in the arts, received an outreach email. It was due to our hard work that the American Folk Art Museum saw an increased turnout for this event. With that being said, before we dive into this event, let’s learn a bit about the creator and her journey as well!
“If you were able to create a movement that would inspire change, would you take that chance?” This may be one of the many questions Asmaa Walton, founder of the Black Art Library and Head Librarian, has tackled. Asmaa Walton is a Detroit native, with an MA in Art Politics and a BFA in Fine Arts. Growing up, she found there weren’t many resources on the African American narrative, which is something I, as a Carribean-American woman from immigrant parents, have also experienced.
What started off as a Black History Month project, dedicated to showcasing Black visual arts, has expanded into a movement. “At the beginning, I only had about 7 books,” Walton stated during the webinar, recounting how she started. It was then she decided to photograph her collection as she gathered more and more books. Walton began posting these images to Instagram, which generated attention from a community who had never seen anything like it. “Soon people started asking me if I take donations,” Walton shared. Earlier she commented on just how expensive art books were, so she happily accepted; supporters started sending her donations of books and financial support, which became so extensive she used an online app to catalog her collection. Currently comprising 400 books, the Black Art Library is one of the largest collectives in Detroit featuring Black art visuals today. If you are further interested in Asmaa Walton’s journey, you can read an article published online by Hyperallergic: “How a Black Art Library Quickly Gained Momentum.”
Walton also spoke about a few artists’ works and stories, including African American artists Clementine Hunter and Sister Gertrude Morgan. Throughout the webinar she gave insights into these artists and their journeys. She noted that Clementine Hunter worked on a plantation while supporting a household and teaching herself to paint at night, and Sister Gertrude Morgan embarked on a spiritual artistic journey to render interpretations of the future and her visions through God’s eyes. These women took it upon themselves to find peace, salvation, and creativity through artistic outlets.
During the event, what resonated the most with me was the narrative of Clementine Hunter; an African American artist who did not discover her love for art until she was well into her years and already a grandmother in the 1940s. Even so, living on a former slave plantation, I can imagine Ms. Hunter took whatever liberties she had. Working on a plantation, she could only produce her artwork at night and used whatever materials she could find. She painted on glass window panes, pieces of wood, and cast iron pots, using leftover paints she found. Though her work was exhibited in 1949 at the New Orleans Museum of Art, being an African American, she was not allowed to view her artwork in the galleries; it was only until these crude laws were abolished that Clementine Hunter was finally able to view her own work for the first time in the 1970s here at the American Folk Art Museum. “When you think about it, this artist, there was value seen in her work, but not her as an individual” recounted Asmaa Walton. “So when you think about Black artists you can make the art, but you may not ever see your art exhibited in your lifetime.”
Following this discussion, Walton read aloud Art From Her Heart, an illustrated retelling of the life of Clementine Hunter and her artistic journey of being an exhibited artist and having to sneak into the gallery to view her own artwork. You can view this same book at The American Folk Art Museum’s Shop.
You can watch a recording of this program here. If you are interested in following Asmaa Walton on her journey collecting resources about Black visual arts, you can follow her instagram @blackartlibrary.
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