African-American Picture Study Resources

African-American Picture Study Resources | Heritage Mom

source: https://heritagemom.com/index.php/2019/03/22/african-american-picture-study-resources/

If I could remember the password to my Twitter account, I'd tweet that right now. But instead, I'm writing here. Some people tweet. I post.

If you have no clue what my hashtag means, I'll give you a little background:

"One January morning in 2015, as I watched that year's Oscar nominations announced without a single person of color in any of the lead- or supporting-actor categories, I tweeted, "#OscarsSoWhite, they asked to touch my hair." The hashtag went viral and started a movement that continues today."

My personal quote, homeschool style, would be "One March morning in 2019, as I looked for picture study resources and found hardly a single artist of color recommended in any Charlotte Mason curriculum, I posted, "#PictureStudySoWhite, you'd think black folks were allergic to paint." The hashtag didn't go viral but it made me feel better.

Last year, there was a mom on a CM Facebook page who expressed frustration that there wasn't more diversity in the CM picture study recommendations. The first to comment on her post was a woman who said something like, "That's because Charlotte Mason wanted the children to study the best of the best...yada, yada...and we should stick with those until the children are in high school...yada, yada..." I would give anything to have a screenshot for you, but the post was removed after I replied.

Admittedly, I was upset because she basically said that old white guys were the best, and I found that highly offensive. Yes, the old white guys were amazing and we should study them, but they were also the only ones given the opportunities and acknowledged as being the best because of sexism and racism. But now we know better, right? And when you know better, you do better, right?

I responded to the misinformed comment after she had quickly removed her reply. I'm assuming she realized how crazy she sounded, or maybe she had a good friend in the group who shot her a loving text letting her know how crazy she sounded. Every girl should have a friend like that, by the way. In any case, I felt free to speak uncensored truth because I didn't call any names and her reply was gone by then, so no need to protect the guilty.

Predictably, she got mad because her fragile feelings were hurt, and she outed herself by replying to my comment and letting everyone know that she was the offensive mama living under a rock.

And then the post was taken down.

Because we were having a real conversation about race.

And real conversations about race aren't always allowed in the CM world.

So yes. #PictureStudySoWhite and will continue to be for a lot of kids. But not mine. We've always done 4 terms of picture study - the traditional white terms 1-3 and the "black term." Yes, I know CM said the kids need a break and all of that, but I rank mental health over following Ms. Mason to a tee.

"We cannot measure the influence that one or another artist has upon the child's sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more than we know in having really looked at even a single picture."

During the 4th term, I make my own rules, so the artists may not be in our time period though I do try. They may not be of any critical importance to most people. And they may not even be painters (Dave the Potter, for example). Yes, I know that's not technically a picture study, but should we not study other amazing forms of visual art? And when I was challenged on that by a well-meaning die-hard CM mom, I referred to the Simply Charlotte Mason Picture Study Portfolio for Michelangelo because those portfolios are worshiped in CM world (and I have a shelf of them myself), and the Michelangelo one includes pictures of...sculptures.

For the cherry on top, I always include seeing the artist's original work - either locally or during a summer road trip.

After a couple of years of adding a 4th term, I decided to live on the edge and actually integrate black artists into my regular 3-term schedule this year. I still might do a 4th artist for fun over the summer but not because I feel beholden to curriculum recommendations, what's readily available, or what my friends and FB peeps are doing during the first three terms.

If my children walk away from the table thinking that black people and women haven't contributed anything worthy of serious study and introspection then shame on me.

And since I'm going through the work of pulling together the resources for these studies, I plan to share them here. Hopefully, it will save some of my sweet comrades hours of research and prep work. But more importantly, I hope it will inspire other CM moms and school teachers to show their children that God doesn't discriminate. He didn't drop all of the talent into the hands and minds of white men alone. Other people do have and have had amazing under-represented and under-celebrated talent.

Rules of engagement: I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. Some of the artist posts will be links to resources that someone else has already put together. In those cases, I'll just try to get it all in the same place for you. However, I haven't found much elsewhere so for most of the artists, I'm going to share what I've done or what I plan to do. I'm not re-writing an artist bio in my own words, but I will include everything you need to have a fruitful picture study in your home.

OK, let's get to it!

I will link the posts here as I get them completed, and I'll add to the list as I go. These are listed in the order I plan to have them completed, and it's subject to change.

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 - 1937) Romare Bearden (1911 - 1988) Horace Pippin (1888 - 1946) Jacob Lawrence (1917 - 2000) Augusta Savage (1892 - 1962) Robert S. Duncanson (1821 - 1872) Joshua Johnson (1763 - 1878) Clementine Hunter (1886 - 1988)

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