There’s one thing that always scares me about writing a new book – and it’s what I always end up enjoying the most: research.
This summer I’ve been writing a non-fiction book for teens about female artists. Together with my editor we’ve put together a list that includes women I didn’t know, as well as those I’ve admired for years. One of the artists I’d only vaguely heard about, Yayoi Kusama from Japan, turns out to be the most popular contemporary artist in the world! She's an inspiration.
 |
| Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, 2013 by Yayoi Kusama |
This time last year I worked with a writer who told me that she always felt disheartened when Black History Month came along, and her children would come home from school with stories of the same few trailblazers year after year. Not that Rosa Parks and Mary Seacole aren’t deeply inspirational – but what about all the other black people in history? Where are they?
I often think back to that conversation. Above all, I want children to read for pleasure, as I did, but in a perfect world I want them to learn things from books too. To have facts and feelings at their fingertips. To be amazed by the world, and as the French say, 'engagé'. This summer of research has given me a host of new faces and stories to suggest to teachers looking for ideas this October.
Did you know that the first professional African-American sculptor was a woman called Edmonia Lewis, who came of age at the time of the Civil War? In 1865, aged just 20, she went to Rome and worked in the studio once used by Antonio Canova. She became a Neoclassical sculptor with an international reputation, who's been celebrated by Google.
 |
| Edmonia Lewis |
Here in the UK, I’ve learned that the black arts movement of the 1980s was brought about in part because the young black people leaving art school at the time didn’t see themselves reflected in society – except in newspaper images about crime. They were perceived as ‘exotic’ and wanted to express what it was like to be in their skin, and for that to be ordinary. Their art doesn’t ‘describe’, as we do, it is. You have to stand in front of it for a long time and let it sink in to you, until you feel like you're inside it, looking out.
 |
| She Ain't Holding Them Up, She's Holding On (Some English Rose) 1985 by Sonia Boyce |
In researching artists like Sonia Boyce and Lubaina Himid – both professors now – I’ve been discovering not only what it was like to be black in London in those days, but also about the other black lives they have brought to life, like slaves in European royal courts depicted by painted wooden cut-outs by Himid. They stand on the floor, so we can literally walk among images of past black lives and wonder who these people were and what they were thinking.
 |
| Naming the Money, 2004 by Lubaina Himid |
A great artist can jog us into seeing the world differently. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye paints beautiful, timeless oil portraits of people from her imagination. Like her, most of them have black skin, but what is most interesting about them is their expression, and the vivid interior life she suggests with a few brushstrokes. She makes skin colour irrelevant – but at the same time her paintings can’t help highlighting the absence of other black faces in the history of Western portraiture. She would be a wonderful role model, I think, for my friend’s children.
 |
| Any Number of Preoccupations, 2010 by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye |
These are just some of the wonderful women I’ve been discovering. There are many more. You can go and see some of their work at Tate. Soon, Boyce’s current project for Crossrail will be finished at the Royal Docks, and at 1.8 km long, it will be the longest artwork ever seen in the UK!
The Tate has more ideas for things to go and see in October, if you're celebrating Black History Month.
And I know more keenly than ever that art generally is eternally rich with resources for us writers to draw on, as soon as we start to look. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment