![]() I love discovering new artists and creating play lists. both playing music (violin, piano and guitar) and listening to it. Riley: Music is an oasis from the mundane. They studied the colors that they saw in Clementine’s work, prepared their own paint palettes and then got to work. They selected a few examples of Clementine’s work which they felt particularly drawn to. from life before Covid? Should we paint what we do everyday NOW? My answers were YES! and yes! I cut the cardboard house shapes. The girls had questions: Can we paint things we miss. Prompt: If you were going to paint or illustrate a moment in time from your life story, what would you paint? What symbols and motifs might appear in your work? How would you evoke memory? What is a “snapshot” you would like to remember from this time? I felt drawn to the house shape in Harvesting Gourds near the African House and Wash Day Near Ghana House (pictured below) as both a container for our memories and stories and a poignant symbol of life in quarantine. MEMORY HOUSE Project inspired by, Clementine HunterĪfter reading about Clementine Hunter’s life, the girls and I got to talking about the themes of memory and story in her work and how those themes might inspire our own paintings. African House is the home to Clementine Hunter’s most famous work- The Africa House Murals a series of murals painted on nine panels. Often described as half french barn and half African hut. The plantation is the site of one of the oldest buildings of African design, built by Blacks and for the use of Blacks in the country: a 2-story structure called “Africa House”. The Melrose Plantation was established by former slaves. She started painting at the age of 50 and painted up until her death at the age of 101. It is estimated that Clementine created over 5,000 works of art in her late-life career. and bring Francois a whole lot of pictures she did. She presented her first picture to Mignon who replied, “Sister, you don’t know it but this is just the first of a whole lot of pictures you are going to bring me in the years ahead“.Įxcerpt written by, Doyle Bailey for She tapped at my door, said that she had found these twisted tubes (of paint) while cleaning up and that she believed she could ‘mark a picture on her own…if she set her mind to it.'” Well, I do remember when Clementine Hunter…first tried her hand at painting. The artist was Clementine Hunter who lived in her cabin on Melrose Plantation. “It was on a hot day in July in the mid 1950's that scenes of plantation life in Louisiana began to appear along the walls of the African House. It was Kinsey’s old discarded brushes and paint tubes that became the materials for Clementine’s first works of art.įrancois Mignon, a prolific, gifted writer and member of the artist’s colony at Melrose relates the following endearing incident: She created beautiful quilts, lace curtains, and dolls, but was also known for her delicious Creole dishes.īy the 1930s Melrose Plantation became somewhat of an artist’s retreat that hosted some pretty famous names from the art and literary world: William Faulkner, Lyle Saxon, Margaret Sullavan, Richard Avedon, Rachel Field, Ada Jack Carver, Roark Bradford, and Alberta Kinsey. Clementine was a skilled seamstress and cook. She was married and widowed and married again, giving birth to a total of 7 children at Melrose, two of whom were stillborn. Clementine worked the fields until the 1920s when she was brought into the main house to cook and clean. A place she would call home for the rest of her life. ![]() Clementine received less than a year of formal education and never learned to read or write, but her memories of early life in the fields were filled with a sense of belonging and community that would later become themes of her work.Īt the age of 15 Clementine and her family moved to the Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Her desire to learn how to read and write was not enough to keep her in such a cruel and demeaning environment, so she fled the school house to work in the fields, picking cotton and harvesting pecans with her father. At the age of 5 Clementine had her first and last experience with the segregated school system of the South. Shortly after Clementine was born her family set out to find more humane working and living conditions. Her parents were farm workers who worked the fields at Hidden Hill Plantation. ![]() Clementine Hunter was born in central Louisiana in 1886 into a french-creole family. She was the first of seven children. It is an honor to introduce you to the wonderful art of Ms.
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