#assemblage art

Betye Saar

“Black Girl’s Window” (1969)

On July 26th, 2026 we gained an ancestor. This day the great Betye Saar passed away, just shy of her 100th birthday.

Betye is without a doubt one of the most influential artists of our time. Her work explored spirituality, American history and African American identity. She was a pioneer of the Black Arts Movement as well as the Assemblage Art Movement which was centered on the West Coast in California where she lived all of her life.

Saar was not only deeply committed to her artistry but also to activism and understood the important role art plays in the collective work towards liberation. Her work was often described as controversial, though the objects of controversy were just real objects from the not so distant past which opened up conversations about culture, American history and social change. During a tribute to Betye at the Hammer Museum, Sandra Jackson Dumont gave words to Betye’s impact on many of us,

”You have given us language where there was silence, and possibility, where there was constraint… You have shown us that truth, when spoken through the right hand of an artist like you, can change everything.”

Rest in Power Betye Saar. You will be remembered by us forever.

♡♡♡

One voice is enough to break the silence.

Behold! Professor D. W. Hornsby's rotary time conductor!

(ahem. time machine)

It had a former life as a rotating glass microwave plate, but after being covered in a paper gun target, copper paper washed with black acrylic, cut paper numerals, clock hands and rotary dial, Hornsby's bottlecaps, gears and assorted findings, it found an entirely new existence in 1878.

Another example of my older assemblage art. This one was meant to be a riddle in images where each compartment represented a letter and the entire box spelled out a nine letter word.