Howardena Pindell is an American artist who creates abstract artworks. Abstract means that the art is made up of colors, lines, and shapes instead of things from our everyday world. Even though her art is abstract, it is still full of meaning.
Howardena was also a curator, someone who plans and organizes art exhibits. When she was a curator, she was one of the only Black females doing this job and she noticed there also wasn’t a lot of art by Black men and women being shown in museums, especially abstract artworks. As she created her own abstract pieces she was working towards creating a space where Black people could feel empowered to create abstract art. She even co-founded her own gallery just for female artists.
Our favorite artworks by Howardena are created using hundreds of tiny dots, created using hole punches, that have been collaged together. We learned that these circles have multiple meanings including simply the shapes of planets within the universe but also something more powerful and personal to Howardena. She told a story of traveling as a child through the south during segregation. When they stopped for a root beer they were given mugs with red circles on the bottom, this meant that those mugs were only for people of color. So in her own way she uses circles in her art to give circles new meaning.
For this project we wanted to explore and create our own circle collages.
Materials:
- Hole punches
- Mixed scrap papers (we used some old painted papers from a previous project)
- Glue
- Paper
First we created a bunch of circles with our hole punches. Then we put some glue down on paper (you can even spread it out with a paint brush) then you can sprinkle the circles on top and rearrange a little or lay them down one by one. Explore and feel
inspired to take the artwork wherever you want. My girls started adding on some of the paper we punched the holes from as well as a couple round buttons they found.
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