There was no way to beat Joe Louis. You just couldn’t. And they

never have found anybody to beat him. (Emma Amos, 1968)1

My idea . . . but they hired a white person to work with me. (Why?)2

chine colle on pigmented cotton paper.

a melancholic sleight of glance

in dark brown

and even darker maroon

God knows what I would’ve called myself at the time: pigmented linen pulp on cotton

base sheet . . . and natural skin tones?

I still think that being an artist . . . is based, is grounded in the ability to draw.

Few people recognize my figures as white when they are white.

—I wanna be a dark maroon,

a real dark maroon.

A fait accompli, a white person to work with me. (Why?)

I’m basically an abstract expressionist and zebra-like.

The will to cross boundaries

Fitting what? Fitting how? Fitting who?

Be a laser transfer photo and collage of penis on paper

I was an etcher . . . a specialist in aquatints . . . when I discovered monoprinting.

(carborundum etching, cornrows, hair,

. . . and a laser transfer, a lithograph, and border of African fabric

and a bird of handmade paper . . .

and falling)

But a white person to work with me.

a bird of handmade paper

and falling

falling

An eight-year-old, and that’s what I wanted—to paint. Now I’ve got what I wanted.

But you were a weaver too, while

pairing animals and Black female entertainers

in printer’s ink.

. . . I’d paint the air in front of the figure.

And then

Lena Toni Tina

rocking on by.

When African American artists cross boundaries, we are often stopped—with silk

collagraph technique—at the border3

But why would I need a white person to work with me

except for acrylic on linen canvas.

I really learned figure drawing from Esquire Magazine and Varga Girls . . . [and]

I’m always handy . . . I just look in the mirror

and see pigmented linen pulp and collage on cotton base sheet.

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___________

notes

1. Emma Amos, in Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Oral History

Interview with Emma Amos, 1968 October 3. Interviewed by Al (Albert)

Murray. Transcript available online, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/

interviews/oral-history-interview-emma-amos-11451#overview.

2. The italicized words are direct quotations from the Smithsonian Archives

of American Art, Oral History Interviews with Emma Amos:

1968 October 3 interviewed by Al (Albert) Murray, and 2011 November

19-26, interviewed by Patricia Spears Jones. Words in gray note

my emphasis. The non-italicized words are my impressions of Emma

Amos’s art and the poetic descriptions of the materials she used in her

brilliant and varied visual work.

3. Emma Amos, from “Artist’s Statement” in the exhibition catalogue

Changing the Subject: Paintings, 1992-1994 (New York: Art in General,

1994), 3.

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Emma Amos, Secrets (1–4), 1981, 21 x 21

inches each of four, etching, chine colle, artist’s

weavings, string on pigmented cotton paper.

Edition of 15.   Emma Amos. Courtesy of

Ryan Lee Gallery, New York.

‍

Emma Amos, Fitting, 1994, 14  x 11 inches,

laser transfer and collage (handmade kozo paper

with hand-torn apertures) on paper. Edition size

unknown; signed as an AP.   Emma Amos.

Courtesy of Dieu Donn , New York.

‍

Emma Amos, Art Heaven, 2006, 26 x 20 inches,

digital inkjet print with fabric appliqu  on Arches

Infinity Textured paper. Edition of 100, published

by the Brodsky Center at PAFA, Philadelphia.

Collaborating Master Printer: Randy Hemminghaus.

Photo: Jack Abraham.   Estate of the artist and the

Brodsky Center at PAFA, Philadelphia. Courtesy of

Brodsky Center at PAFA, Philadelphia.

‍

Emma Amos, Tina, Toni, Lena, 2008, 48 x 94  inches (triptych), chine coll  (pulp-painted handmade paper figures, artist’s weavings, string), relief monoprint on

paper, acrylic. Print collaborator: Kathy Caraccio.   Emma Amos. Courtesy of Ryan Lee Gallery, New York.

‍

Emma Amos, Untitled, 1985, 24 x 35 inches, pigmented linen pulp and collage

(artist’s weavings, printed fabrics) on cotton base sheet, part of a series created

at Dieu Donn  (3 Crosby Street studio), New York.   Emma Amos. Courtesy of

Dieu Donn , New York.

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