Art-Making Activity: My Story, Inspired by Whitfield Lovell

Create your story with a drawing and add objects (real, drawn, or collaged) that represent what is important to you, where you live, or a memorable event in your life.

Grade Level:

Grades 3-5, Grades K-2

Collection:

African American Art, Modern and Contemporary Art

Subject Area:

African American, Fine Arts, Visual Arts

Activity Type:

Hands-On Activity, Special Exhibition

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Art-Making Activity: My Story, Inspired by Whitfield Lovell

Introduction

Because I Wanna Fly (detail), 2021, Whitfield Lovell (American, born 1959), conté on wood with attached found objects, 114-inch diameter. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, by exchange, 2022.14a-j

Whitfield Lovell was born in 1959 in the Bronx, New York. Lovell’s drawings, installations, and assemblages explore African American experiences around identity, memory, and history.

Lovells’ works are inspired by images of African Americans taken between the Emancipation Proclamation (Jan 1, 1863) and the Civil Rights Movement (1954 – 1968). His assemblages are constructed using his drawings along with found objects that he arranges to create the work.

Create

Create your story with a drawing and add objects (real, drawn, or collaged) that represent what is important to you, where you live, or a memorable event in your life.

Follow the steps below to draw and assemble your own work of art!

Materials:

Pencil
Paper
Glue
Magazine cut-outs
Optional: Colored Pencil

Instructions:

1. Using a black pencil, draw a portrait of yourself, a member of your community, or an imaginary person in the center of your paper. Consider the story you would like to tell and how your subject could communicate the story through facial expression. Are they wearing any accessories such as a hat or earrings?

2. After you draw your subject, consider some items that could help tell the story of your person. Select images from the magazine cut-outs and glue some of these items onto your paper. Examples: a necklace, an object your subject could use like a phone, etc.

3. Display your assemblage work and share your own story with the community!