We saw the exhibit of Mildred Howard’s work at the Oakland Museum of California last week. Called “Poetics of Memory,” it was a wonderful collection of the work of a Bay Area artist — now 80 — who has done everything from making large outdoor installations to creating pictures using copies made on a color Xerox machine as a starting point.
The exhibit even included an elaborate sort of slide show of snapshots she took as a young teenager on a family trip from the Bay Area to Galveston, and some of her work was built on the knowledge she gained from her parents work selling antiques, so it not only incorporated most of the decades of her life thus far, but also her history.
Some pieces directly address racism – three mummified statues of men who were noted in American history (including Francis Scott Key) and also known enslavers made a strong statement. Other pieces implied it, while still others invoked other parts of her life.
She’s well-known in the Bay Area and has shown in galleries and exhibitions around the world, and her work is both highly creative and thought-provoking. Howard has spent her life as an artist and given the world an impressive body of creative work.
It got me to thinking of how wonderful it is to spend one’s life creating art and to have a body of powerful work to show for it. To me that’s so much better than getting rich. Continue reading “A Lifetime of Work”…