” A portrait of many women“: Delita Martin, 35, artist and art teacher, Little Rock, Arkansas
self-portrait
Delita is trying to reconstruct the identities of African American women throughout her work. When creating her art she says that she is using „my grandmother’s eyes, my mother’s lips and my neighbor’s smile“. She always used to draw women – even when she was a little girl.
Delita in front of her paintings
Already as a child Delita was surrounded by art: Her father was an artist and furniture maker, and many other family members created art: „It was just something you woke up with every day (…) so I knew from the age of five that I was gonna be an artist“
After College she tried to frame her work theoretically and used the concept of identity to understand her art.
„When I am 80 or a hundred I see myself still creating art or help others creating art“. Delita Martin thinks that we are constantly learning so we are always changing – it is learning about life. Women 50+ are not invisible, Delita says, she has experienced an upbringing in a big community where all adult women were educators to the children.
Delita and Diane
She works as an educator to support her being an artist but she decided a long time ago that she wanted to be an artist anyway: “Am I an artist because I love it or am I an artist because to make money”. Financially “I am doing okay”.
Delita during the interview
interviewed: 20. 9. 2011