The inclusion of text is successful at encouraging rather than limiting a viewer’s interpretation of art and this is most evident in power of text, particularly narrative text. The inclusion of text does not hinder the meaning of the image, but encourages the viewer to think beyond what is presented, thus develop multiple interpretations—this is the power of narrative text that leads the viewer to create a relationship of identification or empathy with the subject matter and the artist. For these reasons, artists such as Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Pat Ward Williams, and Elizabeth Catlett include text as a narrative tool within their artwork, allowing the viewer to connect more closely with the subject matter and the artist. The use of first person narrative allows the viewer to temporarily occupy the artist’s identity or the subject’s identity, where the viewer can then develop an intimate relationship with the artwork. When a viewer visits an art gallery, often the viewer skims through the painting, sculpture, mixed media, or photograph at hand. The visual content is quickly consumed. Hence, a piece of art is barely given time for interpretation or deconstruction of its meaning. Too often people come out of art galleries looking exhausted, as if they had walked through a store rather than an art showing. The viewer does not take the time to discern the content of the visual arts and thus, the art is left without or little critical assessment. However, aiding the visual with text can change the viewer’s perception or encourage multiple interpretations of the work. Text causes the viewer to stop, and pause to read around, under, or, above the image, which leads the viewer to further assess the image. When establishing a relationship between the text and the image, the viewer is using the mechanism of dual coding. Dual coding, a phrase coined by Allan Pavio, a psychologist of the theory of cognition, is the process in which our mind shifts back and forth between the writing system and the visual system. Incorporating narrative text within the artwork enables the viewer to exercise dual coding to construct a unique relationship of identification or empathy. To continue reading this paper please email art historian, Madelyne Oliver at: madelyne.oliver@yahoo.com

1. Seeing with the Narrative of Text
Madelyne Oliver
African American Women in the Visual
Arts

2. Thesis
The use of text with in artworks such as those of
Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Pat Ward Williams,
and Elizabeth Catlett, creates a narrative, in which the
viewer is not in any way hindered by predetermined
interpretations, but instead the viewer is encouraged
by dual coding of the text to fully explore the content
and meaning of the visual. By doing so, there are two
results to the inclusion and the power of narrative
text: empathy or identification with the subject matter
of the visual and the artist herself.

3. Background on Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson
• 1940-present
• Grew up in Poindexter Village-
federal housing complex on the east
side of Columbus, Ohio
• This community became known as
the “Blackberry Patch”
neighborhood, a thriving Black
community where she grew up
listening to stories from her elders
and came to nickname her fellow
neighbors as characters: The
Sockman, Chickenfoot Woman,
Iceman, Trainman, Ragman,
Cameraman, Brownyskin man, and
the Crow Man, all whom become the
basis for her artwork in depicting the
community she knew and loved

4. The Crow Man
mixed media sculpture
54 X 66 X 36 in

5. Journeys I and II
Medium: cloth, thread, buttons, beads, ties, paper, paint, graphite, shells, and
music boxes
22” X 15” ft and 22” X 17” ft
• She is known for using a variety of
materials in her artwork, especially in her
‘pop-up’ books. But it was her father that
taught her that sticks, leaves, mud, dyes
from fruit, vegetables, and roots, pulp from
recycled paper, are art materials that are
everywhere and are always available
• As a child her father encouraged her to
listen to her elders and develop her
relationship with her Aunt Cornelia, who
was a former slave and “provided a link to
the family’s ancestral roots in Angola and
the experience of the Middle Passage…
[and] recounted the family’s saga with
stories about their slave experience in
Sapelo Island, Georgia, the emancipation
period, and the family’s subsequent
migration to Columbus through Dayton,
Tennessee.” (Symphonic Poem pg 15).

6. Her introduction to text like artists Williams and
Catlett...
• Her love for books fueled her inclusion of
text. In her first work a Dream to
Accomplish (1958), she attached a canvas
to a written description of her feelings at a
particular time and ever since then she has
used narratives directly in her artwork
• Has created more than 20,000 works (cloth
paintings, sculptures, pop-up books, quilts,
prints, book illustrations
• In 1979 her six week study trip to Africa
where she stopped in Senegal, Kenya,
Nigeria, and Egypt, inspired her pieces
Afrikan Pilgrimage, the Extended Family
(1980) and Roots begin with Goree Island
(1980), solidifying her connection of her
own family and communal life to that of
her ancestors, the communities of Africa,
and the history of slavery.

7. • By aiding the visual with words, how does that change the viewer’s
perception and interpretation of the work?
• Does the viewer ask more questions or is the viewer satisfied in being
informed by this language inscribed into the image?
• The affects of text causes the viewer to stop and pause to read, therefore
take the time to evaluate the meaning within the image
• The use of first person narrative and power on the viewer
• Dual coding

8. Image1:
Aminah Robinson, African Pilgrimage Journal: the Extended Family, 1980
Pen and Ink, natural dyes, buttons, and thread on homemade paper
80 ½ X 19 ½ in

10. “Dedicated to my Father and Mother who gave me life and
constant love—they taught me the beauty of nature. Afrikan
Pilgrimage—The Extended Family—is a journey of life taken
through the lives of family, friends, and of all Afrikan People
around the world. The consciousness of the extended family
has always been a spiritual experience with its beginnings in
the ‘life of Poindexter Village.’ the place of my birth and
childhood years: Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. This gift—this
beautiful gift of having spent time with brothers and sisters in
Afrika (Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Egypt) has
caused me to see and understand and feel the realities of the
invisible lineage, which has always been the throb—the inner
workings of all Afrikan People” (Symphonic Poem 40-41).

11. Image 2:
Robinson, Roots Begin with Goree Island, 1980
Pen and ink, colored pencils with thread and beads on homemade paper
10 ½ x 55 1/4 in.
http://aminahsworld.org/see/journeys.php

12. What is the Door of No Return and where is
Goree Island?
• Goree Island was a small island off the
coast of Senegal and was the center of the
European Slave Trade
• 20 million Africans passed through the
Island between the mid-1500s and the mid-
1800s
• This was essentially a slave-holding
warehouse awaiting to be shipped across
the Atlantic Ocean
• 30 men would sit in an 8-square-foot cell
with only a small slit of window facing
outward, mothers were separated from
their children, sea water seeped inside
stepping up the dehydration, while above
their head balls and parties were thrown
• There is a small “door of no return”
“through which every man, woman and
child walked to the slave boat, catching a
last glimpse of their homeland” (African
American Registry).
• Today the Island has about 1000 residents

13. “In the search for ‘Roots,’ we must consider the various
peoples from which the slaves were drawn. The most
popular were the Yorubas of Nigeria and Benin. They
were principally chosen because of their strong physical
condition. The people of the Wolof, Serer, and Fulani
tribe were also sold in large numbers” (“Aminah’s
World” http://aminahsworld.org).
“Once you go through the door, there is no return…Once
you have experienced it, you’ll never forget it. It’s
always there. I heard my ancestors, I could feel them, I
could smell them, and I wanted to bring that to this
piece.”
-Aminah Robinson
Symphonic Poem 137

14. Image 3:
Pat Ward Williams, Accused/Blowtorch/Padlock, 1986

16. Image 4:
Elizabeth Catlett, I have always worked hard in America from
The Negro Woman series, 1946

17. So what?
• The inclusion of text does not hinder the meaning of
the image, but encourages the viewer to think beyond
what is presented, thus develop multiple
interpretations—this is the power of narrative text
• This then has two results: identification and empathy
In other words, “the unique qualities of a text can
combine with the unique qualities of an image to
yield meaning that is expanded beyond that which
can be created from one another solely” (Sweet, 274).

18. Bibliography
1. African American Registry. “Goree Island, home of ‘The Door of No Return’”. The
African American Registry 2005, http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history
(accessed February 10, 2008).
2. Aminah’s World. “See—Journeys”. Columbus Museum of Art.
http://aminahsworld.org/index.php (accessed March 3, 2008).
3. Cooks, Bridget R. “See Me Now.” Camera Obscura vol 36 (September 1995), pp 66-83.
4. Emig, J. The web of meaning: Essays on writing, teaching, learning, and thinking.
(New Jersey: Boynton/Cook, 1983).
5. Genshaft, Carole Miller and notes by Aminah Robinson. Symphonic Poem: The art of
Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. (Columbus, Columbus Museum of Art, 2002).
6. Henley, David R. “Political Correctness in the Artroom: Pushing the limits of Artistic
License.” Art Education, vol 48, (September 1995) pp. 57-66.
7. Herzog, Melanie Anne, Chapter 2, “Encounters with Mexico, 1946-1947” in Elizabeth Catlett:
An American Artist in Mexico, (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2000),
pp. 49-71.
8. James, Patricia. “‘I am the Dark Forest’: Personal Analogy as a Way to Understand
Metaphor.” Art Education, vol 53, (September 2000) pp. 6-11.
9. Pavio, A, & Walsh, M. Psychological processes in metaphor comprehension and memory.
(Cambridge, Cambridge University, 1993).
10. Sweet, A.P. “A national policy perspective on research intersection between literacy
and the visual/communicative arts” in Handbook of Research on Teaching. (New York:
Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1997).
11. Rogers, Sarah J., Claire Aguilar, Papo Colo, Bart De Baere, etc. Will/Power: New Works by
Papo Colo, Jimmie Durham, David Hammons, Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, Adrian
Piper, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. (Columbus, Wexner Center for the Arts, 1993).