African American Artists Essay -- essays research papers

The multi-talented Camille Billops has found many different ways to express her artistic ability throughout her career. Her works that were done throughout her career was an expression of her life. Throughout the life of Camille she had many influences leading her into the art world. This paper has the artist going through her life coming up through the world as a student to a teacher then artist, and her works making her a legend. The way she met her husband and worked together to make the Hatch-Billops Collection. In her time as an artist she changed her work a few times. She started doing printmaking then changed to sculpture and film making. Throughout her life is what made her films. The trilogy of films makes her life public for everyone to see. From Suzanne Suzanne to Finding Christa and then to String of Pearls. Camille Billops is an artist representing her culture through her works of printmaking, sculpture and film. She has made her mark in history by doing so. Because of this she will always be remembered. Camille Billops was born in Los Angeles in 1933 to Alma Gilmore and Lucius Billops. She attended City College of Los Angeles, Associate of Arts and graduated in 1954. Then changed schools to the University of Southern California and studied occupational therapy. After that she changed schools again to the Los Angeles State College and received her Bachelor of Arts. After her schooling she met her future husband writer and playwright James Vernon Hatch, who is white, and traveled to Egypt and had a one person exhibit for Camille. After her exhibit in Egypt she came back to the states to go back to school. Billops moved to New York and received her Masters in Fine Art from the City College of New York in 1973. While attending the City College of New York she also had begun to teach ceramics. After graduating with her Masters in Fine Art she went and taught ceramics at Rutgers University, Newark, N.Y. Also in 1975 she founded the Hatch-Billops Collection with her husband James Hatch. Th e Hatch-Billops Collection is an archive of African American cultural history that includes oral histories, slides, books, photographs, and other historical materials. Camille’s husband and filmmaker James Hatch was born on October 25, 1928 in Oelwein, Iowa. After earning a B.A. in English and Speech in 1949 from the University of Northern Iowa, Hatch taught high sc... ...winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1992, told how Camille's unwanted pregnancy led her to put Christa up for adoption and how Christa returned twenty years later to confront her mother. And A String of Pearls turns the camera to four generations of men in Camille's family and considers why their fathers died so young. The camera turns to the grandsons, Michael and Peter. Both are without education, jobs or skills to earn a living and both have children that they cannot support. They want them to live, but two doctors from the local hospital trauma ward describe the streets of Los Angeles as a war zone where the US military sends its doctors to learn about gunshot wounds. In A String of Pearls Camille takes a hard look into the hearts of the black men in her family. In this film, love blooms. The multi-talented Camille Billops has found many different ways to express her artistic ability throughout her career. This makes her one of the most exceptional artists of our time. Camille Billops is an artist representing her culture through her works of printmaking, sculpture and film. She has made her mark in history by doing so. Because of this she will always be remembered.