AMINAH

about "Aminah is my art teacher"

AMINAH IS MY ART TEACHER is an art proclamation and movement to honor the legacy of our near east side creative hero Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. Gone too soon, Aminah was a friend, neighbor, and mentor to many of us. Aminah has left us so much to learn from through her work and is a conduit to the near east side's rich history and community legacies.

Today we pay homage to her legacy with the “Aminah is my art teacher” project. The goal of this art project is to unify artists through their shared love for Aminah, all while spreading community art history and cherished legacies of other artists from the community.

Led by Columbus All-star Master Teaching Artists we seek to provide priceless memories through creating collaborative keepsakes and art outreach. Our projects focus on the rich legacies in Aminah's creative teachings and allows the community to share and create together in her honor.

Learning about Aminah unlocks so much history and shares the importance of knowing our past and honoring our ancestors. That is why this project aims to share the legacies of other near east side artists like Elijah Pierce, Kojo Kamau, Barbara Chavous, Roman Johnson, Smokey Brown and more. It is important we bridge the gap, learn our history, and spread the spirit of creating with our neighborhoods.

Our goal is to create and inspire tangible memories that share the beauty of our history.

WHO IS AMINAH?

Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (1940 - 2015) was born on February 18, 1940 to Leroy Edward Robinson and Helen Elizabeth Zimmerman-Robinson in Columbus, Ohio. She was raised within the close-knit community of Poindexter Village, one of the country's first federally funded metropolitan housing developments. The village was "replete with Black cultural traditions such as storytelling, reverence for elders and promotion of creativity". Stories of "Blackberry Patch" history were passed down to her at an early age. At 9 years old, Robinson was already deep in “transforming and recording the culture of [her] people into works of art”, and since then she has devoted her life to it. Robinson frequently taught community children art and black history. She developed the habit of recording information through sketchbooks, journals and drawings to retain the information that fueled her work.

learn about aminah