Southern Oaks Library, 6900 S. Walker, invites local youth to come celebrate the "Harlem Renaissance" with an afternoon of collage-based art activities, beginning 2 p.m. Saturday.
The event is designed primarily for teens, and is cosponsored by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in honor of the museum's "Harlem Renaissance" exhibit opening Thursday.
Rose State College art professor Suzanne Thomas will help create mixed-media collages based on the work of Romare Bearden, a socially conscious artist whose collages gained national attention during the civil rights movement.
Thomas said she believes the time period was one of the most meaningful periods of artistic development in American history and needs to be celebrated.
"This was a collective group of individuals who heeded the call to define who we are as a culture," she said. "It was primarily a literary movement that would seep into literature, visual and performing arts, and that would eventually go mainstream right before World War II."
Participants will use text, imagery, photography and other mixed media to create pieces that represent the philosophy and themes of the era.
Admission is free. For more information, call 631-4468.
"James Lovett