Wood, cloth, glass, plastic, metal, pigment, and shell buttonsexpand_more
Gift of Mary and Bob Merskyexpand_more 2003.164.3
The wide variety of cultures to which Cribbs has been exposed is evident in her work. Primarily a self-taught artist, Cribbs was born in Colorado, but moved to Ireland with her family as a teenager. After ten years of living and traveling in Europe, Cribbs settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Cribbs has drawn inspiration from ancient art and folk art, as well as from ceramics of the ancient Mimbres culture, a Native American group that lived in what is now New Mexico. These influences can be seen in the colorful patterns and animal motifs of Asanto.
Asanto is a work from Cribbs' multimedia "Scarecrow" series of the early 1990s. Unlike traditional scarecrows stuffed with straw, hers are constructed around a central glass panel backed by a colorful patterned backdrop that allows viewers to look into the "heart" of the figure. Etched into the glass is a voluptuous, nude, winged female figure surrounded by animals and a lone male figure. The scarecrow, while human in form, references its own practical use through painted and etched images of sunflowers and birds.
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