Blend

Rachel Federman: Saar's family plays an important role in her art. Her great-aunt Hattie, seen in the photo at the center of Blend, passed away in 1974, prompting Saar to make assemblages from her belongings. This is Betye Saar speaking about ancestry in the 1977 film, Spirit Catcher, the art of Betye Saar.

Betye Saar: The burdens that my mother had, my aunt had, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, all the way back to people that I don't even know, things that happened in their lifetime that they pass on to their children, but all of those things that become part of us that we transmit to our children. And as my daughters became women, I could see my hang-ups, my mother's hang-ups, my grandmother's hang-ups, and I said, "Wait a minute. I can do something about that. Because if I change and I'm their model, then they change too." It's like at one point, taking the responsibility of your life. There is the hope of being able to control my destiny, to move it from previous points where it was, where I was locked into that getting rid of all that programming and to becoming a true, free creative person.