Activity: Your Mojo Secrets

Activity: Your Mojo Secrets - Body

Make your own work of art inspired by Betye Saar's work, Nine Mojo Secrets. Disponible en español.

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Nine Mojo Secrets

Recommended for ages 8 and up.

About This Artwork

In Nine Mojo Secrets (1971), the artist Betye Saar used found objects to explore ancestral veneration, rituals, and symbolism from various traditional spiritual practices. Saar was inspired specifically by African art, utilizing various iconographic images and objects that represent power, healing, and magic. She combined personal symbols such as the lion that represents the artist’s astrological sign (Leo) with references to Africa such as a magazine photograph of a traditional religious ceremony, as well as images with broad cultural significance like the all-seeing eye, the moon, and stars.

Click on the expand icon below to enlarge the image of Nine Mojo Secrets.

Expand image Mixed media assemblage artwork made out of a vintage window frame within which are a toy lion, a photo of an African religious ceremony from a magazine, a painted crescent moon and stars, and short pieces of wheat. At the bottom, attached, are small pieces of feathers, leather, fur, shells, and bones.

Betye Saar, Nine Mojo Secrets, 1971. Mixed media assemblage, 49.75" x 23.5" x 1.75" California African American Museum. Purchased by Foundation from Olga Adderly in 1989

How might creating your own version of Nine Mojo Secrets help you learn more about yourself and your family lineage?

Activity

For this project, you will create an assemblage, which is a form of art made of everyday found objects, arranged in ways that suggest new meanings.

Supplies

  • Crayons
  • Scissors
  • Glue stick
  • Colored pencils
  • Found objects (things you like at home)
  • Family photos
  • Old magazines that you can cut into
  • Tape

Instructions

1. Find a shoebox or another cardboard box. If using a cardboard box, cut off the flaps so you

have a box with four sides and a bottom.

2. Gather materials you would like to include in the assemblage. For example, you may wish to include your favorite pictures, shapes, or forms.

3. Draw squares and rectangles in your box like the diagram below.

Expand image Nine box square grid numbered 1 through 9, with three numbers per row.

4. Trace your hand in the middle of box #5. Color your hand using your favorite color.

5. Apply images cut from a magazine of your choice and add them to boxes #4 and #6.

6. Find out what your astrological sign is by asking a grown-up or searching the internet. Draw your astrological sign in box #8.

7. Use glue to add found objects to boxes #7 and #9.

8. Draw 3 or 4 moons and/or stars using colored pencils or crayons in boxes #1—#3.

9. Using tape, attach a personal amulet—which is an ornament or small piece of jewelry thought to give protection against evil, danger, or disease—to the bottom of the box.

Reflection

Invite your friends and family at home to view your piece and to discuss the ways in which your work is similar to Saar’s. Be sure to discuss how the assemblage reflects your astrological sign and your amulet of protection.

Developed by the California African American Museum