Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. Quotes Ultimately, I’m an artist who’s simply asking myself a set of questions about the time and the moment in which we live and its meaning and implications. My first priority is to understand what I’m doing here on the planet. And when I leave here, I can say that I tried to explore the world in a way that I thought was deeply meaningful and important to myself, and by extension, to others. I was profoundly honored to receive it and to be the first African American woman visual artist to receive it. It was rare and special to be invited into not only the White House but also the Oval Office, to shake the hand of the president of the United States, to greet the First Lady and to stand in this room of great history. When I was about 20 years old, I remember my mother calling me to say that she wished she had done with her life what I was doing with my own, which was an extraordinary compliment because I was doubtful. To have somebody in your corner who simply believes in you and encourages you to go for your dreams, regardless of whether they get it or not, that’s a blessing. It’s been a constant theme in the work I make, and I’m sure it’s borne from the lessons and the life I lived as a young person. To feel comfortable in the world, to know you have a right to be, I can’t even begin to say how important that is for me and for everyone. I fell in love with the possibility that I could continue my studies in a semi-professional way and have the support that I needed in order to make work and have it discussed and challenged in a serious way. The MFA program as a course of study, extending one’s education in the arts, was fairly new. I was part of an emerging class of young people, artists, who were starting to look very seriously at advancing the MFA model.Along with the social ideas we were studying at UC San Diego, it was a culmination of reading, thinking and looking at what it meant to be Black in America, understanding I didn’t need to look far afield, that I could turn to my family to understand the vernacular. Family Pictures and Stories’ is only now really beginning to be shown in a very serious way. It’s taken 40 years for people to catch up with the depth of the project. I have a platform to share certain kinds of ideas. Showing in major institutions has given me the privilege to widen the field, not just for other artists, but for a public looking for signs of themselves. UC San Diego Alumna Carrie Mae Weems Shares Hard Truths, UC San Diego Magazine,(June 03, 2025), by Erika Johnson We do have the possibility to live a considered life. Most young people have no idea what it means to be an artist other than they’re in their studios making paintings or drawings or photographs or videos; but to be an artist is a lot more complicated than that. any of the discussions continue to happen around notions of the black artist, as opposed to the best artist. We are still sidelined in a very particular way. Carrie Mae Weems,ALAIN ELKANN INTERVIEWS,(2 July 2023) As much as I found that I was helping them, they were helping me as much as I was helping them. I’m not simply the giver. I’m also the receiver. I never think that I’m doing anything that is important. I just feel that I need to work at things that matter to me, that uplift me, that inspire me, that carry me. Legendary Artist Carrie Mae Weems Concludes Her University Residency, Syracuse University (15 May 2026),by Kelly Homan Rodoski Let me say that my primary concern in art, as in politics, is with the status and place of Afro-Americans in our country. Carrie Mae Weems,NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN ARTS,(Jan 7 to Mar 21, 1993) There’s something grand in the knowing and the creating of ourselves, and something grander still about how we know and create our personal histories. External links Category:Women artists Category:Photographers from the United States Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:Women born in the 1950s