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Bay Area Loses Art Pioneer,
Passing of Rae Louise Haywood
The Bay Area mourns the death of art pioneer Rae Louise Hayward, co-founder of the Art
of LivingBlack (TAOLB). It was announced that she passed away on Thursday, January 3, 2008.
In life, Rae Louise Hayward was a modest, humble, and soft-spoken woman. However, reaction
to her death by Bay Area artists has been like the passing of a great queen. "She was the hub
of the matrix of African American artists. She was gentle, gracious, and kind. She was the most
sincere person that I ever met. I enjoyed our conversation, her humor and her humanity",
says Oakland artist Orlonda Uffre. "She was a real dynamic force in the community.
She will be missed. Her legacy will always live on". reflects Dianne Love curator
of the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery.
TAOLB is an annual exhibition and self-guided tour that was founded in 1997 by Rae Louise Hayward and the late Jan Hart-Schuyers. The Richmond Art Center has been a sponsor of the event since its inception. The public is treated to a free exhibition of works by over 70 artists and a self-guided art tour of artists's studios, small group shows, and satellite exhibits (http://taolb.org/satellite.html) throughout the Bay Area.
Since Schuyers death, Rae along with committed members and supporters successfully held TAOLB together enabling it to flourish and to ultimately become one of the country's major exhibitions of African American Art. According to Betty Kano, former Director of ProArts, "Rae should be given major credit for bringing together the Black community in an enormous way. The TAOLB far surpasses any open studio events of its kind". She credits Rae for using the "African village" idea, an African legacy that she regrets is not often utilized in the arts.
With the announcement of Rae's death, there has been a flurry of phone calls to TAOLB artists throughout the country. Artist are struggling to reach out to each other to cope with their loss.Jeanette Madden shares, "Rae was TAOLB to me. She was a gentle and loving spirit. When I sent my first slides to her she exclaimed, 'where have you been!' She likely received each artist and their work with the same enthusiasm and admiration. I never met a more generous person. She possessed a generosity of the heart and soul. It will take many feet to fill her shoes."
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