Art museum names first Robinson writing resident
The Columbus Museum of Art has selected its first Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Writing Resident: author and Howard University lecturer Darlene Taylor.
Taylor, who is a second-year doctoral student from the Washington, D.C., university, has a passion for literary citizenship and social justice that stems from a career in public policy, global corporate communications and philanthropy, an announcement Monday stated.
The residency, which honors be
loved Columbus artist Aminah Robinson, affords Taylor $15,000 cash and a 90-day retreat at the late Robinson's newly renovated home on the Near East Side.
Robinson died in 2015 at the age of 75, leaving her house and estate to the museum, which spent $200,000 to fix up the structure to house working artists such as Taylor.
While in residency with the Columbus museum, Taylor said she plans to expand a published short prose poem into a longer narrative structure and create a hand-stitched textile panel. The writing project explores the stories of women and girls and their journeys through emotional and physical geographies.
Taylor was chosen from a national pool of African American writers by a panel of jurors, which included Hanif Abdurraqib, poet, essayist and cultural critic; Lisa Collins, art historian and Robinson essayist; Carole Genshaft, Columbus Museum curator-at-large; Angela Pace, journalist; Amelia Robinson, Columbus Dispatch opinion and community engagement editor, and Michael Rosen, writer and Robinson book collaborator. award@dispatch.com @Allisonaward