Barbara Higgins Bond, a Nationally-renowned artist, will return to Arkansas on April 18 for Celebrate! Maya Project of Arkansas. Higgins Bond will receive the 2023 Annual Spirit of Maya Award, which aims to recognize artists, educators, children’s advocates and humanists whose work mirrors Maya Angelou.

 

Higgins Bond is originally from Little Rock, however left the area about 55 years ago. Though she is not local to Arkansas anymore, she continues to visit her family members, and draws inspiration from lasting memories and deep roots in the city. Born into a loving home on east Ninth Street, Higgins Bond grew up surrounded by family, including her mother, Edna Washington Higgins, her father, Henry Drew Higgins and four siblings in addition to three paternal half-siblings. She also grew up near her grandmother, her aunt, her great-grandmother and several cousins. Higgins Bond  attended Carver Elementary, Dunbar Middle School and Booker Jr. High before graduating from Central High School in 1968, about 10 years after the 1957 integration of the school.

 

According to Higgins Bond, she carries the value of family and living in a tight-knit close life is carried on from her childhood.

 

“I would tell 10-year-old Barbara that even the hard experiences can be used as teaching opportunities, I would tell her, perseverance is key,” Higgins Bond said.

 

Higgins Bond attended Memphis College of Art, where she met her husband, Benny Hayes Bond in Memphis. Shortly after marrying, Bond worked as a recreational therapist in Teaneck, New Jersey and Higgins Bond began her career at Manhattan-based Arnold and Associates.

 

As an artist, Higgins Bond explained her favorite artists include Jerry Pinkney, Norman Rockwell, Matisse, Thomas Blackshear, Trinidadian and Leo and Diane Dillon. Though Higgins Bond was not initially certain about a career in art, she has built an incredible life for herself.

 

“I would tell young people pursuing the arts to just keep doing it. Practice, practice, practice and go beyond practice and experiment,” Higgins Bond said.

 

In the early 1970’s, Higgins Bond’s art work began to take off as one of her earliest large commissions was used in Anheuser Busch’s campaign highlighting Black artists. She was also the only artist commissioned to create three paintings: “14th Century Mali Kin Mansa Kankan Musa,” “Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten and his wife Queen Nefertiti,” and “Yaa Asantewaa, Queen of Ghana.” These paintings were displayed as the Great Queens & Kings of Africa Series in a T.V. commercial for “Roots: The Second Generation.”

 

“Theres nothing I would change [about my journey] every part of my journey was a teaching opportunity,” Higgins Bond said. “When I lost my husband in 1996, I was torn between moving to Little Rock to be near my parents and moving to Nashville to be near my son, who was in college then. I decided to move to Nashville and I have been. very happy. It is a wonderful journey. My early choice to freelance was a good one.”

 

In addition to her many other accomplishments, Higgins Bond became the first African American woman to design and illustrate a stamp for the U.S. Postal Service, which she designed three. The first was of W.E.B. Dubois, the second was Percy Julian and the third was Jan Ernst Matzeliger. This series, created by Higgins Bond, was the longest-running commemorative series in U.S. history. As an illustrator, she has illustrated more than forty books by authors such as Joan Banks, Mary Batten, Melvin and Gilda Berger and Melissa Stewart.Higgins Bond has also been a lecturer, teacher and resident artist at several schools and according to the artist, art is more than a career.

 

Dr. Maya Angelou’s legacy is widely celebrated in Arkansas and will continue to live on in the Natural State and Beyond.

 

“I’m really sorry I never met her. She left such a legacy for those of us who didn’t meet her. I remember seeing “I know why the Caged Bird Sings,” and I found the movie so riveting. What she left us is a rich legacy,” Higgins Bond said.

 

The Awards Luncheon & Celebration is part of Celebrating Maya’s events which are held throughout April and early May. This year’s luncheon will be held at the Pavilion at Heifer International in Little Rock from 11:30 a.m. CST – 1:30 p.m. CST.

 

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