Then What Happened podcast: How Deidre Hamlar went on fighting and found passion in art

Dispatch Opinion Staff
·2 min read
Deidre Hamlar
Deidre Hamlar
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A love of poetry brought Deidre Hamlar's parents together and bonded them.

"They had favorite poets and they would read poetry to each other or send poems and letters. I just thought that was really odd for couple to have that thing going on and, I really didn't even know about it until my mother passed away 20 years ago," Hamlar told "Then What Happened" podcast host Amelia Robinson. "At my mother's passing, my father was reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her on her bed."

Hamlar, the director of the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project at the Columbus Museum of Art, explains the twists and turns that drew her into a life of art and two of the biggest challenges she ever faced: helping her parents — Maxine and Dr. David Duffield Hamlar — navigate her mom's alcoholism and finding her own voice.

Hamlar, an attorney with a Juris Doctor from Howard University of Law School, says her mom was pragmatic and did not at first understand her attraction to art and her advocacy for artists.

More: Then What Happened podcast: Gregg Dodd hearts Columbus

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"Because she was so challenging, it helps me understand how art can be challenging for a lot of people out there — especially African American people who have had to bootstrap their lives and really take jobs that they didn't necessarily want in order to survive," she said. "It was an exercise in articulating the value of the arts to my mother and articulating the value of arts to people so that they would somehow see credibility in it and also see that this was something you could make a living at."

More: The power of Aminah Robinson: She captured 'Black love' living in plain sight

How to listen to Then What Happened

Then What Happened Podcast can be found here, on Apple Podcast, Spotify and where ever else you find your favorite shows.

About the Then What Happened podcast

“Then What Had Happened" is powered by The Columbus Dispatch's Conversation section.

Amelia Robinson brings you true stories from the intriguing and inspiring people who bring life to CBUS.  The Twice monthly show takes you to the heart of Columbus.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Deidre Hamlar fulfills dream as Aminah Robinson project director