Aminah Robinson Dies at 75.

Aminah Robinson

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An Ohio folk artist whose work focused on her childhood neighborhood in Columbus has died.

Columbus Museum of Art Executive Director Nannette Maciejunes said Aminah Robinson died Friday at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for heart issues. She was 75.

Robinson was born in Columbus and grew up in Poindexter Village, a federal housing project on the city's east side. Poindexter replaced a ramshackle neighborhood called the Blackberry Patch, where several of Robinson's relatives had lived. Characters from these neighborhoods populate her cloth paintings.

Born Brenda, she legally took the name Aminah in 1980 after a holy man gave her the name in Egypt in 1979. A former MacArthur Foundation fellow, her work has been shown in galleries and museums around the world.