MISSION
To use art and research as tools for naming what systems have broken and building with communities what should exist instead.
Sable. Sable draws from heraldic tradition, where it represents the color black: a symbol of nobility, endurance, and lineage. Black communities have always demonstrated what it means to rise, rebuild, and innovate in the face of adversity. Sable grounds us in that legacy of our ancestors, our stories, and our collective power.
Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum, honoring the history of the break rather than concealing it. Originating in the 15th century, the practice teaches that fracture is the site of transformation. At SKAR, we think of Black culture as gold, because Black culture has always possessed its own kind of brilliance, shine, and value. Our cracks are the record of survival, reclamation, and renewal.
vision
A world where Black communities are not expected to endure pain and where opportunities to thrive and freedom to create are the norm.
Art & research have the same intention. They are both ways of creating something new.
Margarett McBride, Ph.D.
Dr. Margarett McBride is the founder of Sable Kintsugi Art & Research (SKAR) and the creator behind Made By Margarett. She is a researcher, artist, and public scholar whose life's work sits at the crossroads of Black cultural production and community-centered inquiry.
Since 2006, Dr. McBride has been building an art practice rooted in Black family and community dynamics, where her work doesn't separate beauty from politics, or creativity from accountability. Her research specializes in Black family structures, neighborhood contexts, and community violence, with a sustained focus on the systems that produce harm and the individuals who survive them.
In 2024, a trip to Japan deepened her encounter with Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold, silver, or platinum. What struck her was not the gold itself, but the philosophy: that something broken is not ruined. That the history of the fracture is worth honoring. That repair is a form of mastery. She brought that philosophy home and built SKAR around it, replacing the gold with Black because Black culture has always possessed its own kind of brilliance and its own way of making something new from what the world tried to destroy.
Dr. McBride holds a doctorate degree in Developmental Psychology (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) with a minor in Participatory Action Research and Statistics. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience with a minor in Community Action and Social Change (University of Michigan). She is publicly known as a researcher, author, artist, storyteller, and speaker who focuses on art, research, and community violence elimination. SKAR is her creative home where the art, the research, and the community work lives under one roof.
