This posting was submitted by Janet Goldner a New York-based artist who has worked in Mali over the last 26 years. Her main contacts and collaborators are member of the Groupe Bogolan Kasobane who have been instrumental in reviving and preserving traditional Malian textile techniques and cultural objects particularly the clay slip painting known as “bogolan.”
Fashion designer Abdul Koroma was born and raised in Freetown Sierra Leone and educated in London. Koroma is co-owner of the London-based fashion house and design consultancy Modernist. The brand, which has shown its collection at London’s Fashion Week, is know for it’s clean lines and precise tailoring.
“Design Activist” would be the most appropriate way to describe American industrial designer Stephen Burks. This young multi-talented visionary, who has worked with some of the world’s most recognizable names in fashion and furniture industry, is changing the we way think about design – one idea at a time. By simultaneously using a top-down and a bottom-up approach he brings together the industrialized world’s gatekeepers of culture with traditional people in remote locales to create sustainable objects and symbiotic relationships.
Suzanne Morlock is an artist who lives outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She is works in painting and more recently sculpture and installation involving more organic materials, paper and felt. Morlock has exhibited in the US and internationally. This posting is drawn from her experiences in the summer of 2009 with Cross Cultural Collaborative, Inc., Teshie/ Nungua, Ghana.
Today’s post is written by a guest blogger, Sarah Archer, who is the Director of Greenwich House Pottery. She writes about their current exhibition, “Mid-Century Style and Studio Pottery,” up now through February 10. The exhibition is a must-see for mid-century modernism addicts (I personally would like to move right into the period room she installed), who can also get a fix at tonight’s program at MAD, organized by Sarah.
First, a little history – during the 1600’s, groups of escaped and shipwrecked African slaves made their way to St Vincent Island, an island of the Lesser Antilles, the islands that form eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. They mixed with the indigenous Caribs and Arawaks and the Garinagu (that’s plural for Garifuna) were born. They developed a unique language, culture and ritual. Drumming and dance had a central place in the culture.
ED: Dr. Arturo Lindsay, is a Professor of Art & Art History at Spelman College, GA
At the Artist Market of the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta this summer I was admiring a silver ring that a vendor was showing me when all of a sudden a burst of brilliant colors emanating from the adjacent stall distracted me, demanded my attention and forced me to walk away from the silver vendor. The brilliant colors were coming from BaBaBlankets’ stall.
The backdrop of Columbus Circle set the stage for our afternoon adventures with enamel. It seemed the excitement of the city was echoed in the classroom with everyone jockeying for position in the queue. I think everyone was a little surprised by the actual experience of enameling, especially when a little chaos is encouraged.