http://timbuktuartcolony.com/
Henry Baba Osageyfo Colby returned home from Viet Nam determined to be his own person, to work for himself and put himself in a position to help uplift and empower African people. The former Philadelphia resident used to hang out on 52nd and Market Streets and was drawn to the vendors and jewelers making and selling their wares on the sidewalk. By interacting with them and sharing ideas, techniques and expertise, he developed his skills as a master silversmith who now has clients the likes of Actors Wesley Snipes, Irma P. Hall and Keith David. Currently residing in Stome Mountain GA, he and two other artists formed an artistic collaboration that they call The Timbuktu Art Colony which is described by Colby as “a symbiotic system of cooperative economics and sharing information through art.
How African art objects traveled from Africa to our museums begins with understanding the history of the relationship between the West and Africa.
From the 15th century onward, Europeans and Africans have been exchanging ideas and commodities. Many objects arrived in the West as curiosities, anthropological specimens, souvenirs, and trophies meant to celebrate the success of colonial campaigns.
Especially during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the collection of African expressive culture for museums became integral to imperial policy. These objects were presented to the public to justify colonial aspirations while concurrently introducing the artistic traditions of Africa to Western audiences. But it was not until the first half of the 20th century, when artists such as Pablo Picasso found inspiration in their abstract and elegant sculptural forms, that African objects were redefined as "Art" in Western museums.
The present display of African objects in the Kresge Art Museum reveals the constantly changing meaning of objects as they travel from one culture to another. In Africa these objects were integral to religious and political institutions and routines of daily life. Most were not intended for quiet aesthetic scrutiny typical of a museum experience, rather they were made important through human agency. Whether a performer wears a mask, a religious specialist uses a figure for therapeutic purposes, or an ambassador presents an emblem of royalty to a political ally--these objects are kept in motion as key mediators in social transactions.
Today certain African artistic forms have come to symbolize and inspire African-American pride. African imagery is at the forefront of popular celebrations of multiculturalism, serving global commercial and local educational strategies. While the meaning of African art changes depending on its context, it continues to serve as a catalyst that inspires individuals in Africa, America and beyond to explore the vitality and diversity of African cultures.
evensmerine@bellsouth.net
Harold Cruse
The Afrocentric idea
He sees these issues from the standpoint of African American history and investigates the various dimensions of the issues from the standpoint of political maturity and cultural consciousness. When one reads his works, the principal ones, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, and Rebellion or Revolution, his concept of the crisis in the African American community is clear. For Cruse, the fundamental question facing the community is a cultural one, not simply one of singing and dancing, but one concerned with the sum total of our behaviors, artistic, social, and communal. Whose culture, he asks, do we uphold ?
The message of Harold Cruse is especially important at this time because this is pre-eminently the age of "no race" and "interrace" and "fluid cultures." We are profoundly affected by this postmodern appeal to forget culture. I am unaware that this mode of thinking has captured the imaginations of any other group to the extent that it has afflicted our intellectuals. For example, I do not know of this attitude among the Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Italian Americans, or French Americans. This seems to be a peculiarly African American problem enhanced by the lack of a strong sense of cultural identity promulgated by Africans who have lost their sense of cultural ground.
I am convinced that the Enslavement was more effective as a maker of slaves, mental slaves, than we could imagine. As other cultures recognize the value of their own and in some cases, like the French, continue to legislate ways to preserve the culture, many African American intellectual still suffers from cultural dualism, a split personality, and leans toward the worship of an iconic whiteness. I can think of no example of people of other cultures urging the abandoning of their culture or refusing to practice their culture. This is obviously a behavior of those who feel inferior or have been made to speak as if their culture is inferior because of their own cultural condition. I can see that if the begining of African American history is slavery then it is difficult for many intellectuals to accept this history and therefore they would rather seek to attach themselves to the culture of others. Herein is a problem in Cruse's construction of the cultural options, whose culture do we uphold, the Afro American or the Anglo American?
Giraffe skin leather purse JacobsEye 
Marcuskwame
Artist
African Textiles
Textiles give African art its vibrant color. In African communities, authority is signified by the rich apparel and regalia worn and used by leaders. Art is used to confirm status; in West Africa, rulers present themselves magnificently robed, adorned with gold jewelry and holding beautifully crafted objects. Because the spirit forces, signified in the masquerades, also gain their power from the visual impact of maskers, color is used in costumes to attract attention.
One of the most sumptuously colored textiles used for clothing is Ghanaian kente cloth, made by Asante and Ewe weavers using specially designed looms. Kente was probably introduced from the western Sudan during the 16th century, when heavy, elaborate, labor-intensive versions of this fabric were designed for wealthy tribal chiefs and simpler designs became available for the general citizenry. Kente is woven in four-inch (9.5 cm) narrow strips that are sewn together. A characteristic Asante kente has geometric shapes woven in bright colors along the entire length of the strip, while Ewe kente often displays a tweed effect by plying together different colored threads in many of the warps. Ewe kente may also incorporate pictorial symbols.
Originally, kente cloth was black and white, but dyes were developed from different plants and a range of colors evolved. Blue was obtained from the indigo plant, red from dried cam wood, brown from Indian tamarind, and green from boiled spinach leaves. With increased trade, imported silks and cottons were unraveled to extend the color range. Colors convey mood, dark shades being associated with grief and used for mourning ceremonies, while lighter shades are associated with happiness. The symbolic significance of kente is located in the motifs (the elephant signifies kingship, the scorpion bitterness). The colors of the Ghanaian national flag – red, yellow, green and black – are popular in modern cloths.
Kente cloth is characterized by sharply defined shapes created by the technique of loom weaving. It is easier to weave geometric than organic shapes, so rectangles, diamonds, zigzags, and squares are predominant. Colors and tones interact along their straight edges, creating optical vibrations as the eye attempts to accommodate constantly changing visual stimuli. Although weavers do not consciously apply the scientific color theory established by the color wheel, they tend to work with abrupt contrasts of tone and hue.
In the hand-woven Asante (Ashante) ceremonial cloth (left), the colors remind Ghanaians of their national identity, but within the cloth they create a dynamic sense of spatial movement. The orange-yellow squares advance and - as the lightest tone - the yellow shimmers against the dark blacks, while red and green zigzag shapes compete with one another. The predominance of angled shapes creates staccato rhythms, making the cloth suitable for use in ceremonies distinguished by repetitive drumbeats and vigorous dancing. A restful pattern would be completely misplaced in performances that build to dramatic crescendos. When worn by rulers, the brilliant cloths attract visual attention, sustaining the concept of authority. The yellow-gold within the cloth is invariably repeated in the gold regalia carried by the ruler.
We are keeping our culture alive through art.
A polymer clay pendant with a hand drawn image on a Dupioni Silk 3/8" cord, deep orange. This pendant has been hand stamped, baked,painted, powdered and glazed with several coats of acrylic finish to protect it pendant measures 2 x 1 1/4"necklace 17 1/2"closings, gold plated
LemachiDesigns
Afrocentric art is a form of expression through our clothing, theatre, music, jewelry, history and art. Art during this time period reflects the thoughts and interpretation of its culture through its own eye.
You can see traces of African art in modern works from Afrocentric artists all over the world.
The long, complex history of settlement within Africa, commencing with the emergence of homo sapiens in eastern Africa, has produced cultural diversity unlike that of any other continent. Africa is a vast landmass with a population of about 885 million people who speak more than 1,000 different languages, each linked to particular ethnic groups and communities. One cannot generalize about African art and culture. Egyptian, Sudanese, and Ethiopian art forms, responding to Mediterranean cultures, Christianity, and Islam are utterly different from the arts of West or southern Africa.
Before 19th-century western colonialism brought Europe into direct contact with sub-Saharan Africa, communities created and used art in ways relating to their African worldviews, as well as their functional and decorative needs. Africans who had not experienced much contact with European cultures of ancient or modern times shared the opinion that art was not produced exclusively for philosophical inquiry, aesthetic contemplation, or narrative reasons. Visual creativity was associated with the applied and decorative arts (such as textiles, jewelry, pottery, artifacts, and furniture) and – through costumes and masks – it fulfilled important spiritual functions in ritualistic and ceremonial activities.
Most sculpture is stylized
and symbolic because it expresses the sacred. In traditional African communities relatively unaffected by non-African cultures and modern urbanization, the boundaries between terrestrial existence and the spiritual realm are not clearly differentiated. Events in the world are explained by the intervention of powerful, unseen ancestral forces. The spirit world is manifested through performance art; music, dance, drama and images are integrated in masquerades. Andreas Goff
http://www.earthsongetal.com/agoff.html
Born in New England, Andreas Goff knew he wanted to be an artist at age 4 when he asked for an easel for christmas. A graduate of American University with a BA in Political Science during the turbulent 60's, the artists social conscience was awakened and nurtured by the civil rights and anti-war movements. He later taught Head Start in St. Petersburg and was regional coordinator for several migrant day care centers in agricultural southern Florida. He taught bilingual education at Ft. Myers Middle School, and social studies and humanities at St. Catherine's Indian School in Santa Fe.
While in New Mexico, Andreas taught pottery and sculpture at St. John's College, and volunteered at the Mescalero Apache Drug and Rehabilitation Center doing art therapy. "My experience at the Indian school proved to be most rewarding. I 
began to do sculptures and began to understand Native American facial features. After ten years of perfecting his pottery, the artist created his first sculpture, a realistic Native American face with a whimsical wrap-around body form. He found a ready market for his unique style and innovative approach to clay.
As an artist-in-residence for the state of New Mexico for four years, his residencies have taken him from the Visually Impaired School in Alamogordo to San Juan Community College, and quaint Spanish villages like Questa and Mora, as well as residencies at Navajo public and boarding schools.
"In my soul there is a deep respect and admiration for native peoples and their approach to art and life, so I strive to capture a sense of beauty and pride in my sculptures." Andreas is an avid petroglyph hunter. These ancient designs frequently find their way onto his pottery and sculpture. He has sketched and photographed rock art on the big island of Hawaii, Vancouver Island, the Olympic Peninsula, throughout tile southwest, Missouri, Lake Erie, and throughout Venezuela, Peru and The Sahara.
"I first began to do African-inspired sculptures while being featured at the Lawrence Gallery in conjunction with the 1990 Winter Park, Fl Arts Festival. The gallery owner requested that I sculpt one of the students who were watching me doing a Native American sculpture. I wasn't really sure of myself, but after I finished I knew I was on the right track when his buddy said, That's bad, now do a sculpture of me."
His 9-inch raku sculpture of an African princess won first place at the 1994 National Miniature Show. Andreas has had a one man show at St. John's College of Santa Fe, San Juan Community College, Orlando Museum of Art artist of the month for Black History Month in 1998, and at Sibanye Gallery of Baltimore in 2000. He has been in several group shows including the Carol Thornton Gallery of Santa Fe, the Sanibel Ms Center, Gallery A of Taos, Penni Anne Cross Gallery of Jackson Hole, WY, the Gold Dragon Gallery of Tampa, and Just Lookin' Gallery in Hagerstown, MD.
The artist has done 7 of the 12 annual Zora Neale Hurston Festivals. Zora was part of the Harlem Renaissance and had lived in Eatonville, Fl., and in 2001 Andreas received his most cherished honor.. an award of merit at the Festival.
Twentieth-century African studies demonstrate that art in Africa needs to be understood in African terms, rather than from a European worldview. Craft-based activities in Africa yielded “art” that was used and valued for its functionality, its decorative and symbolic designs, and its spiritual dimensions. Color was not manipulated in terms of intellectually conceived color theory, and it was not expressive in itself (as it was to become in the art of Van Gogh, Matisse, or Kandinsky). Rather, color was used intuitively, choices being made from available chromatic alternatives arranged to fuse visual dynamics with
symbolic connotations. In many communities, natural materials produced color; as such, earth colors and dyes from plants created a limited range of colors. For this reason, imported trade beads were highly valued since they extended color choices. Later imported cloth further widened color choices.
In each painting, the color of the haystack is different because the light shining on the haystack is different. The color of the haystack is determined by the colors the haystack absorbs.
Modern Art influenced by vision
In 1896, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) sees Monet’s “Haystacks” in a touring exhibition in St. Petersburg. Monet’s paintings have a great impact on Kandinsky’s artistic development towards abstraction.According to Kandinsky:
“The painting showed itself to me in all its fantasy and all its enchantment. Deep within me the first doubt arose about the importance of the object as a necessary element in a picture.”
Instead of referring to the outer world, Kandinsky’s objects correspond to their subjective mood and their “inner nature”. In doing so, his objects become non-fixed and independent from the traditional modes of representation, which aim to depict the illusion of third dimensional space with naturalistic colors. In 1910, only 14 years later, Kandinsky is among the first to paint a completely non-representational abstract painting.
Modern art, while startlingly new, receives much inspiration from the past. Newton’s ideas about color, for example, inspire a modern series of paintings by Frantisek Kupka. Moreover, perhaps under the stimulus of Goethe in 1910-11, Franz Marc paints his dog Russi as seen through a prism, and he records colored fringes at the junctions of light and dark.
My name is Alkemystic I am approaching this from the perspective of a working artist. Experiencing many aspects of art in life. First of all whatever we do in life we have to put true love into it. Hard work is going to happen. Hard work must happen. Art is time consuming and labor intensive. There are so many gifts in the world, ways we choose to travel through life. Imagine an athelete, a banker, a cashier and a soldier. Each has different stakes on the table but they all have one thing in common. Without hard work and dedication they will not succeed. It is no different for art. Working on a piece for days or months consistently in a disciplined fashion will achieve success. Discipline is very important when creating art. For the art to be expressed in a pure way this discipline will flow into our life and heal the artist as well as the art. Discipline to put 8 hours a day into a piece of art for a month or a day.
Discipline will come across in the art and heal.
We must be open minded. When it comes to afrocentric art the bases can be mystic and unseen. Much of the interpretation is based on ancestral written or spoken words as well as direct guidance from the ancestors telling us what to make.
Afrocentric art Think about it.
History shows us how art is a reflection of life. The mental state of the artist will influence the perspective and direction of the brush painting the canvass.
For instance if you can neither prove or disprove the color of Christ why not have more diverse pictures then, afrocentric, chinese, russian, spanish. For the afrocentric artist this would not happen because we do not fight to be influenced by or have the right given to us to excersise appreciation for our culture, we simply live and appreciate it. Therefore it comes across in the art.
The cosmic African is becoming more abundant. African art is morphing. Abstact and form. We are forming a new identity based on the ancient principles.
Afrocentric art has found its way into music with the incorporation of the drum. The clothing and jewelry.
The art of science. The next step as we create functional art.
Art with a purpose.
Healing art.
It is not hard to imagine that in the future art may have a different role. As in the past a modern day silversmith would be the ancient blacksmith. This is evident in every culture.
The purpose of this is to inspire afrocentric artists to make what they see and not what we are told will sell. As a result of the many hurdles we have jumped in our recent history it is difficult for some to reconnect with our culture.
Africa is home to many displaced artists. What we should remember is that African art is beautiful and in demand as it has been throughout history. From ancient Egypt to Benin and down to Angola foreign countries have travelled to the continent for centuries in search of art, in all of its forms.
I have included some of my favorite artists and hopefully you will take time to visit there stores and galleries in your travels. This is one of the ways we as artists can network and organize to direct the path of our success. We have to start creating our own fads, trends, images, etc. In film, videp, music, written and spoken word. This is the way we will preserve our culture as it has been preserved on temple walls, pyramids, sculpture, papyrus, tablets, jewelry, clothing, and oral history.
Our culture extends into the stars , from the Dogon story of Sirius and Digitaria to the burning bush and Moses. We have a rich and vast history within this universe from the sun's and moon's to the earth and beyond.
As we tell our story through our art it reflects this vast library of knowledge that is unified with the cosmos. Our way is pure, natural, we are one with nature. Our power is in peace and love, nature is our breath, the sun is our minds eye, the moon reflects our hearts longing to return to the natural way of harmony with earth. Through art we connect with this frequency.
To be afrocentric is cosmic.
1 comment:
We need more association with our culture
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