I have a lot of new art but none of it scanned or loaded to the computer. A lot has been happening in my house so I have limited my work time.
I am close to finished with the art for the lamp project. I just made a beach scene for my entrepreneur project #2 (the Fair Trade Org.)and I have another entrepreneur! For her I've been busy creating a logo, getting a brochure made, writing a bio and proposal. I am hopeful things will move fast for her. She might be my fastest project as I have a hopeful connection we are pursuing. Cross your fingers and hey, if you know anyone looking for help doing accent modification let me know. For those who might not know what that is, accent modification is for people who are learning a second language. In this case, English. For those hard to learn sounds an accent modification teacher helps them to learn to form their mouth to create these sounds. It is for people who have no speaking obstacles in their own language, this is only a tool to help people better enunciate words in their second language.
I hope to post some art very soon!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Research and art
Here is a photo of something I am working on for the lamp project.
Both of my other projects are taking me to the library for research. I have to kick it into gear to get the art done for my lamp project. My due date was loosely Aug 1st. I have many of the concepts firmed up but there are three styles in which I want to try them. Silly me! So I will do so and then submit the roughs for review. Cross your fingers that across the board one style best speaks for each of my concepts. I suspect it would not be the worst thing if it translates in several styles. I will have to think about this.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Back in the saddle
I am back and I wow, I did a lot and learned a lot! I made it both ways with no jet lag. I didn't get frisked in Amsterdam like the young women behind me on the airplane. I feel I did what I went to do.
The photos I posted with no comments are as follow:
1 is a hotel room in Tamale owned by the Gariba's-some friends of Kate's.
2 Northern village. The houses which are round are owned by lower class people. The square ones are owned by people of higher status. They build them into a compound with a center "courtyard". The woman was headed to get some water from a well.
3 Nass's (Nash's) (a basket weaver who took us to his home) niece hanging out in their home while his sister was at work.
4 Inside Nass's home, basket weaving reeds.
5 At the Art Center in Bolega. Men were adding leather handles to the baskets making them into purses. This is one of my favorite photos that I took while in Ghana.
The photos I posted with no comments are as follow:
1 is a hotel room in Tamale owned by the Gariba's-some friends of Kate's.
2 Northern village. The houses which are round are owned by lower class people. The square ones are owned by people of higher status. They build them into a compound with a center "courtyard". The woman was headed to get some water from a well.
3 Nass's (Nash's) (a basket weaver who took us to his home) niece hanging out in their home while his sister was at work.
4 Inside Nass's home, basket weaving reeds.
5 At the Art Center in Bolega. Men were adding leather handles to the baskets making them into purses. This is one of my favorite photos that I took while in Ghana.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
City Guinea Fowl, country guinea fowl
We went to Tamale. Said, "Tamily." It is a beautiful town, busy. Out of the food markets I've seen Tamale's looked like one my heart yearned to invade with my camera. Skulls of cows three wide sat on a table. At the other side sat two men perched on stools with HUGE hunks of meat and rustic knives. The meat was fresh and pink. As customers come they cut off a hunk for them. It was lovely.
Hundreds of storefronts much like the butcher's packed tightly along the streets edging pedestrians into the street. Cars slip by one another like a perfect musical composition. Among this appearance of chaos (as Kate says) there is great harmony and invention to make the chaos move things forward in its own way. I like this pace, I see it as artistic.
Kate keeps saying the hustlers. I laugh at her! She calls the sellers on the street hustlers and they are but not like Americans think of a hustler-well almost not. There is evidence of pushing goods in a directed (nearly unsavory) way, however, if you start asking the shopkeepers and street vendors questions they will go to any length to help you get what you want. They are sincere with you and really compassionate. It is worth having a problem in Ghana to see the depth of their hospitality! The best way I can say this is with a cheesy metaphor-Twi the local language is said in proverbs so I am just going with the flow.... If you scratch the surface, this is what you get, if you dig a little you plant something which quickly grows.
I want to share more about slavery. Something I could not articulate before has come forward so I will try here to explain. Culturally Ghanaians (I believe Nigerians, People from Togo-could be many other countries in Africa too) follow a practice of giving a child to a relative. They do this with the unspoken hope that this relative will send the child to school. However, they just believe this will happen and really have no clue where the child will go or what they will be asked to do (sell things in the market, etc). Because of this belief that this is the road to bettering your family at the same time they make their child vulnerable. I will explain that in a minute.
As an aside, there is a town North of Tamale where the people designed their homes with roofs that are shaped in a way that they will not burn. They did this because slave wranglers were going to towns, lighting homes on fire-thatched roofs....fire....trouble! The people would flee the house, be caught and sold. The artisans are quick to copy things. We all do this but if you say, "We want this to be exclusive" but somebody else says they like it and asks for it they give it, regardless of what they just said. Which takes me to the fact that these people are HIGHLY entrepreneurial. The factors of giving a child over and natural entrepreneurial nature gave way to slavery. Plus, port towns on the ocean made it possible for an export trade and it was the other countries who wanted these people. It is wrong, I am not trying to justify it but there is a fiber of understanding in me about how this didn't seem so foreign to the people here.
One of the opportunities Kate would like to venture into is helping children who are given to a relative for education and are instead sold into slavery. It is sex slavery. Kate told me of an article she read in the United States about how children as young as 6 would be sold. The American business men pay a lot to have sex with children this young. (ok, I feel sick-just trying to get you to understand there is real need here for income generating opportunities and educational resources.) In Tamale we are working with a group who makes batik, it is run by the Catholic Church. They find slaves and remove them, bringing them to Tamale, which is REALLY far from the coast (In Togo, Nigeria and perhaps Ghana) where they were found. It is cleaner and more organized there too(this is by my observations and from Dr. Gariba and his wife Neo's information they shared.) This group does not discriminate on religious belief, they take everybody.
There are more Muslims in the North. In the morning and the evening you can hear the loud speakers in the town announcing "A Call to Prayer." On the bus from Tamale somebody had a Muslim cell phone ringtone. It sounded similar to the call to prayer song I heard in the morning before boarding the bus.
It was a nice journey to Tamale and Boglatanga where we found a family who makes baskets. They took us to their house. It WAS AWESOME!!!! Nass-said Nash is the oldest boy at home in this house and he is working to keep his sisters in school.
We've met some wonderful people. Tamale is well known for Guinea fowl(like Cornish Game Hen). I ate a lions share while I was there. We stayed at the hotel of Dr and Mrs. Gariba. We also hitched a ride from them to Tamale. I took photos with their son Jeema and played Jeopardy on the ride up with their daughter Aiyasha. This joyful family was wonderful company-I really hope I see them again. I took pictures of their hotel which will hopefully make the cut for their website! -Opportunity is everywhere.
Hundreds of storefronts much like the butcher's packed tightly along the streets edging pedestrians into the street. Cars slip by one another like a perfect musical composition. Among this appearance of chaos (as Kate says) there is great harmony and invention to make the chaos move things forward in its own way. I like this pace, I see it as artistic.
Kate keeps saying the hustlers. I laugh at her! She calls the sellers on the street hustlers and they are but not like Americans think of a hustler-well almost not. There is evidence of pushing goods in a directed (nearly unsavory) way, however, if you start asking the shopkeepers and street vendors questions they will go to any length to help you get what you want. They are sincere with you and really compassionate. It is worth having a problem in Ghana to see the depth of their hospitality! The best way I can say this is with a cheesy metaphor-Twi the local language is said in proverbs so I am just going with the flow.... If you scratch the surface, this is what you get, if you dig a little you plant something which quickly grows.
I want to share more about slavery. Something I could not articulate before has come forward so I will try here to explain. Culturally Ghanaians (I believe Nigerians, People from Togo-could be many other countries in Africa too) follow a practice of giving a child to a relative. They do this with the unspoken hope that this relative will send the child to school. However, they just believe this will happen and really have no clue where the child will go or what they will be asked to do (sell things in the market, etc). Because of this belief that this is the road to bettering your family at the same time they make their child vulnerable. I will explain that in a minute.
As an aside, there is a town North of Tamale where the people designed their homes with roofs that are shaped in a way that they will not burn. They did this because slave wranglers were going to towns, lighting homes on fire-thatched roofs....fire....trouble! The people would flee the house, be caught and sold. The artisans are quick to copy things. We all do this but if you say, "We want this to be exclusive" but somebody else says they like it and asks for it they give it, regardless of what they just said. Which takes me to the fact that these people are HIGHLY entrepreneurial. The factors of giving a child over and natural entrepreneurial nature gave way to slavery. Plus, port towns on the ocean made it possible for an export trade and it was the other countries who wanted these people. It is wrong, I am not trying to justify it but there is a fiber of understanding in me about how this didn't seem so foreign to the people here.
One of the opportunities Kate would like to venture into is helping children who are given to a relative for education and are instead sold into slavery. It is sex slavery. Kate told me of an article she read in the United States about how children as young as 6 would be sold. The American business men pay a lot to have sex with children this young. (ok, I feel sick-just trying to get you to understand there is real need here for income generating opportunities and educational resources.) In Tamale we are working with a group who makes batik, it is run by the Catholic Church. They find slaves and remove them, bringing them to Tamale, which is REALLY far from the coast (In Togo, Nigeria and perhaps Ghana) where they were found. It is cleaner and more organized there too(this is by my observations and from Dr. Gariba and his wife Neo's information they shared.) This group does not discriminate on religious belief, they take everybody.
There are more Muslims in the North. In the morning and the evening you can hear the loud speakers in the town announcing "A Call to Prayer." On the bus from Tamale somebody had a Muslim cell phone ringtone. It sounded similar to the call to prayer song I heard in the morning before boarding the bus.
It was a nice journey to Tamale and Boglatanga where we found a family who makes baskets. They took us to their house. It WAS AWESOME!!!! Nass-said Nash is the oldest boy at home in this house and he is working to keep his sisters in school.
We've met some wonderful people. Tamale is well known for Guinea fowl(like Cornish Game Hen). I ate a lions share while I was there. We stayed at the hotel of Dr and Mrs. Gariba. We also hitched a ride from them to Tamale. I took photos with their son Jeema and played Jeopardy on the ride up with their daughter Aiyasha. This joyful family was wonderful company-I really hope I see them again. I took pictures of their hotel which will hopefully make the cut for their website! -Opportunity is everywhere.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Weekend Edition
The weekend was action packed. Photos from the Rain forest from the "Canopy walk"-you will see me on a rope bridge, Moree, The ocean.
We toured a slave holding castles prior to leaving Elmina. We did not have time for a tour so we started asking this gentleman about the castle and he said he would take us on an abbreviated tour, to me this translated to a private tour! We learned a lot and things there were dire. It makes me nearly ill to think of what we learned so I am not excited to share the info about it. The one fact I can share is out of this one castle came 12,000,000 slaves. The chances of them living through their first 6 months at the castle tells the story of the potential of millions of people who died prior to leaving the castle making the full potential at this one location well above 12,000,000.
The men carrying our luggage were headed to Kate's land. The roads were so muddy that we could not pass by taxi so we walked. The men were so kind to carry our things. We had our laptops, heavy beads we'd purchased and more than we needed scrunched in those bags-poor guys!
Taxi cab photo too. They are smelly little buggers! DIESEL, I tell you it is toxic here with this Diesel-no filters they drive cars until they beg for mercy and then they still drive them.
Elmina Castle is the white building you see in the photo of the city. This is the slave trade port location.
The boats are in the harbor for fishing, mostly Tilapia. Smoked tilapia is everywhere for sale in Ghana.
Amy
Friday, July 10, 2009
More photos
Photos School children, Rainy day photo, pot holes, House where we are staying most of the time, cat.
One more funny fact. These people are entrepreneurs! Kids were on a road filling pot holes and waiting with shovels to get money for doing so!
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