African design encompasses colours, textures, patterns, styles and traditions varied enough to fuel a range of dazzling home decorating looks. Detailed captions identify the design elements in each photograph, offering readers ideas for their own home
This landmark book shows how five African civilizations—Yoruba, Kongo, Ejagham, Mande and Cross River—have informed and are reflected in the aesthetic, social and metaphysical traditions (music, sculpture, textiles, architecture, religion, idiogrammatic writing) of black people in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, Mexico, Brazil and other places in the New World.
"Focusing primarily, though not exclusively, on the southeastern United States, the book examines works ranging from James Hampton's well-known Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly (now part of the Smithsonian collection), to several elaborately decorated yards and gardens, to smaller-scale acts of commemoration, protection, and witness. The authors show how the artful arrangement and adornment of everyday objects and plants express both the makers' own experiences and concerns and a number of rich and sustaining cultural traditions. They identify a "lexicon" of material signs that are frequently and consistently used in African American culture and art and then show how such elements have been used in various individual works and what they mean to the practitioners themselves."--BOOK JACKET.
"Addresses a real need: a scholarly and ritually informed reading of spirituality in the work of a major African American author. No other work catalogues so thoroughly the grounding of Morrison's work in African cosmogonies. Zauditu-Selassie's many readings of Ba Kongo and Yoruba spiritual presence in Morrison's work are incomparably detailed and generally convincing."--Keith Cartwright, University of North Florida Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. K. Zauditu-Selassie delves deeply into African spiritual traditions, clearly explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as manifest in Morrison's novels. The result is a comprehensive, tour-de-force critical investigation of such works as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Paradise, Love, Beloved, and Jazz. While others have studied the African spiritual ideas and values encoded in Morrison's work, African Spiritual Traditions in the Novels of Toni Morrison is the most comprehensive. Zauditu-Selassie explores a wide range of complex concepts, including African deities, ancestral ideas, spiritual archetypes, mythic trope, and lyrical prose representing African spiritual continuities. Zauditu-Selassie is uniquely positioned to write this book, as she is not only a literary critic but also a practicing Obatala priest in the Yoruba spiritual tradition and a Mama Nganga in the Kongo spiritual system. She analyzes tensions between communal and individual values and moral codes as represented in Morrison's novels. She also uses interviews with and nonfiction written by Morrison to further build her critical paradigm.
African Textiles Today illustrates how African history is read, told, and recorded in cloth. All artifacts or works of art hold within them stories that range far beyond the time of their creation or the lifetime of their creator, and African textiles are patterned with these hidden histories. In Africa, cloth may be used to memorialize or commemorate something - an event, a person, a political cause - which in other parts of the world might be written down in detail or recorded by a plaque or monument. History in Africa can be read, told, and recorded in cloth. Making and trading numerous types of cloth have been vital elements in African life and culture for at least two millennia, linking different parts of the continent with each other and the rest of the world. Africa's long engagement with the peoples of the Mediterranean and the islands of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans provides a story of change and continuity. African Textiles Today shows how ideas, techniques, materials, and markets have adapted and flourished, and how the dynamic traditions in African textiles have provided inspiration for the continent's foremost contemporary artists and photographers. With a concluding chapter discussing the impact of African designs across the world, the book offers a fascinating insight into the living history of Africa.
Persuasiveness. Influence. A certain something that makes it impossible for people to say no. Call it what you will, some people have it. DJ Sbu certainly does. It's the quality that has helped him evolve from an ambitious boy growing up on Tembisa's rough streets to a DJ, an entrepreneur, an author, a philanthropist and a speaker who graces stages around the world. In The Art of Hustling Sbu shares the secrets to cultivating this irresistible quality. Using events that have shaped his own life, he reveals how a positive outlook, resilience, hard work and determination can help you win in every sphere. This inspiring read also acts as a practical handbook, showing you how to apply The Art of Hustling to become a winning salesperson. It is DJ Sbu's firm belief that, if you know how to sell, you will never go hungry. He also believes that this simple skill holds the key to solving Africa's considerable unemployment problem. His passion for youth development comes through loud and clear in this easy-to-read, easy-to-use handbook. Full of practical examples, sound advice and no-nonsense insights, it's a must-have for every person who wishes to further their lives and their careers, whether in the corporate world or starting out on an entrepreneurial journey. DJ Sbu's career is testimony to his strength, resilience and spirit of innovation; the very qualities needed to get ahead in today's rapidly evolving business environment. In sharing his story, he hopes to ignite others' success.
The expatriate, one of America's greatest black writers, giving a bold assessment of the world's outlook on race, a report of the Bandung Conference of 1955.
We all can name some of the Africanist aesthetic-structures that fuel African American and American art ... Syncopation, Improvisation, Call and Response, Cool, Polyrhythm, or Innovation as an ambition- But there are many, many more. What Makes That Black? The African-American Aesthetic identifies and defines seventy-four elements of the aesthetic through text and illustration. Using the magnificent camerawork of R.J. Muna, Sharen Bradford, Jae Man Joo, Rachel Neville, James Barry Knox, and more- as they point their cameras at Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and jazz artists such as Cécile McLorin Salvant and Wynton Marsalis- a specific artistic consciousness or sensibility visually unfolds. Luana even joins the camera crew as she shoots Oakland Street Graffiti.