Our stuff arrive

05.23.2010

Our main consignment of household goods arrived and with it a certain amount of peace has disappeared. Why do we burden ourselves with all this stuff? I make a resolve every now and then to get rid of stuff I do not want and do not need. But it is not so easy. What do you do with these things? You cannot just throw away a heirloom or a gift from a special friend or a reminder of a special event in your life, or something you have made…it is part of your life experience. Add it all together and you clutter your life, and with it probably your future expectations.

All this is in sharp contrast of an amazing experience I had meeting a young Nigerian artist, Tyna Adebowale. Through the gentle insistence of a gallery manager we eventually met. She invited me to her studio and I went, not really knowing what to expect. All I knew from her was the paintings I saw in the gallery, and liked. I arrived at this shabby dilapidated building next to the highway where no numbers indicating where her studio was. Down the passageway a door opened and this beautiful warm enthusiastic 28 year old girl came out to welcome me to her studio. Her studio was a revelation: no more than a half a garage in size and almost half of that partitioned off into what I assume was a storeroom. The remaining space in front of a big window had apart from the half finished paintings on the walls, a small trolley with her art materials, a fan, a two or three plastic chairs and a small chest of drawers with a TV, a printer and her laptop on. Here she spent most of her days… and nights. It turned out to be where she lives as well. When I enquired where she sleeps she indicated right there on the floor. She stretches her own big canvasses herself, also right there on the floor and offered to help me stretch canvasses I can work on. Such Spartan environment might sound austere, but in truth it was warm, honest and inspiring.

We had a wonderful time together, exchanging experiences, technical information and she showed me some of her work on her laptop and when I left we swopped facebook addresses. On a next occasion we started working together, with me propped up on the plastic chair while sketching and she working on the progressingly beautiful, three times life-size portrait of a Nigerian woman with traditional headdress in her sparkling colourful mosaic like style. While working she regaled me with stories of the different peoples in Nigeria, their customs, festivals and food and current politics. On her facebook exchange with her friends, I was able to see for the first time the strange, for me often incomprehensive use of the local English slang, called pidgin english which up to now I have only heard. When spoken, their dialect of English has a lovely round deep musically. For example “enough” is pronounced as “enoff”, “maffia” becomes “moffia”, “want” is pronounced “wont” and “culture” is “colture”.

After those experiences the excitement on the arrival of my own hoarding was mixed with feelings of regret and loss (of simplicity).

In response to the last news letter some people asked me to send photos and wanted to see pictures of Nike. The best way to do that will be to go onto her website: www.nikeart.com. I visited her cultural center just outside Abuja recently. See the photos attached. Imaginative creative buildings greeted me at the end of a dirt road. Once inside the unusual gate, Lois and the other artists came to greet me, in a way I by now realized is typical Nigerian, with warmth, excitement and an eagerness to show me around. I was shown their open air workshop where artist were busy doing embroidery, batik, dying in the indigo pots, and sewing. Inside the gallery were a section for traditional collected items such as the heavy beaded headdress of a king (photo), and a gallery stocked to the brim with contemporary artist’s work and at the back were a room from floor to ceiling with the most beautiful batiks, woven aso’oke cloths, woven raffia runners and cloths embroidered with cowrie shells amongst others.

Needless to say my hoarder’s instinct was awakened again.