February 12, 2007
I only drew ONE picture on my whole trip around Ghana the past 10 days. Makes me wish I didn't lug around all my drawing supplies with me! But I should have known better, I know I can't sit still to make art when I could be exploring a new place. So here's the drawing I did overlooking Mole National Park, it ended up a bit Cezanne/ early cubistic in style. Those blobs in the water are the elephants...
The next three pieces here I spit out this morning, they fell out of me like rain...The first one is about my expierience in the big market in Kumasi. I felt like I couldn't actually stop and look at anything there because I attracted so much attention. So my whole vision of it was a colorful blur of textiles, beads, and produce...
And this drawing here was inspired by the Kente cloth found in Kumasi, and really all over Ghana. The colorful patterns of the fabric were indeed beautiful, but they also reflected a deeper metaphor to me about the highly traditional Ghanaian people. I think some of their traditions restrict them, bind them like the rigid unwavering geometric patterns of the fabric. So I wanted to make it a little more dynamic, flexible...
And I got the idea for this drawing here when I was in the middle-of-nowhere at Nkoranza. It was the first place I could clearly see the stars here in Ghana, and I just was craning my head back as far as it would go to soak it all in. The same constelations, the same milky way. And it seemed if I kept looking back, maybe I would land back down in Virginia. If that makes sense. Anyway, I'm not sure if it should be vertical or horizontal. But this one came out already with a title, Transporter. (Yes indeed, I see the ST: TNG correlation!)
Today marks my half-way point in my trip here in Africa, even though it feels like I've been here for forever already. I can't believe I still have weeks and weeks worth of more adventures and experiences to come, and I look forward to seeing what will arise out of it.
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