July 1, 2005: Headlines: COS - Nigeria: Art: African Arts: Henry John Drewal says My earliest encounter with African/African Diaspora art dates to my very first attempt at African art "research"-my apprenticeship to the Yoruba artist Sanusi of the Adugbologe Workshop in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1965, while I was a Peace Corps secondary school teacher
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July 1, 2005: Headlines: COS - Nigeria: Art: African Arts: Henry John Drewal says My earliest encounter with African/African Diaspora art dates to my very first attempt at African art "research"-my apprenticeship to the Yoruba artist Sanusi of the Adugbologe Workshop in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1965, while I was a Peace Corps secondary school teacher
Henry John Drewal says My earliest encounter with African/African Diaspora art dates to my very first attempt at African art "research"-my apprenticeship to the Yoruba artist Sanusi of the Adugbologe Workshop in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1965, while I was a Peace Corps secondary school teacher
"In 2004 I was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a project that has intrigued me for a long time-the role of the senses in understandings of African/African Diaspora art, and art in general."
Henry John Drewal says My earliest encounter with African/African Diaspora art dates to my very first attempt at African art "research"-my apprenticeship to the Yoruba artist Sanusi of the Adugbologe Workshop in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1965, while I was a Peace Corps secondary school teacher
Senses in Understandings of Art
Jul 1, 2005 - African Arts
[Excerpt]
In 2004 I was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a project that has intrigued me for a long time-the role of the senses in understandings of African/African Diaspora art, and art in general. I am preparing a book on the subject.1 My earliest encounter with this topic, though I did not know it at the time, dates to my very first attempt at African art "research"-my apprenticeship to the Yoruba artist Sanusi of the Adugbologe Workshop in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1965, while I was a Peace Corps secondary school teacher. I did a second, mask-making apprenticeship with Ogundipe of Ilaro in 1978 when the head of the Gelede society challenged me to make one for the impending festival.
I did, and believe that work still dances in Gelede performances (Fig. 1; Okediji 2003:182). What I learned from those apprenticeships was that the actions of artists teach us as much about style and aesthetics as their words. I began to gain insights into Yoruba artistic concepts, not only in discussing them with artists and observing them as they emerged from the creative process, but also in attempting to achieve them in my own carving under the tutelage of Yoruba artists (Drewal 1980:7).
In other words, my own bodily, multi-sensorial experience was crucial to a more profound understanding of Yoruba art and the culture and history that shape it. This process of watching, listening, carving, making mistakes, being corrected by example, and trying again was a transformative experience for me. Slowly my body learned to carve as my adze-strokes became more precise and effective and the image in my mind took shape through the actions of my body. Yorubas understand this kind of experience and explain it with a sensory metaphor: "the outsider or uninitiated usually sees through the nose" (imu ni alejofi i riran; Abiodun 1990:75).
This saying has two different yet complementary connotations: that an outsider understands little because he/she confuses sensing organs; and, at the same time, that understanding requires multiple senses (Roland Abiodun, personal communication, 2005; Abayomi Ola, personal communication, 2005).
[Excerpt]
I recently watched Lightning in a Bottle: The History of the Blues (2004), a documentary of an historic performance at Radio City Music Hall. In an interview included as an extra on the film's dvd, the director Antoine Fuqua reminded us that the blues started in Africa and came to the (Mississippi) Delta. For the film, he wanted to turn the Hall into a "juke joint": a moody, contrasty, dark place so you could feel like you were in a juke joint down South somewhere ... so you could actually feel it, smell it, see it ... see the sweat off these guys ... that's the blues, man, its moody ... it was just instinct, it wasn't really something I had to think much about...."
He is talking about how his senses profoundly shaped him and his vision for this film. If we want to understand the creativity of artists and the responses of audiences, then we must understand how the senses shape and guide us from pre-cradle to grave.
I welcome leads, suggestions, and advice as I begin this work. You can reach me via email at: hjdrewal@wisc.edu. Let our body- minds soar as we create words to convey the sensuous experiences called art.
Henry John Drewal
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Story Source: African Arts
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Nigeria; Art
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