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Marsha MacDowell and Kurt Dewhurst
Our research interests are grounded in over twenty-five years of documenting folk and traditional arts as community-based expressive culture. Our interdisciplinary approach to this subject includes observing and documenting the production, use, and meaning of particular forms utilizing photography, field notes, and tape-recorded interviews with artists/tradition-bearers, community members, and those who sell, buy, and use these traditional arts.
In 1997, we made our first trip to South Africa as part of a major collaborative project involving Michigan State University and other U.S. and South African institutions to provide training to South Africans in museum studies and fieldwork documentation. During our initial and subsequent trips to South Africa our long-standing research interests in both regional traditional arts and Native American basketmaking, beadwork, and carving traditions drew us to focus on similar genres of specific peoples situated in regions of South Africa.
Among the items selected for this exhibition is the beaded cloth sculpture of a dog made by the Zulu artist, Khulumelaphi Hlambisa's. Zulu beadwork has a rich history as it relates to traditional personal and object adornment. However, in recent years, a wide variety of beaded forms have been made to appeal to the growing tourist trade. Another object is a shallow basket made with recycled, brightly-colored telephone wire by Bheki Diamini as a tribute to the 1998 South Africa World Cup men's soccer team—here referred to as "Bafana Bafana" (literally "the boys, the boys"). A pair of wood sculptures, one depicting a man in traditional Zulu attire and another dressed in (Western-derived) office clothes, represent the dynamic South African tradition of wood carving. The sculptor who produced these pieces, Julius Mfethe, is from the Transkei and was recognized in 1997 as the National Standard Bank artist of the year. His work often deals with contemporary life in Black South Africa.
Collector / Donor Statements
Virginia Artis . Nancy and George Axinn . Marsha MacDowell and Kurt Dewhurst . James Ellison . Robert Glew . Suzanne Miers . Simon Ottenberg . Barbara Porter-Spaulding . Raymond Silverman . Neal Sobania . Robert Zigler
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