 |
|
|
Neal Sobania
For me collecting African art is the unintended result of wanting to learn more about where I was living, and later the desire to discover what insight objects of material culture might add to my understanding of the people among whom I was conducting research.
My first experience in Africa was in Ethiopia in the late 1960s as a Peace Corps volunteer. Ethiopia was then a land tourists were just beginning "to discover." The few shopkeepers who sold "handicrafts" didn't encourage their manufacture but resold objects from different parts of the country produced for everyday life. In addition, they purchased older objects Ethiopians were discarding in favor of the "modern" replacements they desired—wooden coffee trays for enameled ones, storage baskets for plastic jugs and parchment books for printed Bibles—each a wonderful addition to my apartment in Addis Ababa.
As assignments led me from one end of the country to the other I acquired objects that appealed to me—a pipe with a beautifully shaped wooden stem, a head rest with a rich, glossy patina, a choker necklace of colored beads and buttons intricately mixed with wire chain—each reminding me of where I'd been, a person or community I'd been introduced to, an experience I'd had.
In the 1990s the invitation to assist in directing the research with Ray Silverman for the 1994 Michigan State University Museum exhibition "Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity," and most recently initiation of a major research project on traditional metalworkers and painters have led to new opportunities. The result has been a more refined focus to my collecting, specifically objects produced not by anonymous makers, but by individuals who are recognized and respected as creators of objects that remain vital to the communities in which they live. Thus, objects acquired for the MSU collection and more recently additions to my own collection all include detailed documentation of vibrant and living traditions. If only I had been so thorough thirty years ago!
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
|
|
|
