A D I N K R A ! - Fabric stamping from Ghana

I've mentioned before how we collect not only textiles, but also tools used to make those textiles.  So here are some Adinkra stamps along with a piece of Adinkra, all of which we got in Ghana. (Our travel photos from that trip are here.)  And here's a video of someone using the stamps.

The stamps are carved from calabash gourds & you can see on the 2nd example that they are curved.  You'll notice in the video that the printers have to "rock" the stamps a bit to get the complete design to stamp.

A piece of fabric uses many different stamps, broken up by the colorful embroidery used to stitch 2 strips of fabric together (again, strip woven fabric used as part of the overall design), then they use a piece of wood that looks like a hair pick to make the parallel lines that also make the outline of the checkerboard.

The stamps represent ideas and proverbs.  Head on over to adinkra.org to see an explanation of what the different symbols mean.  (Click on the symbols at the top of that page.) Photos of a stamp carver hard at work are here.

In the second photo, I was trying to show you how the stamps are held.  Each one has little holes in the back (3 or 4, depending on the size/shape of the stamp).  Small sticks are inserted into these holes (they look like overgrown toothpicks).  Then the 3-4 sticks are held together with a piece of cloth bound by string.  It is not at all stable, everything slips apart quite easily.  We try to never handle ours because they dismantle if you look sideways at them! We took them all apart to get them home, but have tried to avoid that since.

We bought our stamps at a tourist shop in Tamale and they haven't been used.

MMJ - West African skirt - I leaked into July

MMJuners, please forgive me.  I'll stop w/ the Mohammed-Made-June stuff, though there's quite a bit more in my closet.  But I do love this skirt.  It looks like Adinkra, which is stamped fabric made in Ghana, though this is batik, not stamped. (BTW, that video is great and even includes the symbol on my skirt.)  The symbols have meaning, and you see a large variety all over Ghana, on fabric, artwork, decorating stores, buses, labels in the grocery store--everywhere.  Anyway, the Gye Name symbol (on my skirt it's the non-square symbol) means the "supremacy of God."

Wearing this skirt is always a great opportunity to get out my green/turquoise sandals, my turquoise sunglasses and my turquoise (as opposed to green) turquoise.

BTW, concerts such as Youssou n'Dour are great for checking out amazing African textiles (mostly West African prints & bogolan). The audience really dresses up & it's fun to see the mix of traditional and modern styles.  To give you an idea, the quilt pictured here is made from the 80 lbs of printed fabric & woven textiles we brought back from our trip there. Another fun aspect is the audience is not shy about dancing!  Although the music is so amazing, I don't think many people could stand still.