Novica: Carved Wood African Fan

Kwame Frimpong carves a beautiful African woman from sese wood. Weaving a brightly colored straw headdress, he transforms the piece into a very original fan.

PBS: Africa for Kids

Hi! This is a Dogon Rabbit mask, which is used in a special dance. You can make any of these masks. All you have to do is CLICK ON the one you want, and follow the instructions on the next page. You can see the Dogon dance by CLICKING on the VIDEO CLIP. You need REALPLAYER, to see the dance. If you don't have it, get REAL PLAYER FREE, just click here My World | Thumb Piano Tunes | Make a Mask | Swahili Folktale Teacher Tools | PBS Kids Privacy Policy

The Kennedy Center African Odyssey Interactive

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Visual Arts and Education Resources

Bas-Relief Sculpture. The "Abomey: History Told on Walls" Exhibition includes rich examples of the 250 year-old tradition of the Benin, West Africa, bas-relief art form—including some of its earliest surviving examples. African Textiles Designs. African textiles reflect a range of artistic and social communications continuity, change, and ingenuity in beautiful and vivid designs. Prints, Collages, and Monoprints. John T. Scott Renderings reflect dazzling compositions of color, texture, and symbolic forms from the African Diaspora. Painted Rocks of Africa. The African Rock Art exhibit presents spectacular photographic images of the worlds' most ancient and fragile rock art, which illustrates the cultural life, philosophy and rites of the San—the oldest indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. Stone Sculpture. Zimbabwe stone sculpture is produced from rocks that provide for an unusual range of colors and hardness.

Nike Centre for Art and Culture, Nigeria

Artist and Designer Nike Davies Okundaye invites you to visit her Nigeria, an ancient culture that thrives in modern cities, a world that moves easily between talking drums and the internet.

Nike has given workshops on traditional Nigerian textiles to audiences in the US and Europe during the past 20 years. While she is known for her colorful batik and paintings that offers a modernist gloss on traditional themes, she was brought up amidst the traditional weaving and dying practiced in her native village of Ogidi in Western Nigeria. Her fame as an artist and teacher has taken her all over the globe. Now, she invites you to visit her in Nigeria and immerse yourself in African tradition.

Nike found that the traditional methods of weaving and dying that had been her original inspiration were fading in Nigeria. She used her international success to launch a cultural revival, building art centers where young Nigerians master traditional arts and crafts. You can now visit the world of the Yoruba, to explore a culture that has flourished in Western Nigeria for well over 1000 years.

Whether you are a specialist in the arts, an enthusiast of African arts or merely interested in a brief immersion in a new culture, Nike offers the opportunity to see Nigeria with fresh eyes. You stay at guest houses at her homes in Lagos, Oshogbo and Ogidi. You travel through Nigeria in air conditioned cars and buses with your guides and teachers. You spend your days visiting museums, galleries, and traditional markets, or studying the techniques used by Yoruba craftsmen and artists. You join her family and her apprentices at mealtimes to sample Nigerian specialties.

Nike Art Centers
Textile artists, painters, sculptors, dancers and drummers... Learn more about Nike's five Art Centers in Lagos, Oshogbo, Ogidi and Abuja, where Nigerian artists and craftsmen ply their trades and where you can study among them.

Tours
Visiting our art centers and Nigeria, from the moment you arrive until you walk into the departure lounge you are our guest. Learn more about our tours, accommodations, and travel tips for Nigeria.

Arts
Adire, batik, indigo, beadwork, painting, carving, embroidery, metalwork, weaving and drumming. Our students are engaged in a variety of both traditional and contemporary arts. Visit this page also for information on purchasing our artworks.

Africancraft.com, A Wonderful Resource!

The most interesting sites on the Internet tend to have something in common, in our opinion, and that is that they were built by a multitude of different people and reflect a variety of voices.

Our intention in designing the AfricanCraft.com web site has been to set up just such a site, where anybody with an interest, or business, in the arts of Africa can contribute information. The result, we hope, will lead to a site that reflects the great variety of ideas and techniques found in the arts of Africa - both traditional and modern.

We wish to provide a venue for all African artisans to showcase their work. Additionally we will showcase product designers whose work incorporates African materials or designs; and will provide information on books, articles and educational materials of interest. In the great linking tradition of the Web, we hope that this site will link together disparate sources of information - from the people who work in the traditional crafts and those who are influenced by them.

The most exciting prospect for the AfricanCraft.com web site, would be for it to act as a giant world-accessible bulletin board! Our job, as we view it, is to keep it running and to organize all the information on it so that viewers can easily find what interests them.

We invite submissions from artisans, product designers, scholars, authors, photographers, merchants, and all who simply have a passion for Africa's designs.

Most of our services are free to qualified individuals and organizations.

There is also a commercial area of the web site, the "Shops", where several retailers offer their product catalogs under a unified ordering mechanism which we maintain.

AfricanCraft.com is the main website of our parent company, African Crafts Online, Inc.

Ananse Village: African Crafts and Textiles

Africa is a continent rich in artistic expression. From the beautiful Ilala palm baskets made by members of the Zulu tribe in South Africa, traditional tonga basket from Zambia, the percussive traditions of the djembe, brekete , ashiko, djun-djun, balaphone, kpanolgo, atsimevu and don-don drums of West Africa, to the magnificent kente cloth, bologanfini (mudcloth), kuba cloth and batik textiles of the continent, the cultural heritage of Africa is expressed.

We are proud to offer the finest traditional African crafts produced in a fair trade environment. By working directly with village artisans we are able to positively affect the economic development in the most needy areas. Ananse Village is dedicated to supporting small scale production by talented craftspeople. A portion of our profits helps provide medical care and educational opportunities to the communities we work with.

African Elegance

African Elegance

Product Description
In Africa, beaded ornaments may mark an individual's progress through life, and intricate woven fabrics chronicle the deeds of warriors and kings. "African Elegance" delves into the ways in which such traditional objects as masks, jewelry, and wooden vessels are used in contemporary African society. From the vibrant, carved coffins of Ghana and the treasures made by sixteenth-century Benin metal smiths to the sleek objects in serpentine crafted by the Shona sculptors of Zimbabwe, "African Elegance" dynamically explores how native Africans display themselves, exchange messages, and tell stories through craft. An object as beautiful as the work it celebrates, "African Elegance" is a stunningly photographed chronicle of art and personal adornment.