That’s the sound you hear when everything else is quiet…it’s the background sound that I need for my BLOG right now.
I have been really bad with updating my BLOG lately. I moved to Boston in mid June and a lot has been going on getting acclimated to a new city and I plan to update my BLOG soon with some updates.
RAND
CLICK HERE to read about what’s been going on with me and find out about my upcoming move to Bsoton!
The exhibition I mention below is a small exhibition put on by a group of passionate African art collectors here in Denver whom I met only a few weeks ago. The person curating the exhibition wanted to provide a venue to raise the awareness of, and specifically showcase, African objects from a diverse group of cultures in Africa from local Denver collections. I met him way too late in the process to include anything in the exhibition, but he said that the response from people was so great that he wants to consider doing a larger exhibition next year.
There are a lot of moving parts to manage even when putting on a small exhibition and I think it’s great that a small group of people managed to make this happen and I am very glad that I got to know them and I look forward to working with them in the future. I would encourage and even challenge people, if they are so inclined, to seek out other people in their own communities, or to contact small museums in your area, to talk about putting on small exhibitions like this to raise the awareness of African art in your community.
I’m attending the opening reception tonight and plan on taking some photos and I’ll hopefully have some time soon to create a page on my website for them and I’ll share them with people.
The Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library in Denver is proud to present:
FROM BLACK HANDS
An Exhibition Featuring Distinguished African Art from Private Collections
Opening reception: Friday, December 1st, 2006 5 - 7 PM
This exhibition is free and open to the public during regular library hours between December 1 and December 31, 2006.
Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library
2401 Welton Street, Denver, CO 80205 · 720-865-2401
Cheers!
RAND
Last night was the opening reception for the exhibition “Collectors Collect: Works from Denver Private Collections” at the Mizel Museum. I took a few (not many and not very good) photos at the opening reception and have posted them to the bottom of the page in the link below:
http://www.randafricanart.com/Collectors_Collect_Mizel_Museum.html
I’ll add more, and better, photos soon.
Cheers!
RAND
A virtual tour of the exhibition “Native Arts of the World…At Home in Colorado - The Douglas Society Collects” has just been posted on the Douglas Society website.
http://www.douglassociety.org/Republic_Plaza_exhibition_virtual_tour.html
Cheers!
RAND
I recently posted my photos from my recent trip to Paris.
There are 3 pages of photos, click on the link below to go to the 1st page of the photos.
http://www.randafricanart.com/ME_photo_version_Paris_2006.html
Cheers!
RAND
I ran across this article in the Denver Post on Sunday September 24th and really enjoyed it and wanted to share it with others.
Although I wish the experience below was one of my own, it is not. The experience belongs to Denver Post Columnist Daine Carman of Denver, she is the one who is writing about her experience- RAND
Tonic for the soul on Kilimanjaro
By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Columnist
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_4384599
His name is Faustin, but everybody calls him Vuma Vuma because he loves to sing. In Swahili, vuma means to hum, and Vuma Vuma is always humming or singing or laughing in a big, glorious, sonorous tenor that is as comforting as a fleece blanket in the predawn chill.
With his classically handsome face and a terrific set of teeth, he should be a rock star. He should be rich, famous and spoiled. Instead he is an assistant guide on Mount Kilimanjaro, living on a small stipend and tips from appreciative climbers and barely getting by.
When I left Denver for Tanzania three weeks ago, I was fried. I had packing lists everywhere, to-do lists and a low-grade stress headache from trying to get everything accomplished before boarding our plane - as if watering houseplants one more time really mattered.
At work I was buried in polls, schedules and deadlines, monitoring the fall election campaigns, following national stories and obsessing about every twist and turn in local events. I’m an unrepentant news junkie, I admit, and I guess I was mainlining in anticipation of a bad case of Internet, newspaper and nonstop- news withdrawal.
Then we started hiking, and everything changed.
I came to appreciate the importance of dry socks. I ate breakfasts of eggs, pancakes, porridge, bananas and toast smeared with peanut butter, and still I was famished at 10 a.m. I listened to the birds instead of the iPod. I watched the full moon rise from my seat in an outhouse at 13,000 feet. I walked slowly - very slowly - and as the days went by I felt my face relax under a film of sunscreen, dust and sweat.
Vuma Vuma’s laughter melted my stress away.
Vuma Vuma didn’t care about anybody’s politics. He didn’t impose any ideological litmus tests. He never mentioned George Bush.
Instead he showed us the barren caves where guides and porters used to crowd together to sleep at night in the years before the outfitters began providing tents for them. It was “hakuna matata,” he said, no problem. It’s better now though, he admitted, and then he flashed that brilliant smile.
Every day, but especially on summit day, Vuma Vuma was vitamin B-12 for the soul.
The trek began at midnight, and after a couple of hours, when climbers had tired of listening to the sound of their hearts banging against their ribcages as they put one freezing foot in front of the other, Vuma Vuma cut loose.
His repertoire ranged from reggae to rock ‘n’ roll, African folk, hip-hop and gospel. He gave each climber a nickname and then made up a song about him. Soon the lines of climbers picking their way up the rocky slope in the dark were smiling and humming. Soon everyone was singing along in English and Swahili as if there were oxygen to spare.
High on the steep mountainside, with our water bottles frozen, he led us in Bob Marley songs that took on new meaning.
“My feet is my only carriage, so I’ve got to push on through,” he sang. “Everything’s gonna be all right. Everything’s gonna be all right.” He knew the words rang true when he sang, “Get up, stand up, don’t give up the fight.”
We didn’t.
Vuma Vuma wouldn’t let us.
On the last day of the trek, we trailed behind Vuma Vuma and asked the lead guide to tell us more about him.
He’s a great one on the mountain, Victor said, better than an iPod. His energy is infectious, and “his batteries never run out.”
Six months ago, his 3-year-old son died of malaria, delivering a crushing blow to the young assistant mountain guide and his wife. He still grieves for him, Victor said. The loss was devastating.
Vuma Vuma dried his tears and came back to the mountain, though, and every morning his laughter ripples across the harsh alpine landscape, across the pillowy clouds below. His voice awakens the camp joyfully as if the entire human race is his family, as if cynicism, despair and bitterness are a whole world away.
Because, after all, they are.
By Diane Carman
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com .
Cheers!
RAND
I have put together a review and virtual tour of “Parcours des mondes - 2006″ which took place in Paris this year from September 13th to the 17th. I took lots of photos and put together 7 pages of photos from the galleries plus a page with a few photos from the new Musee quai Branly.
Click on the link below to go to the first page of the virtual tour:
http://www.randafricanart.com/Parcours_des_mondes_2006_photo_review.html
Cheers!
RAND
I don’t really ever put anything “personal” on my BLOG, but I’ll try and work on that.
I have some photos from some camping trips I’ve taken this year and I’ll try to get them added soon.
In the mean time, there is a video out by Pink that I love and it makes me laugh every time I watch it. The song/video is called “Stupid Girls” and it’s awesome. I love Pink and I love her videos, and this one is my favorite. I like how she pokes fun at different people in the video. The video is about a little girl who turns on the television and sees hows the media portrays how girls should be, but in the end she picks up her football and heads outside. I liked the “be who you are” message behind the video, but Pink does an awesome job in the video and it’s sure to make you laugh!
One of the scenes from “Stupid Girl” by Pink
Click on the photo above -or- the link below to go to YouTube.com to see the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ZawgUyjd4
RAND
Photo above was taken in the upper lobby on the night of the opening reception for the exhibition.
Friday August 25th was the opening reception of an exhibition in Denver that I was honored to be co-curator of. It was an incredible experience for me and it was really great to work with all of the local area collectors to put this exhibition together.
The exhibition, Native Arts of the World…At Home in Colorado, featured objects from the collections of the members of the Douglas Society, which is a support group for the Native Arts Department of the Denver Art Museum. The exhibition featured objects from American Indian, Oceanic and African cultures and the exhibition was presented in a dramatic 2 level lobby in Republic Plaza in downtown Denver.
The exhibition was the most exciting and the most frustrating thing I’ve ever worked on, but the final outcome was really great (in my opinion). The opening reception was well attended and the exhibition was very well received.
The exhibition celebrates the passion for collecting that resides in the membership of the Douglas Society. The focus of the exhibition wasn’t to display the finest quality objects of each of their type, the intention was to display objects from passionate collectors who collected the objects for the qualities they saw in the objects, and to share them with others.
Soon there will be an online version of the exhibition, but that most likely won’t get posted until late September.
There is some additional information on the exhibition and photos from the opening reception in the link below:
http://www.douglassociety.org/Republic_Plaza_exhibition.html
Cheers!
RAND
Powered by WordPress
