Spirit Dance Adornments: ornamental

Showing posts with label ornamental. Show all posts

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Akan Ring

I've used the Akan Adinkra Symbol system as inspiration for many of the pieces I've created.

The other day I found this beautiful gold ring on a Pinterest board of Cynthia Laurent,"Jewellery I Love."

When I dug back on the image I found that it is credited with the geograplhic location of Ghana / Ivory Coast, circa.1935. The ring is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.

Talking Adornments

When your spirit speaks let it use the Adinkra language of the Akan people of West Africa. The Adinkra language is an ancient symbol system, today it is primarily found in Ghana. At Spirit Dance we have added a Diaspora element to the interpretation of the language. When creating our adornments we conceptualize each piece considering two methods of interpreting the symbolic representation of the Adinkra language. First, we employ the ideal of “Sankofa.” Like the mythical bird flying forward while looking back, we endeavor to fearlessly remember the siprit of the past while employing craft techniques of different times and different lands where the children of Africa have traveled and settled.