Tanzanian Art Exchange

[teeburn]

Hi, everyone!

I just shared in the woodburning section about one of the events that happened at our club in April. And I thought you might like to hear about it and see some pics also.

We had an opportunity to have a group of Women Tanzanian Professional Woodcarvers come to our club. They are involved in an art exchange program through the government. They happened to be staying and displaying their work in our area. And one of the coordinators knows one of our members and while they were having lunch one day he asked her if our club with be interested in having them with us for the day. Well five of the exchange artists were professional carvers. She said she would check and see and of course we couldn't pass up this opportunity and said yes.

So to make a long story short which I didn't manage to do in the woodburning section is some pics of their wonderfully amazing work. You would not believe the tools they used to do their work and the outcome is baffling.

I hope you enjoy them. Thanks for letting me share.

My most favorite piece is the one in the fourth pic, beautiful carving and wood. It was of course not for sale.

[teeburn]

Here is a few more....

The first pic has one of the tools I was telling you about. You can see the big handle and huge piece of steel or whatever it is. Then if you look in the second pic you can see what they sharpen their tools with and the huge handle and then the knife tip. I'm trying to find a better pic of them.

The last pic is my second favorite piece and it was for sale but unfortunately out of my budget but well worth the asking price.

[teeburn]

a few more...

[teeburn]

and again.......

[Paul_Guraedy]

Thanks for posting the photos. I spent a couple of years in Malawi (Peace Corps), which is across Lake Malawi from Tanzania, back in the mid-60's. I brought home quite a few woodcarvings; but, nothing like this. Tools have not changed much. They used mainly wood rasps and knives they made themselves. It was amazing what they could do with these few tools. It is wonderful to see how far woodcarving has come in the past 45 years.

[Joy]

Thank you for sharing! And we think a new tool will make us better!

[doris]

oh thank you so much for sharing, that is very interesting. love to see the different style, very elegant, very effective, the carvings are beautiful... please, tell us more, i am so curious, did they show you how they carve, or how they teach it, they mainly showed you portrait type carvings, did they tell about these, they look stylized to me, but i can imagine they are portraits... my favourite of the carvings you showed is the roud one with the saying "women can make change". thanks a lot for sharing !!

[Paul_Guraedy]

I mentioned the carvings I collected back in the '60's. Here are a few to contrast with the work the Tanzanians are doing today.

The dark carvings are ebony, the red ones are from what the Africans called bloodwood and the light spots, teeth and tusks are ivory. The mask is from Kenya. Almost all carvings were of animals, except for the religious carving and they were almost the same....copies from church I guess. I bought the two ebony figures of a man and woman because they were the first humans I had seen carved. I think I do have one other stored away somewhere. Not bad for rasps and homemade knives......

An aside topic....it is interesting to see the hair styles. In the 1960's the women kept their hair cropped very close. But, the dresses are still the same.

[JJireh]

Thanks for posting, very interesting to see other culture's carvings. The demographics is interesting too, pretty young African ladies visiting the rough ol' geezers
Try to get young ladies that age around here to pick up some wood and tools...ugg. I'm trying to train my girls up better
Thanks again!
Sean

[Thor]

Beautiful carvings, and a facinating story. Thanks so much for posting the pictures. What an inspiration to see such carvings made with such simple tools.
Christina