Mande potters leather work : Art and heritage in West Africa

I am often asked how I became engaged with Africa and the study of African art. What could possibly lead a middle-class kid on a journey of discovery from a small town amid the cornfields of Illinois to the dry and distant terrain of the West African savanna? What was it about the artistic heritage of another people that captured my heart and mind? My parents were teachers of art and literature who instilled in their children a love of travel and an openness of mind and spirit. My father chose to take the family with him on a sabbatical leave to England when I was eight years old. My first remembered encounter with another culture. Several years later my family hosted a young woman from Madagascar for the academic year through the American Field Service exchange program. At the time Yari Robinson (Jeannoda) was a delightful, if somewhat exotic, older sister. She and her family have been part of our extended family ever since. It was our second AFS student who introduced me to the world of Islam and to the reality of poverty, hardship, and deep faith. Yusoph Latip came to us from Mindanao, the Muslim heartland of the southern Philippines. He taught my family and fellow students volumes about respect for other cultures and other religions. In college I was drawn to the arts and humanities, taking courses across a broad spectrum, including film theory and criticism, English history, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. In the spring of 1977 I took a wonderful course on African art with Roslyn Walker. I accompanied her to a conference in East Lansing, where I was introduced to scholars whose work I had been reading - William Bascom, Frank Willett, Renée Boser-Sarivaxevanis, and Roy Sieber, among others. I was starstruck and I was hooked.I went into the graduate program at Indiana University with a background stronger in studio art than in art history, a fascination for things cultural, and very little knowledge of Africa. An, inclination toward historical issues and an interest in Islam led me to explore the impact of the faith and of the Trans-Saharan trade on various artistic traditions, from textiles to architecture. An opportunity to work with Peg Gilfoy at the Indianapolis Museum of Art led me to doing a master's essay