AfricArt Shop Africa’s Artistic Treasures, Techniques and More. AfricArt Shop is a one-stop shopping site where clients can buy African art on-line without having to take an expensive vacation. Offering a wide range of African crafts showcased on its website, AfricArt Shop caters to special requests as well. For example, as shown in the HYPERLINK "http://www.tropicalmarkets.com/gallery.html" Gallery Section , customized busts and paintings are produced using Ancient Benin’s lost cireperdue method. This might come in handy for those who have run out of ideas on what to give their loved ones for birthdays or Christmas or Kwanzaa. Among other services provided, photographs of the gift’s intended recipient may be sent with the order so that a life-like sculpture of that person can be created by AfricArt’s sculptors using ancient African methods. These sculptors are direct descendants of original artists all over Africa whose unique traditions have been passed down through the generations. Other techniques involving wood, canvas, calabash and bamboo are also employed to produce images for clients. ______________________ ...photographs of the gift's intended recipient may be sent with the order so that a life-like sculpture of that person can be created by AfricArt's sculptors using ancient African methods. ______________________ Benin Art Overview The ancient kingdom of Benin has a rich cultural heritage, with an oral history recounted through its art and other symbols and objects created in the past. Bronze and brass casting by the lost wax method was pursued by artists in Benin before the thirteenth century and eventually spread to other regions of Africa. This system is still in use today in Benin City, Nigeria by descendants of the original sculptors. Art professor Jean Laude describes bronze casting via the cireperdue process. First the artist molds his or her work in wax, providing an outlet for the melted metal in a kind of extension. The wax core is then covered with powdered clay that when wet clings tightly inside every intricate depression. On top of this first coating the artist adds another of rougher clay mixed with kapok (silky fibers obtained by the tropical ceiba tree) floss. When everything is heated, the melted wax drains off the mold. The smith then puts the metal in a crucible that he or she adapts to the neck of the mold, carefully sealing the two parts with clay. With the crucible at the bottom, the artist puts everything over the flames of an open fire that he or she stokes. When the metal begins to melt, the mold is turned over with a pair of pliers; the melted bronze runs into the hollow form left by the wax. When the metal is cooled, the mold is broken. The work is then separated from its stem and the rough edges removed with a chisel. With this technique (cireperdue), no two pieces of sculpture are ever the same. While the themes are repetitive, since the mold is lost after each casting every bronze statue sold by AfricArt Shop has a distinctive originality. These pieces will last for thousands of years. African Americans and other admirers of ancient art will appreciate the aesthetic enrichment and the sense of belonging these works provide. The pieces might in addition inspire the average African American to visit his or her ancestral homeland and promote the ideals of Kwanzaa. Although Beniní’s artistic culture is primarily a bronze culture, other materials like wood, bamboo, canvas, and calabash are used as well. When collected, these pieces tell of the origin and early civilization of Africa – a story contrary to the European belief that Africans were primitive. ______________________ African Americans and other admirers of ancient art will appreciate the aesthetic enrichment and the sense of belonging these works provide. ______________________ Even in the not-too-distant past, physician Victor Segers describes the education about Africa he received at school as a child. In his book The Lost Soul of Africa he states, “During my early education, I was taught the prevailing view that Africans had no soul, no conscience, no abstraction and no history. Everything had to be taught to them by whites. I still have my fourth grade notebook with notations about the primitiveness of Africans. They were said to be incapable of original ideas, had to be taught everything and could only perform routine tasks under supervision." However, as American Baptist missionary to Nigeria R.H. Stone described in his book In Africa’s Forest and Jungle: or Six Years Among the Yorubas, the reality was quite different from the prevailing image of primitive Africa. Instead of being lazy, naked savages living off the products of the land, the Africans Stone encountered wore clothing and were very industrious. The men were builders, blacksmiths, iron smelters, and carpenters. They made razors, swords, knives, hoes, billhooks, axes, arrowheads and stirrups. In his book The Arts of Black Africa, Jean Laude observed that even in the fifteenth century Arabian and European travelers agreed that African states were well structured, their people prosperous and their cities wealthy with wide avenues. According to French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, in its path to world domination the West wreaked enormous devastation. "The Atlantic slave trade meant economic progress for the West and ruin for Africa as the best talent and raw materials left Africa to build the economies of the West. Under the onslaught of colonial control, the culture could not survive". The harsh treatment of the vanquished by the colonizers forced African civilizations to lose focus and wander aimlessly. As with numerous other indigenous groups, many hapless victims suffered from the brutality and terror brought on by slave traders and others who through greed exploited people in search of slaves, precious metals, minerals and other raw materials. The Western world prospered and kept its silence while bigotry, disease and war devastated Africa. This pillaging and plundering continues under different guises to this very day. Africans also remain stereotyped today by the West as backward, overlooking the simple fact that whatever position Africans find themselves in at present is a result of the West’s manipulations. According to Laude, "relations between states were warped and corrupted by the slave hunt. Societies disintegrated after having lost their most valuable members through death and deportation.” Societies, often isolated on barren soil and suspicious of all that was foreign, withdrew into themselves. Then convinced by Darwinian logic, Europeans looked no further than the present state of affairs of Africa (which their White brethren had created) and characterized Africans as wandering in the darkness of man’s infancy. This characterization is sadly evident even today. Take a tour of AfricArt Shop at www.tropicalmarkets.com/AfricArt_shop.html or contact the sales department at sales@tropicalmarkets.com. About Tropical Markets Tropical Markets Incorporated was founded in June 1998 and incorporated in the United Kingdom and United States as a one-stop shop for business in the tropics. Tropical Markets aims to enable companies in the tropics without the prerequisite technology to access any quality goods and/or services they might require and to give companies in developed countries access to the largest virgin market in the world. For this purpose Tropical Markets represents a large number of companies in Africa who seek various quality products but do not know where to find them at the right prices. In addition, technology being an ever-evolving process, Tropical Markets helps bring the latest technology available to potential buyers at no charge. Tropical Markets therefore directly links the potential buyer of any product with the manufacturer or seller. Tropical Markets will supply, free of charge, anyone who makes a valid inquiry with a list of reputable companies that are capable of meeting the inquirerís request. When a purchase is made, the successful seller is charged a small commission. No commission will be charged unless a sale is actually made. If required, Tropical Markets also offers direct purchases, clearing and supplies through its HYPERLINK "http://www.tropicalmarkets.com/affiliates.html" affiliate companies in the region. Learn more about Tropical Markets at www.tropicalmarkets.com . They can be contacted at info@tropicalmarkets.com. This website: Copyright © 2004Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in Urban Mozaik Magazine are not necessarily those of Urban Mozaik Magazine and the publisher cannot be held responsible for them. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.