weftanthology

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Angel aka “ Black Girl” , young , fly and mouth full of gold from Miami .Well know for her style at the time 1990s , “with her son jerome” . rip angel

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Gal Dem: How Technology is making Black Hair Styling more Accessible Black hair knowledge has historically been passed down through generations, but is the internet changing that? Zainab Kwaw-Swanzy

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Weiber beim Kammen, Ost-Afrika (present-day Tanzania) by J.P. Fernandes. Photograph taken before 1900; postcard printed circa 1912.

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in situ development - collage artwork

rojas matrilineal code Maya Balfour 2023

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Keisha Epps, Kima*Raynor Dyson & Misa Hylton-Brim (1995)

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SOURCE UNKNOWN

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braiding sweetgrass - hair references

As a sacred, healing plant to the Potawatomi people, Kimmerer describes how the sweetgrass is braided “as if it were our mother’s hair, to show our loving care for her.”

It is not just sweetgrass that Kimmerer connects to family lineage. She talks about the “grammar of animacy”: the practice of viewing nature as an elder with deep wisdom to share, one with whom we have a long-standing connection. In fact, as Kimmerer points out, in indigenous language a natural being isn’t regarded as “it” but as kin.

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the code my halo holds

<< we are born adorned with halos

our DNA weaved and wefted into

hair follicles, a familiar nothingness

that carries the weight of society

DNA passed through this halo

through our matrilineal lineage

that pays homage

to my ancestor hands

that used technological braiding magic

to weave maps, fractals and images

to marry the past and the present

with execution repetition and produced patterns

despite the best efforts of oppressors and finessers,

an algorithm was created of perseverance and beauty >>

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in situ development - text design

5 hours of commitment to algorithmic design x

the coded weft anthology drafts // final result Maya Balfour 2023

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text art study

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RSA Design for Life Reflections

where is your work situated?

my practice is committed to lifelong learning through cross sectoral disciplinary thinking and starting at a glocal level - I was once opposed to both of these ways of thinking but realise my way of interacting with the world around me and then interpreting it into a design is based on a multitude of resources from various disciplines and places I have once visited. The artist Julian Knxx who collated images, videos, and poems that I was exposed to once before, married the forms of design and art that truly spoke to what I would like to commit to, but most importantly he was able to speak on Blackness, the similarities and the complexity of it.

The artist embodies everything I hope and would love for my practice. Basing it on human interactions and how they interact with the environment, political, social and economic institutions that are around them. Most importantly he creates a sense of safety, personability, and beauty that was transformative to my view on what art could be.

how would you position your own approach to design?

I would position my approach as being cross sectoral, developing various skills to combine into spaces, practices, or my own art to create systemic change and show that it is never just one sided but needs a community to create communal change.

#Youtube

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studio visit with anouska samms

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adornment in nature

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sampling study

"Repetition in African Diasporean creative expression is most prevalent in performance such as rhythm in music, dance and language.[7] The organizing force that produces this aesthetic is rhythm or the ongoing recurrence of a beat. Repetitive words and multiple, conflicting rhythms are important elements of African performance and its American descendants – gospel/spirituals, blues and jazz. Although most often discussed in music, the polyrhythm aesthetic can also be found in cornrowing and technology. Music theorist Adam Rudolph notes the weaving of threads or “thematic fibers” in repeated patterns of rhythmic regularity and irregularity as polyrhythm.[8]" Nettrice Gaskins

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Mostly Old Ladies, 1982, Jean-Michel Basquiat

Medium: pen,pencil,paper