The Artisans
Maniram Block Makers
Chris needed a excellent guide to find this block-carving collective in the Isanpur neighborhood of Ahmedabad, India. This coop of carvers produce print blocks for stamping patterns onto fabrics in traditional textile production. In addition to wood blocks, they also produce a combination wood and metal blocks that prove to be much more durable in heavy use. They help to supply the numerous textile producers across northwest India.
Vasant Chitara
Award winning Mata ni pacheti producer in the Jivraj Park area of Ahmedabad. Vasant is a member of the only family of artisans left who engaged in the production of mata ni pachedi, which translates to behind the mother goddess. Unique to Gujarat State, the craft is a process involving the use of natural dyes and hours and hours of pain staking hand processes and precision. Simply stated, it is painting on cloth using bamboo sticks.
Anilkumar Suther (Anil)
Anil is a fifth generation wood turner from Dholka, a village south of Ahmedabad in Gujarat State, India. He, along with a handful of apprentices, work primarily on traditional baby cribs, or ghodiyo, and shrines for the numerous Hindu holidays.
Stephen Ansah
Stephen is quite special to Chris and Tammi. In the Ghanaian culture, one would call him their son. While serving as Peace Corps volunteers in Ghana, West Africa, Stephen, a 14-year-old boy at the time, befriended the Martins in thier small village of Donkorkrom. Stephen asked Chris to teach him how to do woodworking, and so he taught him a few things. Then, there was no stopping him. Stephen visited nearly every day after school to make things in wood with the few tools Chris had brought to Ghana with him. He would make anything from walking sticks to relief carvings and even carved swords. He showed amazing talent and an unbelievable drive from the start. When the Martins returned home to the U.S., Chris made sure to leave a set of tools behind, and they kept in touch. When he finished high school, Stephen was a little lost and not knowing what to do, so the Martins connected him with Eric Anang (below) who took him on as an apprentice. It was a win-win for Stephen, Eric, and Kane Kwei Carpentry shop.
Eric Adjetey Anang
Ghanaian artisan Eric Adjetey Anang is the grandson of Seth Kane Kwei, the man credited with founding the tradition of fantasy coffins in the early 1950s. These coffins are unique to Ghana and more specifically to the Ga tribe of the Greater Accra Region. These coffins come in many forms, including fish, cars, airplanes, and churches to name a few. The fish would be made for someone who spent his life as a fisherman, or an airplane for someone who had always hoped to fly. Eric has spent his life practicing and sharing the tradition his grandfather started, producing coffins not only for the Ghanaian market but also for exhibitions in museums around the world.
Ewe Kente weavers
from top left: James, Prosper, Daniel, Yohanes, Godsway, Richmond
Kente cloth which dates back to the 1700’s is unique to Ghana and Togo and it is arguably the most recognized art form of Africa. There are two styles of kente based on tribal affiliation, Ashanti and Ewe. Chris’s first interactions with the Ewe weavers was in the village of Kpetoe where he would visit as often as he possibly could. Kpetoe is located in the Volta Region of Ghana and has been a center of Ewe kente weaving for many decades.
Chris was very drawn to the traditional Ewe patterns and there are few weavers left capable of producing many of these. It took a bit of asking around to find weavers capable of producing the various patterns he sought.
The weavers Chris is collaborating with work as a collective. This is a common practice across many traditional cultures unlike the western model of the stand-alone artisan. Each works on their own loom and see each cloth through from beginning to finish, but decisions on who gets what projects are made democratically.
