New Portraits Incorporate Influence of Somali Handweaving

Portrait of Mune

Study for Portrait of Mune

Portrait of Seven (Revised)

My next exhibition at Hennepin History Museum will feature some of my portraits, photographs, and hand-weavings made locally by Somali and Oromo elder women artists. Meanwhile, these motifs are weaving their way into my paintings~!

Weaving Study ii

Weaving Study i

Thanks to Amina, Ardo, Hawo, Hawo, Nura, and Hawo (yes, there were three women named Hawo!) who taught me hand-weaving, or Farshaxameedka Soomaliyeed last summer at the Somali Museum, in Minneapolis. Since celebrating with women weavers locally at their exhibit at the McKnight Foundation offices in 2008, I have been intrigued with the designs, colors, and techniques practiced by some of the amazing and talented women in our community.

My New Weaving (in progress)

One Door Closes; Another Door Opens

After I lost my job as scientist at the University of Minnesota Department of Epidemiology in 2006, an acquaintance asked me to teach an art class for Somali girls at a non-profit organization in Minneapolis. This was on the West Bank, near the apartments which the community calls 'Cedars' -- and, it was organized to help women have a safe place to leave their children (in each others' care, like a co-op), while they went across the street to learn English. 

Portrait of Mohamed

I taught the class for girls, and then I stayed on to volunteer until I found work. And so I had a chance to follow several east African women around the small kitchen at the center to learn about their cuisine. This was especially fun, because a) they were fabulous cooks, and b) they didn't know a lot of English.  So, if there were five women in the kitchen there might be four languages spoken, and lots of laughter.  They didn't have English words for all the ingredients, which meant smelling the spices to guess the names. Chasing after the women with my note pad, I created recipes to try later -- with mixed success.

Post by Pamela Gaard.

Learning about Somali cuisine was my entry point to working in the community on health and wellness initiatives, which I have done for the past eight years.  My background in public health and nutrition brought me to work with east African elders in community clinics and other businesses, where I have learned and taught in equal measure. I partnered with UCare to give out free shoes to clients to increase physical activity, taken folks on 'walking tours'. I've worked on a Somali language film and other educational materials concerning public health and nutrition. Assisted by countless amazing colleagues and interpreters (much more than simply translating a language, my Somali interpreters patiently explain cultural and religious customs along the way), I've really come to love Somali language and culture.

Bar ama baro. (Somali proverb, meaning - "Learn or teach") For me, learning Somali language starts with the cuisine.

Eat Don't Eat

I found a tea towel in my mother's laundry room which had been in her house in St. Louis Park since she moved there in 1960. It looked like it had never been used - just sat in a box; maybe a forgotten house-warming present... This "calories" towel became the centerpiece for the piece below.

Made from vintage (1950's?) tea towels, other textiles, wooden cutlery, paper, lard ads from the 50's, paint ~  "Eat Don't Eat" exhibited in Fiberart International at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and at Minneapolis College of Art Nothing New - Recycled exhibition. Also, published in Fiberarts Magazine in a review.

Eat Don't Eat, textiles ~ vintage tea towels, thread, paint, paper (lard ads from 1950's magazines), wooden spoons and forks, 42" x 74", 2001