colorful shawl

Ghana's Rachel Armah celebrates the African tradition of kente cloth, weaving this textile by hand on the traditional loom. Crafted of cotton and rayon blend fibers, it features four colorful strips of cloth that are sewn together, serving as an excellent shawl.

Woven by hand, this exceptional kente cloth scarf features colorful rectangles on a brown background. Alternating squares show a fishnet pattern giving the scarf its name – Do, or "Net" in the Ewe language. By the Gobah Tengey-Seddoh Family, each strip requires considerable effort, and the looms are worked with both hands and feet. The patterns themselves are carefully chosen symbols, which a master weaver develops and names, often to honor people, historical events or proverbs.

Originated by the Akan peoples of Ghana, colorful kente cloth is the best-known of all African textiles. Kente is woven by hand in strips, which is how it came by its name (kente means "basket" in the Ashanti dialect). Ghana's Rachel Armah creates this colorful cotton blend scarf in cheerful shades of blue, pink and cream. The scarf's width allows it to double as a shawl.

In kente cloth, each color has a symbolic meaning: black symbolizes maturation and intensified spiritual energy; blue signifies peacefulness, harmony and love; green symbolizes vegetation, planting, harvesting, growth, and spiritual renewal; gold represents royalty, wealth, high status, glory, and spiritual purity; grey is for healing and cleansing rituals; maroon signifies the color of mother earth, associated with healing; pink and purple are associated with the female essence and female aspects of life; red symbolizes political and spiritual moods, bloodshed, sacrificial rites and death; silver is associated with the moon and represents serenity, purity, and joy; white is for purification, sanctification rites and festive occasions; and yellow represents preciousness, royalty, wealth, fertility, and beauty.

Woven by hand, traditional West African kente cloth becomes a colorful scarf. Rachel Armah presents a traditional design known as Edwene Si Edwene So. The phrase means "double wisdom as special as gold" in the Akan language. Each strip of kente cloth requires considerable effort, and the looms are worked with both hands and feet. Each color has its own meanings in Asante culture. Green is fertility and new harvest, gold is royalty, black is strength, aging and spirituality, and white is purity.

Reaching an arm behind her, a young mother steadies the child she carries on her back. She wears traditional batik attire. Emmanuel Atiemoh Yeboah paints their images with oils and applies fabrics of batik for her garment, head scarf and shawl. "This composition is about courage and motherly love," confides Yeboah, who bases this collage on the women who try to find a way back home after trying to make a living in the city. "How will they return?" asks the artist.

Arrives with a ceiba wood frame.

Woven by hand, traditional West African kente cloth becomes a colorful scarf. Rachel Armah presents a traditional design known as Fatia fata Nkrumah. The phrase means "Fatia deserves Nkrumah" in the Akan language. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was Ghana's first president and Fatia was his wife, thus this motif is named for the First Lady.

Each strip of kente cloth requires considerable effort, and the looms are worked with both hands and feet. Each color has its own meanings in Asante culture. Green is fertility and new harvest, gold is royalty, black is strength, aging and spirituality, and white is purity.