Journey Vessel aka Fiber Bowl

I am a textile artist with a passion for travel. I'm also really, really good at collecting stuff...bits of this and that...that I keep as memories of my trip. That's not to say I don't also take hundreds, and now, thanks to digital cameras, thousands of photographs.

This coiled fiber bowl is made from a Kente cotton fabric that I purchased in Ghana. The black fabric, also from Ghana, is used for funeral garments. The amount of red printed on the black denotes the closeness of the relationship the wearer has to the deceased. The "knob" on the lid is stack of fabric samples given to me by Esther, our host in Akosombo, in the hopes of finding buyers for her fabric in the States.

The bowl is home to assorted bits that I found or was given along the way from Accra, Akosombo, Kumasi, Offenso and Cape Coast: invitation to a chief's anniversary Darbar, a bit of tile from rubble in front of the Peace Corps office in Accra, cedi bead necklace from the factory outside Offenso, bits of driftwood and shells from the littered beaches on Cape Coast. The best, that always gives me a smile, is the biscuit/cookie wrapper that I picked up on the ground of a park in Kumasi....red striped pack of Obama Biscuits with President Obama's image.

I'm on to making a couple of other Journey Vessels. They are the perfect thing for me to house my trip memories. I'm really good at j-o-u-r-n-e-y and not so good at j-o-u-r-n-a-l.