Through the power of their work in the exhibition and the story of their lives, the Ubuhle women demonstrate how they rose above poverty, AIDS and abuse to create stunning works of arts and to support themselves and their families. These African women’s work can never be challenged as anything other than art from their soul,” said Gibson.
Through this exhibition, “the artists are being launched as individual international artists in their own right their distinct styles elevate them from crafters to artists. As a master beader, “Induna” (“in-doo-na means leader in Xhosa”) Ntobela also trained other Xhosa and Zulu women that were not brought up in the tradition so they could join the community.
The artists’ community was established in 1999 by local resident Gibson and Ntombephi Ntobela (“En-Tom-be-Fi En-to-bell-la”) on a former sugar plantation north of the city of Durban as a way for local women to achieve financial independence. James Green and Beverley Gibson are the co-curators for the exhibition, which features the work of the women in an artists’ community called Ubuhle in a small town in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Thirty-one imposing pieces, “Ubuhle Women” (“Oo-buk-lay” meaning beauty in Xhosa language) is the introduction to American museums of the “ndwango” (“in-dwang-go”) bead art form-the transformation of traditional beading techniques to a contemporary medium through which tiny colored Czech glass beads, hand sewn in intricate patterns on to black cloth canvasses, create visually spectacular pieces based on themes drawn from the artists’ lives. 9 at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. The intersection of artistic ingenuity and women’s empowerment is explored in two new exhibitions, “Ubuhle Women: Beadwork and the Art of Independence” (main gallery) and “Home Sewn: Quilts from the Lower Mississippi Valley” (community gallery) opening Dec. Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, African Art.
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