J.B. Murray and the Scripts and Spirit Forms of Africa PDF Download

Author: Licia Clifton-James
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527580016
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Providing an excellent example of why folk artists can be appreciated as carriers of knowledge, even if they are unaware of it, this book could change the ways we understand and appreciate American folk arts. Connecting a sharecropper from Georgia in the Southern United States to a protector and healer in Touba, Senegal, West Africa, the holy city of Mouridism, and the final resting place of its founder, Shaikh Ahmadou Bàmba Mbàcke, it makes an interesting link while examining the cultural aspects of two very different and yet similar paths of life. Historians and art historians alike will find this investigation of African American art and folk culture both interesting and insightful. Not only does this book trace the characteristics of art through the African Diaspora, but it also traces Islam through those same diasporic transportations of colonial exploration and slavery.

Author: Licia E. Clifton-James
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This dissertation focuses on the artwork of J.B. Murray, an African American artist from Mitchell, Georgia. The goal of this dissertation is to explore J.B. Murray’s production of protective scripts and spirit figures. Murray created art works that served as the conduit for spiritual healing or protection between his God, his ancestral energies and the recipients or viewers of his work. Protection through writing is both an Islamic and indigenous African tradition. Art Historians, after seeing Murray’s work, called it masterful art. It is my contention that Murray possessed knowledge that, unbeknownst to him or his ancestors, was passed along to him by his African ancestors. This knowledge is also seen in the work of other African and African American artists in this dissertation, which shows continuity across a wider group as opposed to just one artist. Finally, a parallel is draw with African protector and healer, Serigne Bousso, from Touba, Senegal. Murray’s experience of visions and protective and healing work parallels the experience of Serigne Bousso within the last 30 years. This parallel is significant in making the connection between Murray, in Georgia, and the possible West African source for his knowledge of visions and protective signs.

Author: Mary Shaw Graham Padgelek
Publisher: Mercer University Press
ISBN: 9780865546998
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
"How an illiterate farm worker in rural Georgia rose to become an artist of international acclaim is the story of Mary Padgelek's In the Hand of the Holy Spirit: The Visionary Art of J.B. Murray. Padgelek tells Murray's fascinating story and analyzes his art and spiritual message. Throughout history the visionary artist has sought to offer a glimpse of the eternal in the midst of a temporal world. This book unveils the symbols, impetus, and meaning of Murray's art. Padgelek shows how this fascinating folk artist expressed his perceptions of eternity and offered a redemptive metaphor for spiritual healing, regeneration, and ultimate salvation."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Author: Grey Gundaker
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572333567
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
"Focusing primarily, though not exclusively, on the southeastern United States, the book examines works ranging from James Hampton's well-known Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly (now part of the Smithsonian collection), to several elaborately decorated yards and gardens, to smaller-scale acts of commemoration, protection, and witness. The authors show how the artful arrangement and adornment of everyday objects and plants express both the makers' own experiences and concerns and a number of rich and sustaining cultural traditions. They identify a "lexicon" of material signs that are frequently and consistently used in African American culture and art and then show how such elements have been used in various individual works and what they mean to the practitioners themselves."--BOOK JACKET.

Author: Gerard C. Wertkin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135956146
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1583

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Book Description
For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclopedia of American Folk Art web site. This is the first comprehensive, scholarly study of a most fascinating aspect of American history and culture. Generously illustrated with both black and white and full-color photos, this A-Z encyclopedia covers every aspect of American folk art, encompassing not only painting, but also sculpture, basketry, ceramics, quilts, furniture, toys, beadwork, and more, including both famous and lesser-known genres. Containing more than 600 articles, this unique reference considers individual artists, schools, artistic, ethnic, and religious traditions, and heroes who have inspired folk art. An incomparable resource for general readers, students, and specialists, it will become essential for anyone researching American art, culture, and social history.

Author: Jacqueline Bobo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135942579
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 501

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Book Description
First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folk art
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Author: Winston Napier
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081475810X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 745

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Book Description
Fifty-one essays by writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as critics and academics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. examine the central texts and arguments in African American literary theory from the 1920s through the present. Contributions are organized chronologically beginning with the rise of a black aesthetic criticism, through the Black Arts Movement, feminism, structuralism and poststructuralism, queer theory, and cultural studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Author: Licia Clifton-James
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The goal of this presentation is to exhibit the parallels of two men's lives that eventually result in their roles as protectors and healers. Protection and healing through writing is both an Islamic and indigenous African tradition involving spiritual energies. A demonstration of these energies will be seen in J.B. Murray, an African American artist from Mitchell, Georgia, who created protective scripts and spirit figures within his art, eventually using them to request protection and healing for both himself and others. Murray believed he came by his protective writing and spirit figures from his ancestors and his God, and used this form of protective energy to heal and protect. An example of this is seen in an untitled, large, early work, in which Murray showed concern with the harm that had come to his body once diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1984. Extensive markings, included in the work, along with an enormous amount of script on the reverse side, are perhaps a warning about the dangers of prostate cancer and a request for protection from it. Murray fashioned a complex diagram of his negative condition and a method for bringing about its healing and/or additional protection. Similar energies of protection and healing will be seen in Serigne Bousso, from Touba, Senegal. Bousso, born January 15, 1960, has very similar experiences with Murray regarding the acquisition of his protective and healing abilities. Rather than African American, Bousso is a Wolof and Pulaar, and currently lives in Touba, Senegal, and provides protection and healing to the underprivileged in his region, with additional clients throughout the world. Through an in-person interview with Bousso in 2016, he describes his previous life as a well-educated businessman working in the business sector for over 20 years. This should have afforded him a good living and a happy life. However, that happy life came crashing down, sending him to a mental institution (a parallel with Murray) and an eventual acceptance of the protective and healing role he has now. This presentation will establish continuities between the use of spiritual energies for protection and healing in Senegal and the use of those same energies in the state of Georgia within the United States.

Author: Harryette Mullen
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817357130
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be forms an extended consideration not only of Harryette Mullen’s own work, methods, and interests as a poet, but also of issues of central importance to African American poetry and language, women’s voices, and the future of poetry. Together, these essays and interviews highlight the impulses and influences that drive Mullen’s work as a poet and thinker, and suggest unique possibilities for the future of poetic language and its role as an instrument of identity and power.