The Art Beat

By Stephen Rowe

The Angola region is home to a surprising many artists. Surprising because you find virtually no artists’ individual listing in the yellow pages - yet their work is sold in numerous galleries and specialty shops, appears in various art shows and fairs, is wholesaled throughout the country, marketed over the internet, and has even been exhibited at the Smithsonian! Some draw or paint in ink, oil, and water color; some sculpt; some work in copper, silver, clay, stone, and wood; some blow glass. Much work is representational but some is abstract. And while much is indeed sold, perhaps even more is but a labor of love – art for the sheer joy and gratification of self-expression.

Once we were nearly all, at least to some degree, artists and artisans. We had to be, so much of what we now buy was then homemade. And now we are surprised to find artists amongst us … and yet how many of us have felt the twinge, “If only I had the time, or the talent, or the confidence?” Confidence is the real issue: the fact of so much more artistic practice just a few generations ago proves it is not the talent we lack.

This column’s future installments will focus on today’s art in the Angola region: on art shows and fairs, galleries and shops, various other regional art happenings and manifestations, and on the artists themselves. Artists see the world with fresh eyes, and together we will explore the worlds they see and the worlds they create for us. And perhaps along the way, some of us may find within ourselves the inspiration, desire, and confidence to finally experiment with some mode of self expression … that is, to begin ourselves to practice art.

In the mean time, know that the Angola area lakes region is an Art Region. and its towns are Art Towns!

(Stephen Rowe, an independent arts correspondent and the Angola Regional Artists’ Guild publicity chairman, can be contacted at StephenRowe.OriGraphics@yahoo.com.)