Akan proverb at the Baltimore Museum of Art/Guerrilla Girls exhibit

Akan Gold-Dust Weight (Abrammuo)

While visiting the Baltimore Museum of Art this week to look again at a temporary exhibit of the Guerrilla Girls and take some photos to use in my classes, I stopped by a case of small ornaments used as weights by Akan gold merchants of Africa. (The Akan are an ethnic group that makes up much of the populations of Ghana and the Ivory Coast.)  This bird symbolizes an Akan proverb: "When it lies behind you, take it." According to the sign, this is about learning from the past. Because I wondered why a bird looking behind itself was chosen to represent this idea, I did some searching and found that a name for the symbol is sankofa.

from the Spiritual Project of the University of Denver:
"Sankofa is an Akan term that literally means, 'to go back and get it.' One of the Adinkra symbols for Sankofa...depicts a mythical bird flying forward with its head turned backward. The egg in its mouth represents the 'gems' or knowledge of the past upon which wisdom is based; it also signifies the generation to come that would benefit from that wisdom. This symbol often is associated with the proverb, 'Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,' which translates to, 'It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.' The Akan believe that the past illuminates the present and that the search for knowledge is a life-long process. The pictograph illustrates the quest for knowledge, while the proverb suggests the rightness of such a quest as long as it is based on knowledge of the past. (san = 'to return') + (ko = 'to go') + (fa = 'to look, to seek and take')"

But the bird in the BMA collection doesn't seem to have an egg in its mouth.

One of the ways I try to follow this idea is through listening to music, especially songs that bring back the emotions of painful moments or that puncture into me that some thoughts were dreams that weren't coming true. This gets into topics that are too personal for me to post on here. Maybe my tendency is to ruminate too much on my past mistakes.

The BMA's Guerrilla Girls exhibit (September 25, 2016 — March 12, 2017) filled the walls with posters like this one:

2012 version of this poster (See the Guerrilla Girls "Naked through the Ages" page)

I'm amazed at how many great artists who are women fail to get much attention in our museums. I was once again reminded of this when I was looking into abstract expressionism recently and came across articles inspired by an exhibit that started at the Denver Art Museum in 2016: Women of Abstract Expressionism. (I was thinking about abstract expressionism because I'm using Pinterest to create my own imaginary art museum as a fun way to learn more about art.) I've not been a big fan of abstract expressionism, but I really like paintings by some of the artists described in the following articles, such as Mary Abbott and Janet Sobel:

1. "11 Female Abstract Expressionists You Should Know, from Joan Mitchell to Alma Thomas" by Alexxa Gotthardt, June 29, 2016 http://bit.ly/293kDVI

1985 to 1987; 1987 to 1989

2. "12 Women of Abstract Expressionism to Know Now" by Sarah Cascone, September 17, 2016 http://artnt.cm/2cxVu74

Neither article mentions Janet Sobel, who influenced Pollock. See "The Forgotten Female Artist: Janet Sobel’s Struggle within the Abstract Expressionist Movement": http://the-artifice.com/janet-sobel-abstract-expressionist-movement/

1989 to 1992; 1992 to 1999

1999 to 2012