African art in Tucson — who knew?

The biggest attractions in Tucson this month are the 20+ mineral and gem shows around town. There are 65,000 rock-hounds–both sellers and buyers–at these events in 2022.

I’m not sure, however, if the 15th annual African Art Marketplace was timed to coincide with those huge gem markets or if the African art show is in Tucson now because they can count on the weather being pleasant. (70F and sunny pleasant!)

So, knowing absolutely nothing about African art, but quite a bit about outdoor markets, I headed down to MSA to see it.

Booths filled with beads and sculpture

My first impression is that this must be an early stop in a tour that travels to where the weather is okay. There was still a lot of merchandise and more stored away in trucks in the back. If it were late in a tour, the merchandise would be hit and miss, but every booth was jammed with items for sale–beautiful beads and more beads, sculptured wooden figures and hand-dyed cloth.

So here are a few notable things I saw:

I’m pretty sure that the first wooden sculpture is also a drum. Note the hide stretched across the top. In the second image there is an electric scooter near the top of the art–keeping up with the times! And the third sculpture is so fierce it could be a guard outside a doorway.

Going to bead heaven

There was one whole row devoted to hand crafted and utterly gorgeous beads! It was while I was looking at them that I realized that most of the people handling the sales were men! This is very unlike U.S. open air market booths which are staffed with women. But I guess men can sell beads as easily as women can.

While many booths offered beads and fabric for sale, there were a couple where beads being used in other ways–like on these chairs.

What looked at first glance to be attractively upholstered chairs, turned out to be upholstered in tiny beads. Click through to see a close-up. Not far away I came across a sculpture entirely covered with beads.

There were also drums and baskets, but–surprisingly–not many booths selling women’s clothing, except for the beads.

The African Art Village market runs through February 13, 2022.

There have been several other events/festivals going in in January 2022–the Jazz Festival, the Fringe Festival–but because of Covid 19 I am avoiding going to events that are held indoors. The Tucson Book Festival is coming up in mid-March, however, and I plan to mask up and attend it.

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