I bought a painting. There is some wonderful art in Ghana and over the past 9 months I've eyed a lot of works, but none captured me quite as much as this painting (I hope I'm able to attach photo), "Strength of a Woman." While the subject matter is commonplace in West Africa -- a woman selling produce (either roadside or at a market), I love this piece's vibrancy, color, and technique. Only problem is, it's 2'x3' and it was going to cost me a fortune to have it framed in the U.S. A friend suggested I have it framed here -- duh -- so I went to my handy-dandy ex-pat resource book for Accra, and sure enough, found a framer who apparently was located close to my office. So here's how business is done in Africa....
Two phone numbers were listed for "Galleria Art". As often happens, one number didn't work. The other was a cell phone answered by a man whom I could neither hear because of all the screaming children in the background, nor understand because West African accents are totally incomprensible to me on the phone. In French or English. After a few back and forth calls, we were able to connect and I asked where his shop was located, so I could go there during my lunch break. Since there are no addresses here, and streets all curve into each other, directions are always given in terms of, "Do you know where___is?" Unfortunately, he kept mentioning places I'd never been to (or if I had, I would never have found them again, anyway)....until he got to "Chicken Licken'". Aha! I KNEW I'd seen that sign. No problem I told him, I know where that is. Fine, he said. Be there at 1:30 p.m. and call me, I'm near there. (It is typical for locals to meet you somewhere and then you follow/take them to your mutual destination.)
Only problem was, when I arrived, I found myself at "Southern Chicken", not "Chicken Licken'". A couple more phone calls and we agreed on another place to meet in 45 minutes. When I arrived at that destination, I again called him, and explained I was "the white woman (as if he couldn't tell on the phone) wearing a light colored skirt (actually cream) and purple top (well, actually, it's deep raspberry, but would he understand that?), and I'd be waiting outside my silver Honda (of which there are only slightly fewer than hundreds of silver Toyotas). It occurred to me that while raspberries and cream sound inviting, maybe cream and raspberry wasn't such a great color choice that morning....
I stepped out of my car in the designated parking lot, and saw a man looking around everywhere but at me, so I waved. Gideon (as that is his name) approached me, said he had get his daughter (about 4 years old, waiting in the taxi), and I could follow him in another taxi, which I did. We went back to a lovely residential area to a large house behind the gated wall (as they all are), which I never could have found on my own, no matter how good his directions had been.
I'm used to framing shops that are immaculate -- where the sample mouldings are geometrically displayed on walls behind pristine service counters holding carefully arranged stacks of mattes, and the surrounding area is a gallery resplendent with samples of the shop's best and creative work. Gideon's shop is a garage stuffed with seemingly randomly stacked mouldings on teetering shelving units, rickety old tables overflowing with what looked more debris than anything else, and old frames and glass stacked every which way on the floor and leaning up against walls. He suggested I sit on an old plastic chair under the tree, which I declined, and then he poured a collection of broken moulding samples from a torn paper bag onto one of the tables in the garage, and suggested I choose from those. (I wasn't going to use a matte, or glass, so those weren't issues.) I held them up against the canvas, which was sitting (much to my concern) on the ground, propped up against a wall. Nothing was quite right. Too "western", I told him..too "fancy"..."not right". I want it to look African...rough (a word that here is understood as "natural", not modern, or in the case of roads, not paved).
Gideon's assistant pulled out piece of moulding that was a "rough" bamboo-like texture with a little bit of the painting's orange and gray tones. Perfect. Gideon then worked up a price, using a pen on a torn piece of paper; 70 cedis ($49). That worked. I offered him 35 as a deposit and said I would give him the other 35 when the picture was ready -- which would be...when? That afternoon, he told me, after he took his daughter (somewhere). I must have looked skeptical, as he added, "Don't worry. It will be fine." He also assured me that when he delivered the painting, and I gave him 40 GHc, he would have the 5c change (because frequently in this cash-based society, no one has any change). He scribbled a map on a small piece of cardboard to help me find my way out of that residential maze, and I returned to the office.
Two hours later I received a phone call: they were ready to deliver my painting, but they couldn't find my office. They were at a nearby restaurant, which I knew, and which is in fact just one street behind my office. I'll meet you there, I said. I drove around the corner and arrived at the restaurant just as the two men were lifting the framed painting out of their taxi. It was perfect. I paid 40 GHc and received 5c in change.
"Where is your office?" Gideon asked, persisting for exact information. "Next time you want something framed, just call me and I'll bring the samples to you."
Service -- African style.
Love,
Grammy
Two phone numbers were listed for "Galleria Art". As often happens, one number didn't work. The other was a cell phone answered by a man whom I could neither hear because of all the screaming children in the background, nor understand because West African accents are totally incomprensible to me on the phone. In French or English. After a few back and forth calls, we were able to connect and I asked where his shop was located, so I could go there during my lunch break. Since there are no addresses here, and streets all curve into each other, directions are always given in terms of, "Do you know where___is?" Unfortunately, he kept mentioning places I'd never been to (or if I had, I would never have found them again, anyway)....until he got to "Chicken Licken'". Aha! I KNEW I'd seen that sign. No problem I told him, I know where that is. Fine, he said. Be there at 1:30 p.m. and call me, I'm near there. (It is typical for locals to meet you somewhere and then you follow/take them to your mutual destination.)
Only problem was, when I arrived, I found myself at "Southern Chicken", not "Chicken Licken'". A couple more phone calls and we agreed on another place to meet in 45 minutes. When I arrived at that destination, I again called him, and explained I was "the white woman (as if he couldn't tell on the phone) wearing a light colored skirt (actually cream) and purple top (well, actually, it's deep raspberry, but would he understand that?), and I'd be waiting outside my silver Honda (of which there are only slightly fewer than hundreds of silver Toyotas). It occurred to me that while raspberries and cream sound inviting, maybe cream and raspberry wasn't such a great color choice that morning....
I stepped out of my car in the designated parking lot, and saw a man looking around everywhere but at me, so I waved. Gideon (as that is his name) approached me, said he had get his daughter (about 4 years old, waiting in the taxi), and I could follow him in another taxi, which I did. We went back to a lovely residential area to a large house behind the gated wall (as they all are), which I never could have found on my own, no matter how good his directions had been.
I'm used to framing shops that are immaculate -- where the sample mouldings are geometrically displayed on walls behind pristine service counters holding carefully arranged stacks of mattes, and the surrounding area is a gallery resplendent with samples of the shop's best and creative work. Gideon's shop is a garage stuffed with seemingly randomly stacked mouldings on teetering shelving units, rickety old tables overflowing with what looked more debris than anything else, and old frames and glass stacked every which way on the floor and leaning up against walls. He suggested I sit on an old plastic chair under the tree, which I declined, and then he poured a collection of broken moulding samples from a torn paper bag onto one of the tables in the garage, and suggested I choose from those. (I wasn't going to use a matte, or glass, so those weren't issues.) I held them up against the canvas, which was sitting (much to my concern) on the ground, propped up against a wall. Nothing was quite right. Too "western", I told him..too "fancy"..."not right". I want it to look African...rough (a word that here is understood as "natural", not modern, or in the case of roads, not paved).
Gideon's assistant pulled out piece of moulding that was a "rough" bamboo-like texture with a little bit of the painting's orange and gray tones. Perfect. Gideon then worked up a price, using a pen on a torn piece of paper; 70 cedis ($49). That worked. I offered him 35 as a deposit and said I would give him the other 35 when the picture was ready -- which would be...when? That afternoon, he told me, after he took his daughter (somewhere). I must have looked skeptical, as he added, "Don't worry. It will be fine." He also assured me that when he delivered the painting, and I gave him 40 GHc, he would have the 5c change (because frequently in this cash-based society, no one has any change). He scribbled a map on a small piece of cardboard to help me find my way out of that residential maze, and I returned to the office.
Two hours later I received a phone call: they were ready to deliver my painting, but they couldn't find my office. They were at a nearby restaurant, which I knew, and which is in fact just one street behind my office. I'll meet you there, I said. I drove around the corner and arrived at the restaurant just as the two men were lifting the framed painting out of their taxi. It was perfect. I paid 40 GHc and received 5c in change.
"Where is your office?" Gideon asked, persisting for exact information. "Next time you want something framed, just call me and I'll bring the samples to you."
Service -- African style.
Love,
Grammy
a lovely story
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