Minneapolis Institute of Art

Man's cloth

Ewe artist

Date

c. 1940

Medium

Cotton, strip woven, supplementary weft patterning

Culture

Ewe

Department

Arts of Global Africa

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Both Ewe and Asante weavers create unusual, dynamic cloths by alternating two or more stripe patterns. The Asante name for this style is Mmbam (mixed cloth); the Ewe refer to it as Sasa . The strips are often dramatically different from one another, but the pattern blocks usually share a similar color palette and design features which unify the disparate elements. The use of multiple stripe patterns reflects a conscious design choice and is not a way to use up odds and ends of leftover strips or to recycle older cloths. The use of two-color plied weft threads and figurative motifs identifies this particular piece as the creation of an Ewe weaver. In the lower right hand corner is an area patched with a third stripe pattern; this may be a repair to the garment or it may make up for a shortage of that particular stripe pattern. Almost every cloth in this installation has a patch or a miscalculation of some sort; these aberrations are not considered flaws nor do they diminish the value of the cloth. Ghana, Africa

The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.