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Lesson Title: Using the Patterns and Symbols of Mali Mud Cloth to Convey Identity

Name: Janet Berry

Discipline: Visual Arts

School: Montgomery Blair High School, Montgomery County, MD

Grade Level: 9, 10, 11, 12: Drawing and Design, 2-D Design Unit

Time Period: Five 90-minute periods

I. Conceptual Framework

Big Idea: Identity

Rationale:
This lesson will enable students to relate the role of the arts in defining identity. Specifically, they will examine the community in West African society and how members of that community define their role. They will see how artifacts, music and performance express identity and community as narrative and mark life passages from birth to death. Students will compare the changes in the production of mud cloth from ancient to modern times. They will see the influence of African art on their own culture. Students will gain an understanding of functional art and symbolism as it is used in African fabric design, oral tradition, music and dance and create their own symbols to match, express, and own identity in their community.

Essential Questions:

• How does art express social/communal identity?
• How is one’s identity affected by membership in a community?
• How do the roles in contemporary society compare with the roles of the community members in ancient Mali?
• How do artifacts and performance convey the culture of Western Africa?
• How did the bogolanfini cloth define the wearer?
• How did other urbanization change the way mud cloth “bogolan” is now made?
• How do symbols identify the wearer?

Key Concepts:

• Social and Communal Identity in Ancient and Modern West Africa is reflected in their artifacts, oral tradition, music and dance
• Social and Communal Identity can be reflected through writing, art, music and dance.
• Proverbs to teach social belief, values and practices in symbolic form.
• Stories can be interpreted through symbols and through movement and dance.
• Artwork, artifacts and performance reflect the values of a society.

State and Local Standards (Maryland Learner Outcomes and Core Learning Goals)

Outcome I C: Design, Style, and Meaning

• Students will apply design principles to interpret the ideas of artisans from 1200-1400 CE, choosing design patterns from Mali bogolonfini.
• Students will transform the shapes and simple images and abstract patterns and text into a meaningful simple, symbolic pattern to define their communal and personal identity.
• Students will describe and analyze the compositions they create as they relate to the work done in the Western Mali from 1200 CE to today and compare the designs to other African textiles Mbuti and Shoowa.
• Students will use art vocabulary to describe the artifacts.

Outcome II C: Style and Content

• Students will describe, analyze and judge the style and content of the visual work chosen.
• Students will analyze their interpretive work as it relates to the style and content of the work studied.

Outcome II D: Interdisciplinary Connections

• Students will process information about ideas and concepts from visual art, literature and music of the specific time period.
• Students will interpret a Mali proverb using movement and dance.
• Students will make connections between traditional Mali music and contemporary Blues, Gospel and Soul

Outcome III A: Media—Experimenting with Ideas and Materials

• Students will use fabric, natural dyes and iron oxide or ink or the computer program Adobe Photoshop CS to create a textile using various tools to create shapes, space and color in geometric, natural or realistic form. Students with less experience using the program could use the Smithsonian’s do it yourself program to create a bogolonfini.
• Students will learn how to create an original textile using symbols, which they can identify with their own stories.

Outcome IV C: Personal Criteria—Artistic Choices Leading to Personal Style and Significance

• Students will create a textile inspired by the work of Mali craftswomen and men and also contemporary artists who were inspired by the trends of the time in which the original work was created.
• Students will create a symbol that reflects their identity and will use a technique similar to the mud daubing application of the ancient Mali designers.

II. Topics

Enduring Understanding:

• People create art to communicate and teach history, values and beliefs.
• People use their environment as subject matter for their artwork.
• People create art to record history or for spiritual or personal reasons.
• Contemporary artists are influenced by art from other times and cultures.

III. Artworks/artifacts/performances

• Two original Shoowa textiles
• Modified cloth example done by the instructor
• PowerPoint of African Textiles, and contemporary Mali designers
• Video of African Dance
• Parables from Africa that establish values

IV. Lessons

Breakdown of Lesson Components:

Day One (90 minutes):
Introduction: Visual and Audio, What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? Reading, Cloth Preparation, Create a symbol, Plus/Delta

1. The teacher will show PowerPoint, video, examples of West African Mud Cloth patterns, including woven Shoowa cloth and Mbuti body painting and fabric design, thus comparing a positive pattern application (Mbuti and Shoowa) with a negative pattern (bogolan).
2. Five groups of 6 students will read a different paragraph about function, symbolism or identity.
3. Students will pair up with their 1:00 partner to discuss their reading section.
4. Each group of six will present their opinions of what is a community and how it differs from the Western model based on individual identity.
5. Plus Delta chart: Did the Power Point and group discussion help you to learn about symbols and their relationship to individual and community identity?
6. Students will draw two examples of a symbol and the meaning of the symbol that would be a good one to identify themselves or their group.
7. Students will put their 8”x11” strip of muslin (with their initials at the corner) in a tea solution with alum to boil for 60 minutes and will remove it and put it on the drying rack (They will draw their symbol on it on day two).

Day Two (90 minutes):
Reading, Review of Images, Demonstration, Draw on cloth. Application of mud substitute (iron oxide or black ink). Students will turn in a checklist of criteria met. Guided Practice

1. Students will read about bogolanfini, mud-dyed textiles (two reading levels based on response from day one).
2. Students will review some bogolanfini patterns on the PowerPoint. The five sections in the skirt refer to the five key aspects of life in a family: respect parents, reunite people, respect the secrets of the family, respect the path of the Moors of Kayes and respect the people traditionally known as Moors.
3. Students will watch a demonstration on how to draw a negative (bubble shape using line to reproduce their symbol).
4. Students will make a negative drawing of their symbol and repeat it with another symbol on their prepared cloth.
5. Students will begin making their own design using their symbols through guided practice.

Day Three (90 minutes):
Short Lecture, Group Activity. Performance, Written peer evaluation

1. The teacher will give a short presentation about community and Spiritual Power of the bogolanfini.
2. Students will divide into five groups based on a number given them that will assign them to a particular group: women, hunters, drummers, griot (oral historical and performer), and young men. Students will assume a role in the community as a group. Each group will determine what their role is and will be given a West African proverb to interpret using motion and body language instead of visual symbols.
3. Each group will decide on the movements to use in their dance and then perform the dance or movements for the class.
4. The students will check off performance criteria for each group.

Day Four (90 minutes):
Demonstration and lecture, Groups formed, Drawing, Painting Discussion, KWL

1. The teacher will demonstrate how to apply bleach to a black cloth or use white paint to create a white positive symbol on black paper. Emphasis will be placed on community, five key aspects of the family and the symbols. The 36”x 48” paper will be divided into the five areas of the cloth as described earlier in the PowerPoint.
2. Students will divide into groups and draw their symbols on their section of imitation bogolonfini.
3. Students will discuss how urbanization has changed the community in Mali and the production and use of bogolon.
4. Students will fill out the last column of the KWL.

Day Five (90 minutes):
Painting and evaluation

1. Students will finish painting the negative areas and set their cloths in the sun to dry.
2. Students will fill out their self-evaluation rubric and the peer evaluation box on the rubric of their 2:00 partner.

Teacher Background:

Bogolonfini is a word used to identify a handmade, painted cloth that originated in Western Africa (Mali) around 1200-1400 CE Mali. These cotton cloths were originally woven on small hand or double heddle looms in long strips called finimugu by the men and were then sewn together to form a cloth of about 32” x 48” or 45” x 72”. The true bogolonfini cloth was then given to the women, who boiled and dried it. Then, they dyed it with a dark solution made from the leaves of the Bogolon tree, which prepared the cloth to accept the fermented iron oxide mud. Thus the name “mud cloth.”

The symbols they used may have told a story or a proverb, or they may have had a “secret” meaning known only to the women of the close community, according to Julie Geschwind’s sources. The geometric and natural forms may have been the result of the exchange of goods and ideas between the cultures along the trade routes, since the religion of Islam practiced in many African countries. The background area or negative spaces around the symbols were coated with up to three thin layers of mud by daubing and drawing with sticks, bamboo splints, feathers, palm brushes and metal spatulas. The cloth was dried in the sun after each application of mud. The symbolic shapes may have been related to common objects and abstract symbols related to events, emotions or nature. The patterns are repetitive, but not totally symmetric. After the mud had set, the cloth was given a final rinse and the positive areas were then bleached using a paste of caustic soda, peanuts and millet to bleach the symbols white against the black of the mud background. This ancient process is still practiced by the women of Mali and is considered the true Bogolanfini (Bo-ho-lahn-FEE-nee). It is a tradition among the Bamana people and is passed down from generation to generation. It is a part of their communal identity.

Modern “mud cloth” or bogolon cloth is being made by men and has become a commercial enterprise. Cloth is made by machine, and the designs are printed using modern methods. The colors are no longer just the traditional black and white. Rust is being used and is thought to signify supernatural power and blood; it is worn by hunters and warriors. Other colors used today are gray, red, purple, yellow and orange. The widespread sale of bogolon shows the influence of Western culture, a change in outlook from the village to the international market, and the change in values as the individual focuses on profit and entrepreneurship
The wearing of the cloth is an identifying part of the Mali culture, as it is worn at rites of passage, such as birth, marriage and death. Each mud cloth, “bogolonfini,” is unique and has its own pattern and meaning. It is used to define social status, character and occupation. Twentieth century contemporary African artists are using symbols and colors of bogolanfini in their paintings.

Specific Objective:

Students will be able to make a mud cloth section using tannin-dyed cloth and iron oxide mud paste, or Adobe Photoshop CS, manipulating the drawing and formatting tools to make their shapes and arrange them into an original pattern.

Vocabulary/Concepts: http://www.risc.org.uk/bogolan/index.htm

Materials/Resources (For Both Students and Teacher):

Videotape:

The Healing Art of African Dance, Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado, www.soundtrue.com 2003

Texts:

Borgatti, Jean M. and Richard Brilliant. Likeness and Beyond; Portraits from the World. New York: The Center for African Art, 1993.

Burnham, Harold B., Studies in Textile History. Royal Ontario Museum: Toronto, 1977.

Chipp, Herschel B. Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

Gillow, John. African Textiles: Colour and Creativity Across a Continent. London: Thames and Hudson, 2003.

Herreman, Frank. African Faces, African Figures: The Arman Collection. Belgium: Snoeck, Ducaju & Zoon, 1997.

Jefferson, Louise E. The Decorative Arts of Africa. New York: Viking Press, 1973.

Kleiner, F. S., D.M. Mamiya and R.G. Tansey. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. 11th ed. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001.

Meurant, Georges. Shoowa MotievenBrussel. Brussels: C. Van de Neste, Gemeentekrediet, 1986.

Meurant, Georges and Robert Farris Thompson. Mbuti Design. Stuttgart: Staib and Mayer, 1995.

Parry, Linda. William Morris Textiles. New York: The Viking Press, 1983.

Spring, Christopher. African Textiles: The Treasury of Decorative Art. Dubai: The Oriental Press, 1997.

Trowell, Margaret. African Design. New York: Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1960.

Web Resources:

http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/about/mudcloth.html

http://www.harn.ufl.edu/cats/4/ReadingOverview.pdf

Teacher list:

http://www.cap.nsw.edu.au/QI/TOOLS/index.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=ticket+to+leave%2Bedu

http://arts.gov/pub/ArtsLearning.pdf

http://www.judybyron.com/whereilive/whereIlive-commentary.html

Student/Teacher list:

http://www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices/mudcloth/index_flash.html

http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/mali/home.htm (copyright)

http://www.risc.org.uk/bogolan/index.htm sound clips

Student Worksheets:

Plus/Delta Chart: A simple, inclusive strategy enabling students to consider the pluses (what went well) and the deltas (what you would like to see changed)

What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? Handout

KWL Chart (Know, Want to know, and Learned): A chart that asks students to consider what they know, still would like to know, and what they have learned about a particular topic

Peer Evaluation worksheet

Lesson Abstract: Bogolanfini or mud cloth was an integral part of life in 1200-1400CE Mali. Textiles make up a third of the wealth of African people. This “mud cloth” was worn at important life passages and is an expression of national identity. In this unit, students will see the communal influences in the creation of symbols and patterns in these textiles. They will see the changes in attitude toward the making of the cloth and the move from a village identity to an international market for some versions of the cloth production. They will create their own identity using symbols in a concrete or abstract manner. They will note the continuing influence of cultures on each other in both religion and economics. Finally, they will learn to adapt an ancient process and create a sample textile that can be finished in two weeks rather than a year or two.

Lesson 1. Day 1
Components:

Motivation/Warm-Up:

• Students will be shown a PowerPoint of Bogolanfini, including two textiles from the Shoowa and some images of Mbuti design.
• Students will initial a piece of cloth and dye it in a solution of tea and alum.
• Students will read about function symbolism and identity.

Modeling:

• Teacher will demonstrate how to write initials on cloth and carefully put in the simmering tea water and how to carefully remove it and place it on the drying rack near the end of class.
• Teacher will demonstrate how to draw a negative symbol.
• Students will be shown the PowerPoint examples.
• Examples of symbols will be posted.
• Teacher example will be displayed.

Guided and Independent Practice:

• Student will post their drawings after 30 minutes of working and be invited to comment on their design as symmetrical, asymmetrical or radial.
• The teacher will give positive feedback and encourage students to think creatively and be relaxed about the placement of the repeated symbol.
• Students will begin their own design, filling in the negative spaces around their identity images. The teacher will guide them through the creation.

Assessment:

• Students will write a response to the first bogolonfini slide with See? Think? Wonder? and place it in their communication folder. The teacher will write a short note on each to assure understanding.
• Students will put their drawings (with a sentence about the meaning of their symbol written on the back of the drawing) in their communication/grading folder with their completed drawing.
• Students who have not completed their drawings will write a note that they have taken it home to finish and will return it next class.
• The teacher will check the drawings and notations about the symbols for understanding and make appropriate comments for completion so the students can begin the next step of the lesson.

Closure/Summary:

Students will complete the Plus/Delta Chart and answer the following question in both columns: Did the Power Point and group discussion and creation of a symbol help you to learn about symbols and how they identify groups?

Lesson Extensions: This lesson could be extended for four more classes as suggested in the unit plan. Additionally, the students could sew their designs together to make a large sampler of their symbols. Copies could be made of their design and glued together to make a large paper sampler. Examples from other ancient cultures and contemporary Textile Design might be used. This lesson can be taught with a computer or modified traditional materials. The students could visit the Museum of African Art and see examples of contemporary bogolan. The class could be taught digitally using Adobe Photoshop or a drawing program.