I recently went to a book discussion at my local art museum. They had chosen Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti to read to complement a traveling exhibition called Dig by Jeff Donaldson.

He was an African-American artist in the 1960s who did multimedia work.  He did collages and paintings.  His work tied together African art from the past by using motifs from several African countries in addition to modern images.  I loved the whole exhibit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By far my favorite piece was one called One 4 Bearden.

one4bearden

Obviously the first thing I saw was the image of a harpist partially made up by quilt blocks. Perfect for me. Seriously, this wants to come and live at my house.  I was so sad that there were no available reproductions available to buy.  The museum gift shop didn’t have anything about this exhibit.  I was there with my money out ready to buy.

Anyway, look at the top corners and you see the Egyptian harpists in the background.  The more you look the more you see.  The whole exhibit was like this.

artmuseumtealwall

The discussion was ok. I’m a Nnedi Okorafor nerd. I’ve read all her books and I follow her on Twitter. So people would reference stuff in the biography in Binti and it took all my self control not to be like, “That’s a few years out of date. She’s moved on from there because….” Don’t go all super fangirl on the nice people. You’ll scare the muggles who are talking about never really reading sci-fi much. They liked the book and are talking about reading more of her books.  Let that stand as is.  

I loved the idea of picking a book to complement the traveling exhibits.  They only do it a few times a year but I’ll definitely see what they chose next even if it means going out in public and talking to strangers.