The Beloved is Everywhere

The Beloved is everywhere.  You  don't need to look everywhere; the whole of nature is the mystery of God.

--Irina Tweedie--

The Show-Stopping Fashion of Namibia’s Herero Tribe

By Alyssa Coppelman

Even in a continent rich with fantastic traditional garments, the Herero tribe of Namibiastands out. Photographer Jim Naughten first came across and photographed members of the tribe while traveling across Southern Africa 15 years ago. Naughten returned in 2011 with better camera equipment and produced this eye-catching series. Merrell has just published a book of the work, and two shows open in March: at Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn, and Margaret Street Gallery in London.

The origin of the Herero dress is early-20^th-century German colonization. The outfits, which at first were forced on the Herero, later became a tradition, a choice, and a source of pride and status as they made the fashion their own. Tribe members wear the German uniforms at various ceremonies, funerals, and festivals as a way of honoring their warrior ancestors.

The Power of Myth

Whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.

Joseph Campbell

The Masks of God, Vol. I - Primitive Mythology

Myths are the creative products of the human psyche.  They are the manifestations of humankind's universal need to explain psychological, social, cosmological, and spiritual realities. Artists are a culture's Myth makers.