BOAKYE FAMILY ADINKRA WORKSHOP

Boakye Youth Workshops

Made to order or Visit the Inventory Kente-cloth

Boakye Youth Workshops

Featuring young Textile artists specializing in Adinkra symbols & Kente-cloth weaving

Boakye Textile store

Made to order or Visit the Inventory Kente-cloth

Boakye Youth Workshops

Choose from a selection of beautifully hand-stamped silk-screen-printed textiles

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Featured Cultural Site

Made to order or Visit the Inventory Kente-cloth

Tour operator's featured must-see destination in Ntonso Village

Made to order or Visit the Inventory Kente-cloth

Traditional loom-woven Kente fabrics for special occasions

GATHERING THE FIREWOOD

MEET THE MATRON

Madame Veronica Abena Tebi is Mother, Matron and primary legacy member of the Boakye Family Workshop. Surviving her husband, The Late Yaw Stephen Opanin, "Mama" or "Nana" as she is called, depending on who's doing the calling, is nearing her 90s and actively manages the raw material resources that combine spirit with tradition. Nana and the 4th generation children routinely assess the firewood and rotate the water supply, all of which are also necessary to cook the dye and heat the water for bathing and cooking.

Boakye Family

Gathering firewood

Madame Veronica Abena Tebi

Adinkra DEMONSTRATION

Bark for ink is collected and shredded by pounding

Shredded fiber is then soaked before being cooked in kettles over a fire continuously for a total of 3 days. Once the product has been thoroughly cooked, it will then undergo another straining and cooking process. The finished product will have a consistency comparable to that of a thick molasses or syrup and dark brown in color.

POUNDING THE BARK

Bark shredding and stamping process is pounded for several hours. Once the shredding process is completed, the finished grounds will be transferred to cooking kettles for its next stage of development.

Selecting cloth and Adinkra symbol impressions

The woven Kente cloths selected for use to host the impression are also produced at the workshop. These cloths come in a variety of colors, lengths and widths suitable to the symbolic impressions it will host.

Preparing to stamp impression

Handcrafted and carved organic stamps are then used to create the cloth impressions. The stamps themselves are made from Calabash gourds.