Tia Jannah's Bone Art: Rhythm

On display until June 30, 2013

54 Park Place

Newark, NJ 07102

On exhibit: Tia Jannah's Bone Art: Rhythm

The Exhibit

On display in the WBGO Gallery through June 30, 2013 is bone artist Tia Jannah’s exhibit Rhythm inspired by Hurricane Katrina of August 2005, and the storm’s profound and soul-wrenching impact on New Orleans and her people. Many died—some physically, others emotionally. The Rhythm series represents the hope of new life to those who were affected. Jannah’s work also represents the establishment of mankind and the Egyptian culture.

The Artist

As a child Tia loved art. Her mother (Marcia Napper of Likeawoman.net) & Step-mother (Lisa White of Dreams Unveiled Gift Boutique) are artists. They both inspired Tia to pursue an interest in art. In high school she knew that whatever road she took in life, that she would want to do something in the art field. She attended Gibbs College and received her Associates Degree in Visual Communications and Applied Science. Post graduation she took on various odd-end jobs, until she was hired by the United State Postal Service, where she currently works. She never stopped dreaming that one day she would do something with art.

She tried teaching herself web-design, dreamed of one day opening up her own art school for children, and wanted to experiment with pottery, metal and glass, none of which got off the ground. She then started thinking about creating sculptures out of recycled items, because she thought that it would be a great way to reuse something and give it new life and meaning in a creative way. Many of Tia's co-worker friends bounced around several ideas for potential art projects, one of which was the idea of using bones. She thought that it was an interesting idea, and decided to do some research on bone art. She discovered that no one had done the type of bone art that she had in mind.

Tia wanted to create something that one would want to purchase as a decorative piece for their home, or office. She then started collecting, cleaning, & drying bones from left over meals. She was not sure exactly how she was going to use them, but she found the concept not only interesting, but challenging as well. She knew that she wanted to use bones as the main medium in her art work. As a result of that thought process, she created three small wall sculptures and hung them on her kitchen wall. Curious as to what the reaction would be from her friends and family, she was quite surprised to get positive feed-back about the pieces. That positive feed-back inspired Tia to create her Rhythm series, which is a wall series of musical instruments created with bones. She was a little nervous about showing the pieces, because she wasn't sure what the reaction would be to her use of bones to create her art pieces. She brought her first three Rhythm series pieces to work for feed-back, and was pleasantly surprised that the first ten people that saw the pieces, loved them. She sold all three pieces without even trying. It gave her the confidence and motivation to do more, and set a goal to have twelve completed pieces by spring of 2011, for her first art show.