Diana Baird N'Diaye's Page

My Role

Artist

My Discipline(s)

Music, Visual Arts, Crafts, Digital Arts, Design

About Me And My Work

Describing my artistic discipline always gives me pause. For more than two decades I've designed and made jewelry experimenting with different materials from paper to metal to beads and felt. I also use quilting, applique, digital print, and embroidery techniques in creating visual narrative pieces. I place myself somewhere between visual arts/studio crafts and design. In my "other" life I am an anthropologist with a focus on the study of expressive culture--including traditional craft, oral expression, dance, culinary arts and music--mostly but not exclusively in the African world.

Places I Would Like To Visit

I have had the great fortune to travel and to visit sites of art-making, (Including design, crafts, music, dance, and culinary arts.) The United States is home-base right now, but Senegal, South Africa, Bermuda, Barbados, Guyana and even Switzerland are also "home" either by living experience, frequent travel, heritage or all of the above. I have been to japan-Tokyo, and France-Paris, Florence-Italy and Barcelona- Spain but would love to visit India, Micronesia, Australia and Sweden.

Art Forms And Cultures I Would Like To Engage With

Oh, there are many---Co-design furniture with designers in Scandinavia, Japan--
To work with
choreographers, dancers, ceramicists and wood workers to create installation work incorporating fiber.

My Creative Influences & Favorite Artists

Again, there are many-- Romare Bearden, Matisse, Nike Davis-Yoruba adire (resist dye artist), African American traditional quilters from the Sea Islands, Saramaka, Aluku and other Guianese Maroon artists, Japanese designer- Miyake, sculptor Martin Puryear, Bettye Saar, my mentor in clothing design -Zelda Wynn Valdez,

My Artistic Affiliations

craft haus, wpca, Empowered Women International, Potomac Craftsmen, and Fiber Arts study Gruop(when dues are brought current)