I’m happy to report I’ve added another daughter to my collection of kids: Jeanne Claessens was born earlier this month. Both mother and daughter are doing very well and we couldn’t be more happy. As with Felix, and Garance, there’s of course a link with African art, as Jeanne Walschot was the first female dealer of African art in Belgium, and a serious collector as well.
The US based dealer Ethan Rider, specialized in African knives, had a fun afternoon of experimental ethnology recently when he decided to actually for once try out the Congolese throwing knives he’d been selling for years. The pictures and videos that he produced that day are worth a look and can be found here. Especially the last video, with the Banda knife, is very impressive. It’s amazing to see these flying through the air. Don’t try this at home!
ps in the last issue of Tribal Art Magazine, Ethan also wrote a great expose about fake African knives made by the Austrian blacksmith Tilman Hebeisen together with Wolf-Dieter Miersch; you can read it here.