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Few are aware that Chatham University has one of the most significant collections of African art in the region. The Cheryl Olkes Collection, which includes more than 600 works of ethnographic art from all over Africa, was bequeathed to the university in 1998 by the late Dr. Cheryl Olkes, a sociologist and 1970 Chatham graduate.

Olkes lived among the Songhay culture of Niger in the late 1970s and early 1980s, along with her then husband, Paul Stoller, an anthropologist who is currently a professor of anthropology and sociology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania in West Chester, Chester County.

Their experiences are recounted in a book they wrote titled "In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship Among the Songhay of Niger" (University Of Chicago Press, 1989). The book still is used today as a college textbook. The Cheryl Olkes Collection continues to educate Chatham students in countless ways about a continent so far away -- most recently in the form of the exhibition "Material Realities: The Diverse Media of African Art," on view at the Chatham University Art Gallery through Friday.

The exhibition is the result of a class project. A group of undergraduate students in the class "Art 378: Curating the Visual Arts" were given the task, under the direction of Dr. Elisabeth Roark, associate professor of art and coordinator of the Chatham University Art Gallery, of organizing some of the material in the Olkes Collection into a cohesive exhibition. The class is part of Chatham's new art museum studies minor program.

The exhibit, which includes roughly one tenth of the collection, covers a wide range of media, from ivory to wood, brass to beads, and many things in between. Roark says each student was assigned a medium and they worked on that medium cross-culturally.

"What interested me about the collection is that there is so much that is not just wood," she says, "because when I would talk to my students about African art it was clear that they would be thinking about wood masks and sculpture. Traditional African artists also worked in a range of other media. This exhibition celebrates those materials by highlighting works in metal, leather, raffia and other vegetal fibers, beading, basketry and weaving, and ivory."

Because of the scope and depth of the collection, the students were able to present pieces related to various themes -- in this instance, through the variety of materials used by African cultures.

For example, featured in the exhibition are dramatic Suku and Yaka masks from the Democratic Republic of Congo that relate to initiation rites for boys, some of which have huge lion-like raffia manes.

Roark says that often African art materials bear certain value relationships. For example, ivory connotes the strength and endurance of elephants, copper alloy objects are thought to be spiritually charged, and beads and cowry shells once were used as currency and continue to have high value.

One particular strength of the Olkes Collection is its basketry. One wall of the gallery is lined with vividly colored coil-work baskets. Created primarily by women, they are impressive combinations of technique and rich color, such as the unique combination of circle and square aspects in one basket, which is attributed here to the Kuba. While that culture is known more for their weaving and metalworking skills, Roark says one can see here that their baskets are just as impressive in design.

Metalwork is prominent among the cultures of West Africa, such as the Senufo and Baule of the Cote d'Ivoire, the Benin and Yoruba of Nigeria, and the Bamun of the Cameroon grasslands, including jewelry, altarpieces, weapons and figures used by secret societies. Several glass display cases arranged in an alcove of the gallery contain numerous objects of that ilk. But most curious, arranged among them are two skin-covered masks that are amazingly lifelike in appearance.

"These are extremely rare," Roark says. Antelope skin-covered masks like this were produced exclusively by the Ejagham or Ekoi of the upper Cross River area of Nigeria and Cameroon.

In the center of the gallery are two Tuareg camel saddles made of leather, wood and twine. The Tuareg of eastern Niger are a nomadic people who move through the Sahara, thus saddles like these play an integral role in daily life. But even with such utilitarian concerns they are often decorated, much like the larger saddle, which is an example of Terik design. Terik-style saddles are used only by Tuareg men and are characterized by their colorful geometric designs.

Several of the pieces on display relate to diviners, or sorcerers, of the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria.

Yoruba religion uses beads to translate spiritual meaning. There are several beaded necklaces and plaques on display that diviners wore while performing rituals. Often they held substances that aided in the rituals, which might involve settling a dispute, predicting the future, or empowering an "ere ibeji," or "twin figure."

Several ere ibeji are on display here. Small wooden dolls, they sport tiny necklaces and bracelets made of beads. Yoruban families have an unusually high rate of twinning. And though a set of twins is viewed as a blessing and source of good fortune for the family, many don't survive. Thus ere ibeji are carved to represent a deceased twin. Family members inherit the care of an ere ibeji and treat it as a living child. Often shrines are built and offerings are given to please the spirit of the twin so it will bless the family.

Like the Yoruba people, the Ewe people celebrated the birth of twins, or venari, and considered it to be very auspicious. Several dolls from that tribe are on display as well.

What's most amazing about the exhibition, aside from the obvious skill it took to create some of these objects, is that the students were able to do such a thorough job of researching the objects and explaining their particular uses and applications, especially because, as Roark says, "there is a lot of discourse in the field."

"The field of African art has a mix of anthropologists and art historians, and they both have their own particular preferences as to how things are handled in museums," she says.

Add to that the fact that in the early days when the continent was colonized, little regard was given to finding out who created these objects or their uses.

"Initially, the colonists couldn't care less. They just saw these things as curiosities," Roark says. "They would pick them up, but they didn't care about the function or the artist. So, a lot of these works are really mysterious."

Thankfully, Olkes did care. And even more importantly, Roark and her class took, and will continue to take, those concerns further.

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