Artist: Mary Waters Monroe

Artist Statement: Back in the 1970's my husband and I spent three years teaching elementary school at the International School of Lusaka, Zambia. While there we did a lot of traveling throughout not only Zambia, but Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia at the time). During our travels we collected many artifacts; drums, carvings, baskets, masks, fabrics........ Our home was full of these treasures so we were always surrounded by memories. While teaching 3rd and 4th graders for 32 years with Ukiah Unified, I showed slides to my students and told stories of Africa.

When the Redwood Complex fire burned through our home in 2017 we lost all “things” African, including some paintings of lions and elephants that I had done during the few years prior to the fire. Thankfully we have a few digitized slides but the rest is gone. In the fall of 2018 I decided to try to replicate some of my elephant paintings, which then led to doing a lion painting. This inspired me to create a challenge for myself: Try to capture a variety of memories from our years in Africa through paintings and writing.

I have been working on this for months now and who knows when I will stop. What you see here is a snippet of our three years from 1973 – 1976. These paintings and photographs portray a treasured time of my life; full of adventure and awe!