I was born, Nkrumah Sekou Jennings at Mercy hospital, Rockville Centre, Queens July 25, 1972. My father has 10 brothers and sisters and almost all of them and my many cousins and second cousins work for themselves. My father also owned a cleaning business. He passed when i was 16 so I spent the early part of my early adult life looking to see what my skill would be.
At the time I didn't know what it meant but when I was very young I used to stand beneath the plumbers that worked in our basement while they soldered our copper pipes. I was fascinated by the way the heat would harden the solder and connect the pipes. As I got older my father tried to get me into the neighborhood art school but we couldn't afford it. After a certain age, probably 15, i figured the world of art was beyond my reach. That is probably because i thought of it mainly in an institutional box.
In 1998 I went on a pilgrimage retracing the Maafa(great suffering of enslaved Afrikans). I joined a group of about 40 people who traveled from Massachusettes down the east coast and across the south to Louisiana, then back to Key West to take a boat to the Caribbean and Cuba. The journey ended in South Africa. We traveled the same way of our ancestors so we walked (mostly) hitch-hiked and traveled by boat. The journey was supported and partially funded by some such as Bishop Tutu. But a lot of fund raising was necessary by us as individuals for our daily eating and lodging. I met the group while I was living in Alabama and rejoined them in Puerto Rico, the last stop before South America. I wasn't planning on joining the group until a split developed. The main body decided to skip Brazil and South America to make a timeline in Senegal. About seven of us disagreed with that move considering that Brazil has the largest population of Africans in the world. So we split from the main group and became a sort of rogue group. That meant no funding from the main body.
The group totalled about 40 plus members. We broke off as seven. We ended up in Puerto Rico's main homeless shelter, a very large facility. I lasted about a day and a half there. The female side of the shelter was much more humane giving them a full private kitchen and a bath shared by only 2 occupants. We had 10 or more per room and the infestation intolerable so i took my chances with the beaches. But I met with the other six every morning to discuss raising the funds to leave the island for Venezuela. I, having joined the group late, needed a passport and ticket to Caracass. On the third day a man named Shamba, origionally from St. Kitts overheard me and a freind talking. He had been making beaded jewelry in the cafeteria and always had a full display laid out of very simple but very classy designs. He used semi-precious stones and sterling silver findings. He said he made three hundred a day selling his product on Condado beach. He said he would teach me and wihin a month i would have enough money to leave. I sold in front of the cruise ships that came in everyday and had enough within two weeks.
While in South America I learned from artists and jewelers who worked the street. The streets of Venezuela and Brazil were full of jewelers and craftsmen and craftswomen who were beyond amazing as artists and technicians of the trade. The are excited to teach all they know as the spirit in that part of the world is to pass down the arts. There are many buildings that are fully and totally occupied with artists. My biggest lessons in metalwork came while on a five day boat trip across the Amazon River.
When I returned to the states I began to focus more on Metalsmithing. I started by ripping copper out of abandoned homes in New Orleans and aslo from sites where demo work had been done. I used bathtub faucets and anything I could to get the shapes I needed for bracelets and neck pieces.
I have met almost all artists, heroes and sheroes that i admire through my work. They include Cassandra Wilson, Mary J. Blidge, Cicily Tyson, Peppa, Sadat X and The Roots Band to name a few. I have been making jewelry full time for the last 12 years
