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Female Firsts: Felicia Abban · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told your production of iHeart Radio. And it
0:19
Speaker 1: is time for another edition of Female First, which means
0:22
Speaker 1: we are once again joined by the splendid, the stupendous
0:25
Speaker 1: Eeves spoke of Eaves. Hello, Hello, always good to see you,
0:31
Speaker 1: even if it's virtually you too. Yes, and as you know,
0:35
Speaker 1: we love checking in on your adventures. But what you're
0:39
Speaker 1: up to? What's been going on? Eves?
0:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's a heat wave right now. First of all,
0:45
Speaker 2: I feel like I have to preface with that. So
0:47
Speaker 2: it is very hot today, it has been for the
0:49
Speaker 2: last few days. There have been lots of warnings like
0:51
Speaker 2: don't go out, don't be doing a lot, don't be
0:53
Speaker 2: doing all the hikes and going out midday without putting
0:56
Speaker 2: your sunscreen on and going to the beach and all
0:59
Speaker 2: these things. So I'm in the midst of that. But
1:02
Speaker 2: also it doesn't feel too unfamiliar because one thing that
1:06
Speaker 2: I have been tapped into since I've gotten here here,
1:09
Speaker 2: so people are listening. No, I'm in Cape Town, South Africa.
1:12
Speaker 2: There's very Mediterranean climate here, so it's not like we're
1:16
Speaker 2: used to in Atlanta. In the deep summer where it's
1:19
Speaker 2: like full full throttle humidity, full throttle heat at the
1:25
Speaker 2: same time, and it doesn't change throughout the day. It's
1:28
Speaker 2: like you get in the night what you get during
1:29
Speaker 2: the day, basically with maybe a little reprieve. So it's
1:33
Speaker 2: usually you know, it cools off at night, but it
1:35
Speaker 2: has definitely been warm at night and there is relative umunity,
1:38
Speaker 2: so it's pretty warm. So that is that is tempering everything,
1:43
Speaker 2: including I feel like my lethargy. However, I did do
1:48
Speaker 2: some outdoor things when it was a little cooler last week,
1:52
Speaker 2: and I took my first surf lesson and that went
1:56
Speaker 2: a lot better than I thought it would go, because
1:59
Speaker 2: I have been I had heard tell that it was
2:02
Speaker 2: very difficult and very tiring, and I enjoyed it and
2:10
Speaker 2: I wasn't fully exhausted by the end. I thought I
2:13
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna stand, and I did, and like I caught
2:18
Speaker 2: a few waves if you can call that little baby waves.
2:24
Speaker 2: So yeah, no, I really truly enjoyed it, though I
2:27
Speaker 2: had no expectations, but it was full the full experience
2:32
Speaker 2: of joy for me.
2:34
Speaker 3: Oh you actually stood on your first time, like trying
2:38
Speaker 3: out there?
2:38
Speaker 1: Wow?
2:39
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And I went for a while, like I rode.
2:42
Speaker 2: I wrote it for a little minute too, like I
2:44
Speaker 2: stayed on and then so then I felt weightless. I
2:47
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is possible. It's kind of like
2:48
Speaker 2: doing your first headstanding and when you're practicing yoga, it's like, oh,
2:52
Speaker 2: I got all doing your first crow post. It's like
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Speaker 2: I understand, I understand that I might have had this
2:56
Speaker 2: strength all alone. The capability is there, and it's just
2:58
Speaker 2: a matter of all the puzzle pieces clicking together, which
3:02
Speaker 2: was very It gave me a lot of optimism because
3:08
Speaker 2: I mean, I think anytime I'm learning a new thing,
3:10
Speaker 2: I'm like, there is so much that's beyond me. There
3:13
Speaker 2: is so much I don't know. I'm starting late all
3:16
Speaker 2: of these things. But when the things click together, it
3:19
Speaker 2: just inspires more confidence because it makes me think, oh,
3:24
Speaker 2: this isn't beyond my grasp. It's not insanely hard. It's
3:30
Speaker 2: just practice, you know. It's just accumulative, cumulative knowledge that
3:35
Speaker 2: must that I must embody before I get to a
3:39
Speaker 2: point where I'm like, all right, I feel good in
3:40
Speaker 2: this thing.
3:42
Speaker 1: I love it.
3:43
Speaker 3: You definitely are the epitome of like, yes, I can
3:46
Speaker 3: get out there and I can do this. You're talking
3:48
Speaker 3: about all these like yoga poses and you said head
3:50
Speaker 3: and stand like everybody does it. And I'm like, no,
3:54
Speaker 3: that's a you thing, that's a you experience. Yeah, which
3:58
Speaker 3: is amazing. But then being able to do all that, now,
4:00
Speaker 3: are you addicted? Are you ready to go?
4:02
Speaker 2: Like?
4:02
Speaker 3: Have been going back more and more?
4:04
Speaker 2: I am, But let me tell you, so, I wanted
4:06
Speaker 2: to set my next lesson for this week for reasons
4:10
Speaker 2: I can't, and I'm about to travel too. I am like, like, so,
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Speaker 2: I actually do think I really could get pretty addicted
4:20
Speaker 2: to it, Like I could be really into it and
4:22
Speaker 2: want to get out there a lot. I had this
4:25
Speaker 2: moment where I was on the board and I'm not
4:27
Speaker 2: I have to say, also, I'm not a water person.
4:30
Speaker 2: Like I don't spend I don't spend a ton. I
4:33
Speaker 2: haven't spent a ton of time in the water over
4:34
Speaker 2: my life. Over the course of my life, I haven't
4:37
Speaker 2: spent I definitely haven't spent a ton of time in
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Speaker 2: the ocean. I know how to swim, I know how
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Speaker 2: to do certain things, but I wouldn't say I'm a
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Speaker 2: water person. I'm definitely not a water sports person. But
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Speaker 2: it felt quite natural and like I could get into
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Speaker 2: the zone and it just felt like I had no
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Speaker 2: It just felt freeing because I wasn't attached to any outcome.
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Speaker 2: It was just like I'm really out there having fun
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Speaker 2: and that was my only goal. And so I think
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Speaker 2: I could get I could really get addicted for that reason.
5:10
Speaker 2: And it's and it's I like things that are low investment,
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Speaker 2: and it's like it's the board and the body in
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Speaker 2: the wetsuit and really it's like, you know, that is
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Speaker 2: what it is. And the people who I met through
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Speaker 2: it were super super cool and very kind, very nice.
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Speaker 2: They seemed they had it was a lot of camaraderie
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Speaker 2: there and I really appreciated that. But I will say
5:34
Speaker 2: it's gonna be hard for me though, because the dilemma
5:37
Speaker 2: for that I'm facing right now is that I'm about
5:39
Speaker 2: to get some piercings, and piercings in water don't go together,
5:43
Speaker 2: like I cannot submerge them, so that means I would
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Speaker 2: have to be out of lessons for many months and
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Speaker 2: the timing is just poor. I have to work around
5:51
Speaker 2: piercing timing for other reasons, and.
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Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it sucks for that, that's awesome. Also, like
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Speaker 3: that's the opposite of what I know of according to
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Speaker 3: surf movies, where they are all like competitive with each other.
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Speaker 3: I guess that's the drama of it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I think it makes sense. Surfing can be
6:15
Speaker 1: very meditative, and you are someone who enjoys that. It
6:20
Speaker 1: makes sense to me you you do have the skill set.
6:24
Speaker 1: I think people underestimate because I only tried surfing once
6:29
Speaker 1: and I was not very good at it. But I
6:31
Speaker 1: think people underestimate the arm strength you need because you
6:34
Speaker 1: have to push yourself up really quickly and then find
6:38
Speaker 1: your balance very quickly. And so yeah, I think you've
6:42
Speaker 1: got that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what it is. When when my instructor
6:48
Speaker 2: was showing me how to get up on the board,
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Speaker 2: I was like, I do that a million times. I've
6:54
Speaker 2: done that exact action a million times in a row
6:57
Speaker 2: through my younger practice. It's like a vinyasa in and
7:00
Speaker 2: viasa yoga. And so I was like, oh, I got
7:03
Speaker 2: that downpack. Now if I can learn to balance once
7:06
Speaker 2: I'm standing, then na's where it is. But I'm like,
7:08
Speaker 2: that'll be fine because I practice balance a lot. It's
7:11
Speaker 2: not the same as balancing on a board in the water,
7:13
Speaker 2: but like, I know some skill that I can translate
7:16
Speaker 2: is there? But I did learn. I was like, this paddling,
7:20
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to hit the
7:23
Speaker 2: whatever the calisthenics moves are that I need that are translatable.
7:26
Speaker 2: I have to look into that. I don't know if
7:28
Speaker 2: it's the pull ups, if it's the dead hangs. Something
7:30
Speaker 2: about the lats and the shoulders is like, is they
7:34
Speaker 2: need to be worked on for that specific action. It's like, okay,
7:40
Speaker 2: but I wasn't super sore of the day afterwards, so
7:42
Speaker 2: I was like, I won't I'm not far. We can
7:45
Speaker 2: do it. Dang, you weren't. No, Surprisingly.
7:51
Speaker 1: Well, I can't wait to hear more about this. I
7:53
Speaker 1: can't wait to get more updates about this. This is fantastic.
7:56
Speaker 1: This is why we love checking in with you. It's
7:58
Speaker 1: so great. So I have a question before getting into
8:01
Speaker 1: this one. This is my transition question because we've talked
8:05
Speaker 1: about photography before on this show. But I'm curious what
8:10
Speaker 1: your thoughts are Eve, as someone who travels a lot,
8:13
Speaker 1: on taking photos and when not to take photos and
8:19
Speaker 1: when you regret not taking photos later, Like, do you
8:22
Speaker 1: have thoughts about that?
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Speaker 2: I do, but I want to ask a clarifying question,
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Speaker 2: do you mean of myself or of other people who
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Speaker 2: are in the locale that I'm going to.
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Speaker 1: Of I would say just anything I was thinking more of, like, oh,
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Speaker 1: I'm traveling, here's this beautiful, because I'm somebody who's I
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Speaker 1: used to take a lot of photos, and now I
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Speaker 1: never I hardly ever take photos just of the landscape
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Speaker 1: or I'm definitely usually not in them. So just however
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Speaker 1: you would interpret how you usually take photos when you.
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Speaker 2: Travel, I don't ever take enough photos. I don't. I've
9:01
Speaker 2: gotten a lot better at it in the past two years, maybe,
9:09
Speaker 2: but I always find myself saying afterwards like I didn't
9:12
Speaker 2: take enough photos, And that doesn't mean that there might
9:15
Speaker 2: be a good, a decent volume of photos. So I
9:17
Speaker 2: might still have taken a thousand photos, but I'm always
9:22
Speaker 2: missing something. I'm like, well, wait, when we went into
9:24
Speaker 2: that cake shop, I didn't get a picture of us
9:28
Speaker 2: when we were there and we were eating. Or I
9:30
Speaker 2: actually didn't get a picture of me at all at
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Speaker 2: this monumental site. I just got a picture of like
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Speaker 2: you know, this turret or this flying buttress or this
9:45
Speaker 2: I don't know, stupid, like very specific architectural feature or
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Speaker 2: something like silly of that place rather than like some
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Speaker 2: more contextual picture or a picture with me in it. I
9:55
Speaker 2: remember my mother in law, I think I was. I
9:59
Speaker 2: think it was. I was sending some pictures too, but
10:02
Speaker 2: I just like set pictures of everything else, like the streets,
10:06
Speaker 2: the sites, you know. And she was like, can you
10:09
Speaker 2: send me some pictures with you and it? And I
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Speaker 2: was like, I don't, really, I don't have those. So
10:15
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do better at that. And I need
10:18
Speaker 2: some looks too. So my husband I traveled together a lot,
10:21
Speaker 2: I gotta get him on board with like you got
10:24
Speaker 2: to give me a look, like for whatever reason, you know,
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Speaker 2: he doesn't really want.
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Speaker 1: To do that with me.
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Speaker 2: Like he's good at doing that with everything else, Like
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Speaker 2: he's good at photographing his surroundings and things. But I
10:37
Speaker 2: need some looks at me too. So yeah, I'm trying
10:40
Speaker 2: to get better at that as well.
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Speaker 1: That's interesting because I had a friend who she basically
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Speaker 1: was like if I don't if I'm not in the picture,
10:51
Speaker 1: then was I even there? So she always was like
10:55
Speaker 1: taking the picture, I had to have her in it. No,
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Speaker 1: I think I the concept of like when to take
11:02
Speaker 1: pictures and not take pictures is just an interesting one
11:05
Speaker 1: to me. And I used to similar to journaling, when
11:09
Speaker 1: I would get back from somewhere, I would caption every
11:13
Speaker 1: picture so I could remember, this is where you were,
11:16
Speaker 1: this is how you felt. And it was a very
11:19
Speaker 1: cathartic and kind of like closing the book on that
11:23
Speaker 1: journey type of thing. And I'd like it, like I
11:27
Speaker 1: like looking back, and you know, years and years later,
11:29
Speaker 1: I can be like, oh, yeah, I do remember that.
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Speaker 1: I'm glad I made that note since I wasn't in
11:34
Speaker 1: the picture or whatever it is.
11:36
Speaker 2: Yes, And I realized that I forgot one threat that
11:39
Speaker 2: I wanted to touch on in this that I was
11:41
Speaker 2: thinking when I asked that first clarifying question, which is
11:44
Speaker 2: just that I have been thinking recently about how many
11:48
Speaker 2: photos to take, how much I need to take photos
11:51
Speaker 2: and document a place, and I just have more been
11:54
Speaker 2: going in a direction I feel like I've settled on
11:56
Speaker 2: recently that it's important for me in terms of documentation,
12:00
Speaker 2: in terms of my own personal narrative, and in terms
12:03
Speaker 2: of archiving, because I'm not the greatest at personal archiving,
12:11
Speaker 2: and I realize how much I regret that in certain
12:15
Speaker 2: ways I'm better. I'm best at it most when it
12:17
Speaker 2: comes to journaling. But even in that, the level of
12:24
Speaker 2: organization I have within that and the level of detail
12:28
Speaker 2: that I have within that, I find myself regretting sometimes.
12:31
Speaker 2: And I know that photo and video because I like
12:35
Speaker 2: to take video too, that that isn't important. That can
12:38
Speaker 2: that can be a very powerful element within that, you know,
12:42
Speaker 2: the archive personal archiving process.
12:44
Speaker 1: For me, Yeah, it's interesting too because I had a video.
12:51
Speaker 1: I used to love taking video, and of one of
12:55
Speaker 1: the tragic losses of my life when it comes to
12:58
Speaker 1: it comes to like photos that are lost, our video
13:01
Speaker 1: that's lost, is when the first time I really traveled
13:05
Speaker 1: by myself was in Australia, and I took all of
13:07
Speaker 1: this video and then the technology just changed and it
13:11
Speaker 1: just didn't work anywhere. And I wonder if that's going
13:13
Speaker 1: to be a problem anymore. If that was a unique
13:16
Speaker 1: for when I was traveling, it just became obsolete. It
13:22
Speaker 1: just wouldn't work, and so I lost all of that video.
13:25
Speaker 2: Oh I'm sorry. That's I really feel for you, because
13:29
Speaker 2: losing things that are so sentimental and are specific, like
13:35
Speaker 2: super exciting and fun moments in life can be very
13:38
Speaker 2: very difficult. But that just made me think. When I
13:43
Speaker 2: was going back through some of my old files, I
13:46
Speaker 2: found some videos from shows I had went to, and
13:48
Speaker 2: I went to a lot of shows and I had
13:51
Speaker 2: so much fun at them. So it's a very positive
13:54
Speaker 2: memory for me, and I loved being able to see
13:56
Speaker 2: it again, but I haven't. It was on my little Nokia,
14:01
Speaker 2: like tiny, tiny phone that I can hold like between
14:05
Speaker 2: these two fingers, and it was one of the ones
14:08
Speaker 2: that had because I love music, it's like one of
14:11
Speaker 2: the ones that had the like three the play and
14:14
Speaker 2: the fast forward and back buttons on the left side
14:17
Speaker 2: of the screen or the right side of the screen.
14:19
Speaker 2: It was like it was one of those phones where
14:20
Speaker 2: they were like you can listen to music with this,
14:22
Speaker 2: you know, And that was that was a it was
14:25
Speaker 2: a touted feature of that phone, and I remember like
14:30
Speaker 2: taking it on that phone and I don't know what
14:32
Speaker 2: the file was I was. I looked at that file
14:35
Speaker 2: type and I was like, I don't know what M
14:37
Speaker 2: four WP is, but it's playing on the computer right now,
14:41
Speaker 2: but will it five years from now? I have no idea.
14:44
Speaker 2: It was so grainy, but it was just like I
14:46
Speaker 2: could feel I could feel the energy in the room,
14:50
Speaker 2: the people around me yell like me. Hearing myself yell
14:54
Speaker 2: along with the lyrics was just it's such a such
14:57
Speaker 2: a joyful experience. But yeah, I think maybe those things
15:02
Speaker 2: won't exist in a way, and we have to be
15:04
Speaker 2: I have to be okay with that, you don't. I
15:06
Speaker 2: have to be okay with that level of teaching me
15:09
Speaker 2: non attachment is what I have to tell myself.
15:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're so wise, You're always so wise. What about
15:17
Speaker 1: you smitha.
15:18
Speaker 3: No, Well, all of this is just kind of reminds
15:20
Speaker 3: me of the fact my mother there was a big
15:23
Speaker 3: service after the fact. You know, the types of cameras
15:27
Speaker 3: that have changed throughout time going digital, and there are
15:30
Speaker 3: services that happened where like my mom had videos from
15:33
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties nineteen seventies the reels and then had
15:37
Speaker 3: them transferred over into vhs, then eventually had to transfer
15:40
Speaker 3: those over into DVDs, and now that it would be
15:44
Speaker 3: a digital format in a different way. So it's interesting
15:47
Speaker 3: to think like how it has progressed and how people
15:50
Speaker 3: have worked, and there's businesses that have worked in order
15:53
Speaker 3: to keep those processes alive even though it's less and less,
15:57
Speaker 3: especially when we have like cloud services and all that.
16:00
Speaker 3: But again, as you're talking like we may not have
16:03
Speaker 3: that level of storage and the nondescript cloud, like what
16:08
Speaker 3: does that even mean? So it will disappear, So how
16:11
Speaker 3: do you, you know, save that unless you have something
16:14
Speaker 3: that's working, Because I think about that with our like VHS.
16:16
Speaker 3: We've talked about this because I have a huge box
16:19
Speaker 3: of VHS. This because I thought in my childhood, I'm
16:23
Speaker 3: going to save these and these are going to be
16:25
Speaker 3: amazing and I'm gonna collect I collected them. I don't know.
16:28
Speaker 3: I don't know why, and now I don't have a
16:30
Speaker 3: VHS player, and I'm like, oh no, what do I
16:33
Speaker 3: do with these? But I also don't want to throw
16:36
Speaker 3: them away because it feels so sentimental.
16:38
Speaker 2: Well, I actually a couple of things. I got pretty
16:41
Speaker 2: overwhelmed thinking about how much data, like how much actual
16:46
Speaker 2: storage I need, and how that's only growing exponentially for me,
16:50
Speaker 2: because like I do take a lot of video when
16:53
Speaker 2: I go places, and so the file sizes are huge
16:56
Speaker 2: and a lot of times there long and for me,
16:58
Speaker 2: even moments that don't have a to say, I might
17:00
Speaker 2: have forty minutes of that, But I still don't want
17:03
Speaker 2: to let it go because it was still a moment
17:05
Speaker 2: in time that says something about that moment in time.
17:08
Speaker 2: And so that has been difficult for me to grapple with,
17:11
Speaker 2: and it's kind of been blowing my mind, and I
17:13
Speaker 2: haven't been able to think about it too much because
17:17
Speaker 2: it's kind of scary to me that like things will
17:20
Speaker 2: have to go and heart drives die too, and then
17:22
Speaker 2: you have to back up to the backup and then
17:24
Speaker 2: back up to that backup, and then that backup dies.
17:26
Speaker 2: You can't count on anything. Everything's precarious. But the second
17:30
Speaker 2: thing is and forgive me if I mentioned this before,
17:33
Speaker 2: but I don't think it would hurt for me to
17:35
Speaker 2: say it again. And that's just that I also planned on.
17:40
Speaker 2: So I'm traveling back to the States, so when I
17:42
Speaker 2: get back, I have some archiving I want to do,
17:45
Speaker 2: and a library that's near me has a free archiving
17:49
Speaker 2: service so people, So that's file types, files of different types,
17:55
Speaker 2: two so that I might be photos. You know, they
17:57
Speaker 2: probably do VHS's as well. I think they're in there's
18:00
Speaker 2: a lot of media formats that the library does for
18:06
Speaker 2: your personal archives, and it's for free for the freeze.
18:10
Speaker 2: So if any anybody who's like interested in this topic,
18:15
Speaker 2: has personal art, coving they want to do, has VHS's,
18:18
Speaker 2: or they have records, or they have any photos that
18:21
Speaker 2: they want to archive. But it's overwhelming. And I know
18:25
Speaker 2: it's like that for a lot of us because our
18:27
Speaker 2: family members often a bunch of home videos, a bunch
18:31
Speaker 2: of printed photos that can help us with the process
18:34
Speaker 2: and ease a little bit of the stress. And I
18:36
Speaker 2: think it's also very helpful in the wake of some
18:39
Speaker 2: loved one's death too, when it's like, definitely might be overwhelming.
18:43
Speaker 2: But I think that's relevant to our conversations here too,
18:46
Speaker 2: on female first, because we talk so much about what's
18:50
Speaker 2: available and what's not available, how much scholarship there is
18:53
Speaker 2: on something, how much archiving there was done with somebody's history,
18:57
Speaker 2: how many how much they wrote in their memoirs, and
19:00
Speaker 2: give us all of it, Like, tell us everything, share
19:04
Speaker 2: everything you're willing to write, David. If you don't, you know,
19:06
Speaker 2: think it'll anybody, it'll ever see the light of day
19:09
Speaker 2: beyond you. Just like take note of it. That mosquito
19:14
Speaker 2: just bit you on the arm, made you really annoyed.
19:16
Speaker 2: I mean, let us know. You don't put it down
19:19
Speaker 2: in your journal. I'm just saying like those like even
19:22
Speaker 2: the things that we think are so little to us
19:25
Speaker 2: in a specific moment could just mean so much to
19:27
Speaker 2: somebody else or to us later in life.
19:31
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And once again, libraries are awesome. Good Tip Eaves,
19:47
Speaker 1: who are we talking about you today?
19:49
Speaker 2: We're talking about Felicia Abon and she was the first
19:53
Speaker 2: female professional photographer in Ghana. So this is a super
19:59
Speaker 2: interesting It's an ongoing story because Felicia Abond passed away
20:07
Speaker 2: not too long ago, so there's a lot of work
20:11
Speaker 2: that's still being done around her legacy and documenting that.
20:16
Speaker 2: But it also reminded me of an episode we had recently.
20:20
Speaker 2: We were talking about Hamaya Vera Wala and she was
20:24
Speaker 2: a photographer as well, and she also did work in
20:27
Speaker 2: the political realm of taking photos, and she was a
20:30
Speaker 2: photo journalist and she was in this transitional period between
20:36
Speaker 2: Indian independence.
20:37
Speaker 1: From the British.
20:39
Speaker 2: She saw the before and after and she was there
20:41
Speaker 2: to document it with photography. And so this was a
20:45
Speaker 2: story that was rattling around in my mind too as
20:50
Speaker 2: I was looking at Felicia A. Bond's story because she
20:54
Speaker 2: was also there in this transitional period. There's this period
20:57
Speaker 2: of independence in Ghana that she was around for. The
21:03
Speaker 2: years were a little different, but Felicia bay and I'm
21:05
Speaker 2: really excited to talk about her today.
21:08
Speaker 1: So yeah, yes, So shall we get into the history.
21:15
Speaker 2: So Felicia was born Felicia Eru Rossi Asa in nineteen
21:20
Speaker 2: thirty five in a second d Gold Coast colony that
21:25
Speaker 2: was a coastal city and this was what Ghana was
21:30
Speaker 2: called until it's independence in nineteen fifty Gold Coast. But
21:35
Speaker 2: Felicia was the oldest child of six children and she
21:39
Speaker 2: was the only daughter, and her mother was a trader
21:43
Speaker 2: and her father, Joseph Asa, was a pianist, playwright, painter,
21:48
Speaker 2: photographer was he did many things and in the nineteen
21:52
Speaker 2: forties her father opened a photography studio. There was really
21:57
Speaker 2: good clients for him in the place where they lived.
22:00
Speaker 2: That included the wealthy Gnayan families and British naval officers
22:05
Speaker 2: who lived in Seconde and the sister city of Takarate,
22:09
Speaker 2: and Felicia got really interested in practicing photography, and I
22:15
Speaker 2: would imagine that would be the case. She was surrounded
22:17
Speaker 2: by so much art with her father. But when she
22:20
Speaker 2: went to she went with her dad to a client's
22:23
Speaker 2: home and she saw photos on the walls. So she
22:27
Speaker 2: started an apprenticeship at her dad's studio when she was
22:30
Speaker 2: fourteen years old, and at the time she was also
22:33
Speaker 2: going to day school and taking care of her younger siblings.
22:37
Speaker 2: And she ended up doing that apprenticeship for about four
22:41
Speaker 2: years or so, and she learned how to do the
22:45
Speaker 2: things that are required of you when you're doing studio photography,
22:48
Speaker 2: like using backdrops, the props, how to mix chemicals, developing film,
22:54
Speaker 2: and how to actually take the photos. And one of
22:59
Speaker 2: the stories that is recounted, I must say there is
23:02
Speaker 2: information if people are interested in reading this thesis that
23:06
Speaker 2: I pulled a lot of information about Felicia Abond from.
23:09
Speaker 2: It's called Dress, Politics and Framing Self and Ghana the
23:13
Speaker 2: Studio Photographs of Felicia Abon by doctor Laurien R. Bowles.
23:17
Speaker 2: It's something about tim pages. So y'all can go and
23:20
Speaker 2: read that and learn a little bit more about her
23:23
Speaker 2: and dig a little bit more into the context around
23:27
Speaker 2: fashion and clothing, because we're not going to touch too
23:31
Speaker 2: much on that today. But yeah, so she learned all
23:36
Speaker 2: of these things in the studio, and there's this story
23:38
Speaker 2: about her father and it pretty much characterizes her father
23:43
Speaker 2: as strict, at least around the art making process. So
23:48
Speaker 2: Felicia said that once her dad asked her to create
23:51
Speaker 2: half inch white borders around a bunch of the negatives,
23:55
Speaker 2: and she had this quick turnaround, she accidentally did quarter
24:00
Speaker 2: inch borders instead of half inch borders, and her father
24:05
Speaker 2: was upset with her mistake and slapped her across the
24:08
Speaker 2: face with the pictures that she messed up, and she
24:10
Speaker 2: had to go back and process the film again, and
24:14
Speaker 2: she said that it was a hard lesson, but that
24:16
Speaker 2: was just a kind of education that helped her confidence
24:19
Speaker 2: as she moved forward in her photography career. So it
24:23
Speaker 2: seems like she viewed these this tough love, this kind
24:29
Speaker 2: of really like I'm I'm gonna make sure you know
24:34
Speaker 2: what you did wrong in a very visceral way. That
24:37
Speaker 2: kind of education from her father, it seems like she
24:40
Speaker 2: valued that and saw the good and at least in hindsight,
24:44
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure if she felt that way in
24:45
Speaker 2: the moment, but yeah, so she In nineteen fifty three,
24:50
Speaker 2: she met this designer named Robert Avon, and he was
24:54
Speaker 2: a textile buyer who was based in Akra and he
24:58
Speaker 2: worked on behalf of doctor Kawal Kruma's Convention People's Party,
25:03
Speaker 2: and he even later designed the commemorative cloth that featured
25:07
Speaker 2: in Kruma's portrait for Goddess Independence. So people may have
25:10
Speaker 2: seen these commemorative cloths before. They'll have these illustrative patterns
25:16
Speaker 2: on them, and then they'll have in a like a
25:18
Speaker 2: portraiture style image of the person that they are commemorating
25:23
Speaker 2: for that moment. And Robert Abon was the one who
25:27
Speaker 2: made the one for doctor Kwaman Kruma around the time
25:31
Speaker 2: of Goddes's independence. So Robert and Felicia met at the
25:36
Speaker 2: port while he was on a business trip, and a
25:39
Speaker 2: couple of weeks after they met, he asked Felicia's dad
25:43
Speaker 2: to marry her. And at this point she had kind
25:47
Speaker 2: of she was she was full steam ahead into life,
25:51
Speaker 2: like she was running most of the financial dealings and
25:55
Speaker 2: the photography work at Ansa studio, and it seemed like
26:00
Speaker 2: their parents, it seems like her parents felt like the
26:03
Speaker 2: marriage was a good match. So she was done with school,
26:07
Speaker 2: she could run a business, she could run a home,
26:10
Speaker 2: and he was moving up in politics and their families
26:14
Speaker 2: apparently already had ties. But Felicia's father was not ready
26:20
Speaker 2: to let her leave the studio and go to a cra.
26:24
Speaker 2: He required that they stay engaged for a year before
26:27
Speaker 2: he approved the marriage, and Felicia's dad also required that
26:34
Speaker 2: Robert get a rental where Felicia could open a photo
26:38
Speaker 2: studio in a cra which I'm like, okay, Like he
26:41
Speaker 2: made sure that she was set up. He knew she
26:43
Speaker 2: was going to leave. He was like, the work needs
26:46
Speaker 2: to be accounted for, and like, you know, I mean,
26:50
Speaker 2: obviously I wasn't there for the conversation that they had,
26:52
Speaker 2: but it's like Felicia seemingly was the one who was
26:55
Speaker 2: inspired on her own, of her own accord to start
26:59
Speaker 2: photograph continue working it. So he ensured that she would
27:02
Speaker 2: be able to continue to fulfill her creative desires instead
27:06
Speaker 2: of being you know, pulled into everything else beyond Like
27:10
Speaker 2: I really liked that part of her story and seeing
27:13
Speaker 2: how she was set up in that way. But Robert
27:15
Speaker 2: made good on the goal. Felicia soon had her new studio.
27:19
Speaker 2: It was called Missus Felicia Abond's Day and Night Quality
27:23
Speaker 2: Art Studio, which I love that name. I love so
27:27
Speaker 2: many things about that name. I love how it starts
27:29
Speaker 2: with missus Felicia Abon. She was like, y'all don't know
27:32
Speaker 2: who I am in this new city that I'm in, Okay,
27:36
Speaker 2: and y'all don't know that is quality, So nobody is
27:40
Speaker 2: confused what we're doing here. So she opened the studio
27:45
Speaker 2: and I've seen nineteen fifty five. In nineteen fifty six,
27:48
Speaker 2: but it was just before the time that Ghana gained
27:51
Speaker 2: this independence, and her business was close to this other
27:56
Speaker 2: studio called Dio Gracchus, which was the old the studio
28:00
Speaker 2: in the city, and it was owned by JK. Bruce
28:04
Speaker 2: Vanderpuoy and he was a very well known photographer at
28:08
Speaker 2: the time. His studio was doing really well, but she
28:11
Speaker 2: was very close to it, and it took some time
28:14
Speaker 2: for her studio to gain steam in the city. But
28:18
Speaker 2: she had a creative promo idea and she ended up
28:24
Speaker 2: taking self portraits before she would go out to these
28:27
Speaker 2: fancy political events with Robert. So, because Robert was tapped
28:31
Speaker 2: into that side, she would go out to all these events,
28:33
Speaker 2: and she decided that she would come to her studio
28:37
Speaker 2: beforehand and that she would take photos of herself in
28:42
Speaker 2: her studio. She talked about the process of going to
28:47
Speaker 2: the studio before a big event, and how that set
28:50
Speaker 2: the tone for the night, and that kept her from
28:53
Speaker 2: getting too excited. And there was something about that that
28:57
Speaker 2: I could really relate to, because sometimes if I have
29:01
Speaker 2: something to do, that'll be the thing that takes up
29:04
Speaker 2: so much space in my mind. And it seems like
29:09
Speaker 2: this was grounding for her. It was like the thing
29:12
Speaker 2: that she loved to do. But also it's the work
29:16
Speaker 2: of self portraiture where you're it's self determining. It's so expressive,
29:23
Speaker 2: it can be a very emotional process, and I just
29:29
Speaker 2: I appreciate the mix of how that was like artistic
29:33
Speaker 2: expression but also strategic at the same time. So I
29:39
Speaker 2: really love that part of her story. But she would
29:43
Speaker 2: display these photos in a glass case between that was
29:47
Speaker 2: between the entryway reception and the portrait stage in the studio,
29:51
Speaker 2: and there would be If you look at the photos,
29:53
Speaker 2: you see how much of an emphasis there is on
29:55
Speaker 2: her clothing and her hairstyles, which are always she's always
29:59
Speaker 2: done to the to the nines like her Even though
30:02
Speaker 2: they're in black and white, you can see the patterns.
30:05
Speaker 2: You can see a lot of her gaze if it's
30:08
Speaker 2: directly at the camera, or just not quite looking at
30:12
Speaker 2: the lens. Is very in some ways. I feel like
30:16
Speaker 2: I could describe it as regal in some moments, very upstanding.
30:22
Speaker 2: And the ways that she took these photos and how
30:27
Speaker 2: she displayed them would help affirm her social status. But
30:31
Speaker 2: at the same time her photography skills and they essentially
30:35
Speaker 2: function as calling cars that she could use to promo
30:38
Speaker 2: the studios. She's like, Okay, I'm not getting a lot
30:42
Speaker 2: of clients right now, but I can do this myself,
30:45
Speaker 2: and then through this, people will see who I am
30:47
Speaker 2: as a photographer, and they'll also see the work that
30:51
Speaker 2: I'm capable of producing for them. So she would send
30:56
Speaker 2: out copies of these self portraits to family, maybe after
31:02
Speaker 2: they left the display case, and in some of those
31:07
Speaker 2: self portraits that were taken around nineteen fifty nine to
31:10
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four, she would wear things like kine cloth
31:14
Speaker 2: and dashiki and the photos that she took of other
31:20
Speaker 2: people as well, so she did it wasn't just self
31:23
Speaker 2: portraits she was taking, so she was able to take
31:26
Speaker 2: photos of other people as well. Of course, her clientele
31:29
Speaker 2: picked up and in them they would all be black
31:34
Speaker 2: and white. People would be seated or standing in the
31:37
Speaker 2: middle of the frame. Sometimes it was just one or
31:40
Speaker 2: two people, sometimes it was groups of people. But she
31:43
Speaker 2: also took photos of people outside of the studio just
31:47
Speaker 2: living their everyday lives. You can go see pictures of
31:52
Speaker 2: people just out in the street, people of various ages.
31:56
Speaker 2: There's one photo she has that she took when she
31:59
Speaker 2: was at a funeral. All sorts of documentation of everyday
32:05
Speaker 2: life there just as that form of vernacular photography. So
32:11
Speaker 2: when she was covering a presidential event, she ended up
32:16
Speaker 2: grabbing the attention of President Kwaman Kruma and he offered
32:21
Speaker 2: her a job as a member of the Presidential Press Corps.
32:25
Speaker 2: And so she was running her studio, but at the
32:28
Speaker 2: same time she was also a stringer photographer at Guinea
32:31
Speaker 2: Press Limited, which was the publishing house of the Convention
32:35
Speaker 2: People's Party under President Kwamen and Kruma, and the Guinea
32:40
Speaker 2: Press Limited later became the Ghanaan Times. The Guinea Press
32:45
Speaker 2: Is published the newspapers the Ghana Evening News and the
32:48
Speaker 2: Guinea Times. But so she went on assignments for that
32:53
Speaker 2: work as well. For instance, in nineteen sixty one, she
32:56
Speaker 2: covered Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillips visit to Ghana. She
33:01
Speaker 2: also did other freelance jobs. She photographed weddings, birthday ceremonies,
33:07
Speaker 2: child naming ceremonies. In February of nineteen sixty six, she
33:13
Speaker 2: took a short break from photography, but later that year,
33:17
Speaker 2: in December, she was featured in this column and Drum
33:20
Speaker 2: magazine and it was called lookout men, because here come
33:24
Speaker 2: the girls, and then like she's a she's a woman photographer,
33:30
Speaker 2: and it was like so many so like that's ridiculous,
33:38
Speaker 2: over the top watch out miss.
33:40
Speaker 3: Especially because you say girls.
33:43
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely definitely a specific energy there,
33:52
Speaker 2: but it was a thing that there were far more
33:57
Speaker 2: men photographers at the time. She photographed tons of people though,
34:03
Speaker 2: so even though she was working closely with President Kwaman
34:08
Speaker 2: and Kruma and she was doing her studio work, she
34:12
Speaker 2: photographed other people like Jerry Rawlings, who was Ghana's longest
34:18
Speaker 2: serving president, and Marian Arka, the wife of Ghana's first
34:24
Speaker 2: vice president under the Fourth Republic, and many other people.
34:28
Speaker 2: But she continued her photography work. In nineteen ninety eight,
34:33
Speaker 2: she became the chair of the Ghana Union of Professional Photographers.
34:38
Speaker 2: These are a couple more first for her so she's
34:41
Speaker 2: the first woman president of that union and she's also
34:45
Speaker 2: the first woman to have joined Ghana's presidential team of photographers.
34:50
Speaker 2: She ended up retiring in twenty thirteen after her arthritis
34:55
Speaker 2: got worse and she completely retired from her practice around
34:59
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. That was the year that she had her
35:03
Speaker 2: first public exhibition of her work and it was in
35:06
Speaker 2: a group show called Acras Portraits of a City that
35:10
Speaker 2: was at the A and O Gallery in Nacras, and
35:13
Speaker 2: that show was curated by an art historian and writer
35:16
Speaker 2: named Nana alfouriata Ayim and he was a art She
35:22
Speaker 2: Felicia avan Now was from an artistic family because her
35:26
Speaker 2: siblings also were artists, like one was a fashion designer,
35:29
Speaker 2: one was a filmmaker, one was a musician. And she
35:35
Speaker 2: and Felicia Abon. Her work was exhibited in the first
35:39
Speaker 2: ever Ghana pavilion at the Venice Bienal in twenty nineteen.
35:44
Speaker 2: So there's still work that continued to be done over
35:51
Speaker 2: the later years of her life. When it came to
35:53
Speaker 2: archiving her work, there were people who went and interview
35:55
Speaker 2: her and talked to her, like the person the doctor
35:59
Speaker 2: Laurian Arts who I mentioned, who wrote the thesis that
36:04
Speaker 2: I mentioned at the beginning of this episode. There were
36:07
Speaker 2: other people who were able to interview her while she
36:12
Speaker 2: was still living, and there were members of this group
36:14
Speaker 2: that was called the Exit Frame Collective who were working
36:17
Speaker 2: to archive her work and make it available for research
36:21
Speaker 2: and exhibition. And Felicia Bond died on January fourth, twenty
36:28
Speaker 2: twenty four, in a crap and so yeah, very recent,
36:34
Speaker 2: but there there. If you go look up more stuff
36:39
Speaker 2: about Felicia Bon you'll see these words mentioned like come up.
36:43
Speaker 2: We come across so many times in episodes of Female
36:45
Speaker 2: First where they say this uncovering or discovering, and I
36:51
Speaker 2: think in some in some ways that work can be
36:57
Speaker 2: applied to her work, but that's also it's such a
37:01
Speaker 2: loaded word and all the implications that come around that.
37:06
Speaker 2: But there's still scholarship being done on her work, and
37:09
Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot more to come, a lot more
37:13
Speaker 2: to come, seems like her her family, her estate has
37:17
Speaker 2: provided people with photos and so everybody who wants to
37:22
Speaker 2: look at some of the photos that she took, they can.
37:24
Speaker 2: You can see some of them online.
37:36
Speaker 1: This is one of the things I love about Female
37:39
Speaker 1: First eves, as you bring us so many people from
37:42
Speaker 1: different time periods and different places, and so yeah, that
37:45
Speaker 1: does feel relatively recent, and I suggest to listeners go
37:51
Speaker 1: look up the images you can, because they are really,
37:54
Speaker 1: really striking. But I do think one of my favorite
37:58
Speaker 1: parts of her story is certainly the I'm gonna take
38:02
Speaker 1: some self portraits and this is what's going to get
38:04
Speaker 1: people to come in. I love that.
38:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. She was kind of ahead of her time, wasn't she.
38:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's like, okay, not getting enough business. I know
38:17
Speaker 1: what I'll do. It's fantastic.
38:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love her photos. I love her self
38:25
Speaker 2: portraits too. It was like really a joy to be
38:29
Speaker 2: able to see her because that's not always the case,
38:33
Speaker 2: like from the photographers we talked about in the past
38:36
Speaker 2: and all photographers, you know, they won't necessarily take self portraits.
38:40
Speaker 2: So it's nice to be able to see her as
38:45
Speaker 2: conceived of by herself through her own medium and where
38:49
Speaker 2: she's usually on the other side of the camera in
38:53
Speaker 2: that way.
38:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going back to what we were talking about before,
39:00
Speaker 1: which obviously we have a lot of thoughts on about,
39:04
Speaker 1: you know, capturing those moments and telling when you're looking
39:10
Speaker 1: back on somebody having having something like that, and it
39:15
Speaker 1: sounds like, you know, there's not a lot. There's not
39:18
Speaker 1: as like she wrote journal kind of entries that we have,
39:22
Speaker 1: but we do have these self portraits, and they do
39:27
Speaker 1: tell a story about how she sees herself.
39:31
Speaker 2: Exactly yeah, and that she even had the confidence and
39:37
Speaker 2: bravery to say, I want to put pictures of me
39:41
Speaker 2: up in this place where people don't really know me
39:44
Speaker 2: like that. So I think that's quite an interesting idea too,
39:51
Speaker 2: because I think I'm thinking about the mass, how important
39:56
Speaker 2: marketing and self branding is these days, and how someone
40:01
Speaker 2: today might be like, nobody knows you, so let's not
40:05
Speaker 2: your name, don't even need to be at the top
40:06
Speaker 2: of this. Your face doesn't need to be at the
40:09
Speaker 2: top of this, because that's not the thing that's going
40:11
Speaker 2: to sell. We have to sell this some other way
40:12
Speaker 2: because people don't know you here. It's like if she
40:15
Speaker 2: was getting if she was getting advice from a manager
40:21
Speaker 2: at that point in time, maybe they would have been like,
40:23
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's going to work. But so
40:25
Speaker 2: I appreciate like seeing things from that perspective and how
40:31
Speaker 2: she was thinking about I have to do what I
40:34
Speaker 2: have to do to be able to grow my clientele
40:38
Speaker 2: and my visibility in this new place, and I know
40:42
Speaker 2: that I have the skill for it. And this is
40:46
Speaker 2: missus Felicia Obind's Quality Art Studio.
40:50
Speaker 1: Okay, it's great. She was she was backing up the
40:56
Speaker 1: name of the store. It's a great story. Listeners, please
41:03
Speaker 1: go look up the images. They really are fantastic. Thank you,
41:08
Speaker 1: as always Eves for coming on, for bringing these stories
41:13
Speaker 1: to us and for keeping us updated on your life.
41:16
Speaker 1: We love hearing from you. Where can the good listeners
41:20
Speaker 1: find you?
41:21
Speaker 2: Y'all can find me. You can go to my website
41:24
Speaker 2: Evesjeffcoat dot com. That's spelled y v E S J
41:29
Speaker 2: E F F C O A T dot com. You
41:32
Speaker 2: can get to all of the other things from there.
41:35
Speaker 2: You can sign up for my email list. If you
41:37
Speaker 2: want to be on Instagram, then you can go to
41:41
Speaker 2: at not Apologizing and you can find me there. I'll
41:47
Speaker 2: post more stuff on there about my surfing trials and
41:53
Speaker 2: all the other things that I have going on, and
41:56
Speaker 2: many many other episodes of stuff Mom never told you,
42:00
Speaker 2: doing female first stories of women throughout history who had
42:05
Speaker 2: some pioneering accomplishments.
42:10
Speaker 1: Yes, listeners, go check out all of that stuff. If
42:14
Speaker 1: you have not already. If you would like to contact us,
42:17
Speaker 1: you can. You can email us at Hello at Stuffannever
42:19
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42:21
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42:35
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