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Creative Portland installs art in city bus shelters - Portland Press Herald

Creative Portland installs art in city bus shelters - Portland Press Herald

Creative Portland, the city’s designated arts agency, has begun installing its first three public art pieces in Portland bus shelters this month. The art is meant to celebrate Portland’s diverse communities, including the immigrant and refugee populations. Two out of the three shelters are designed by immigrant artists.The installation is funded in part by a $25,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts awarded as part of the NEA’s Our Town program. The grant supports the first phase of the project, which Dinah Minot, Creative Portland’s executive director, said includes the implementation of three to four shelter designs....

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Drinking glasses with meaning - The Boston Globe

Drinking glasses with meaning - The Boston Globe

Ebenezer Akakpo’s glasses are silkscreened with intricate designs inspired by Adinkra symbols of his native Ghana. Each symbolizes a concept, such as hope, unity, bravery, or endurance. Ebenezer Akakpo’s drinking glasses tell a story. They are silkscreened with intricate designs inspired by Adinkra symbols of his native Ghana. Each symbolizes a concept, such as hope, unity, bravery, or endurance. Akakpo, an award-winning designer, lives in Portland, Maine, and studied jewelry making in Florence, at the Maine College of Art, and later earned a master’s in industrial design at the Rochester Institute of Technology.  He’s chosen patterns he uses for earrings...

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Ebenezer Akakpo’s Jewelry Has Something to Say - Downeast Magazine

Ebenezer Akakpo’s Jewelry Has Something to Say - Downeast Magazine

The Portland jeweler makes patterns out of traditional symbols from his native Ghana. Akakpo designs his jewelry patterns by stringing together adinkra, traditional symbols from his native Ghana. Ebenezer Akakpo assumed he’d become an architect just like his father. But the elder Akakpo told his son he would become a jeweler. In Ghana, people respect their elders and follow their advice, Akakpo explains, so he did as he was told, though he was disappointed. He thought it would be a common trade. “I wanted to do something prestigious,” Akakpo, now 44, says. To his relief, making jewelry wasn’t lowly at...

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The Patterns of Our Life - Amjambo Africa

The Patterns of Our Life - Amjambo Africa

“When I think in patterns, I can do anything,” says Ebenezer Akakpo as he leads two visitors through his Westbrook studio on a recent sultry night.    Ebenezer Akakpo describing his work This is the mantra by which Akakpo lives and it has guided his choices as he built a multi-prong career. He runs his own business, Akakpo & Co., through which he sells the jewelry, clothes, housewares, and other artwork he designs. He also works full time in the information technology (IT) department of the Maine Turnpike Authority. The two career paths couldn’t be more different to most people but, to Akakpo,...

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