Last June I took a friend to meet the Artist Tommy the Animator and to see a mural he had been a part of creating that was curated by the Art Director of a project on 125th Street in Harlem. When I had scheduled the meeting, I had asked Tommy where he'd suggest we eat dinner afterward, and he mentioned a few places that all sounded like wonderful ideas. One of them, Red Rooster, I'd heard of and had been wanting to try, and so after checking with him and with my friend if that would be an acceptable choice, I made a reservation. The day that we went there was a very warm one, and we sat outside with fans blowing all around us. It was a wonderful afternoon and evening, and everything was enjoyable, and somehow with all the colorful touches of the restaurant and the outdoor seating area, I found myself feeling like I'd walked into another very creative world. At one point when our server was talking to us about the menu, I told him how much I liked his apron, and he said that the person who had made it was working that night. He brought him over to meet us and he was wearing one too, and then I noticed that all the servers were. It was a very busy time of the evening and so I gave him my card and said I'd like to come back one day when it was quieter and talk with him about his art and the beautiful aprons. Time went by and one month led to another and I got very busy with a few projects that were taking a great deal of time and energy. And then one day a few weeks ago, I received an email from the Artist. His name is Hass Kwame, and his company is Danyaki Art & Design, and when he got in touch with me he said that he'd been looking for my card for a while and had finally found it in one of his aprons. I was so happy to hear from him because I hadn't forgotten how much I enjoyed the restaurant and how beautiful his work was, but I had been so busy that I hadn't had a chance to find a time to go back for a visit. We made a plan to meet at another place not far away on his day off, and I finally had a chance to sit down and visit with him.
Hass is from Ghana, but he's been in New York for 20 years. He started working in restaurants to pay for art school, and when he found out that Chef Marcus Samuelsson was creating Red Rooster and hiring staff, he knew it was a place he'd want to be. He had been painting canvases and also was interested in clothing design, and he started at first with hand painted clothing. When he had a pop up shop and was wearing his own apron that had been created in his studio, people kept asking him to make aprons for them. He made a few and people kept asking, and so he decided that it was the apron that would be his canvas. His company is called Danyaki Art & Design, and he describes in a video that was made about him for the new advertising campaign for Pepsi this past summer, "Pepsi, It's A New York Thing", that Danyaki means warrior and he sees his aprons as clothing to protect and to create living works of walking art. Hass describes his design and creative process as ideation, and in his words, "The various tints, shades, tones, washes, drips, spills, colors, cracks, abrasions, tatters, whiskers, rips and scratches all serve to define the unique quality, aesthetic and experience of my products. In many ways, these "perfect imperfections" also reflect the natural beauty of my early childhood environments."
As we sat outside on another very warm day and I heard his story, I realized that Hass has a quality about him that is both insightful and quiet and also very colorful and glowing. It is in a way as his art is, multidimensional and multifaceted, abstract lines and shapes of colors layered one on another with a thoughtful and mindful care that is joyous and seemingly boundless though there is a method behind the layering and bold strokes of paint that makes each piece unique and beautiful. I think perhaps Hass is a warrior, one who uses the canvas of his aprons to create works of art that give the wearers a feeling of freedom, and that encourage and celebrate their unique and beautiful inner life. These are aprons that can be worn every day, in a kitchen, in a garden, as a professional Chef or an Artist, or we can just hang one on our wall or in a place where we will not only see it but be able to take it down and wear it when we feel the need to put something on that like the armor of a long ago fairy tale will give us hidden strength and wisdom to be the person we were made to be.
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