About Us

African art, trade beads and ethnic jewelry are both business and passion for Sara and me. We started buying African art twenty years ago as gifts for our children, four of whom are adopted and are African-American. We had been active in anti-apartheid politics for some time. In 1994, when Mandela was elected, we took the three still-at-home kids out of school and moved to southern Africa for eight months. We bought a used food panel van, converted it into a camper and traveled fifteen thousand miles through South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Swaziland. We weren't consciously beginning a business...but we noticed that we were buying more than we could keep, give away or sell at garage sales. In the beginning, we did shows and held open houses. Now eBay and our website, AfricaDirect.com, are the only ways we sell.

We go on six-week buying trips to Africa every three years, and bring back containers. We also have African traders in our driveway almost daily. We buy from more than one hundred traders (including two women!) who come from both coasts, fly in from France and send shipments from Africa. We care about supporting living artists, and buy from co-ops in South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Swaziland and other places. Over the years, we have built up a huge inventory of African art, trade beads, ethnic jewelry, baskets, beadwork, masks, carvings, Shona sculpture, textiles, Tibetan jewelry and artifacts.

In addition to running the business and being active grandparents, Sara and I are politically active, read voraciously and treasure family and friends. We raise funds for AIDS orphanages, Heifer International and other causes we care about. Eliza's background is in entrepreneurial business and international franchising. Sara was a professional squash player and continues to play competitive squash at national tournaments. She was Vassar's first white Black Studies Major. We have been together for twenty-six years, and in 2004 were finally able to be legally married in Massachusetts.

Dr. Niangi Batulukisi, Hiram Yates, Adam Line and Jacob Liechty work with us.

Dr. Batulukisi is our African art expert. She has more than fifteen years experience in the field, as writer, lecturer, scholar and museum curator. She was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and received her Ph.D. in Archaeology and Art History at the Catholic University of Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, under the supervision of Francois Neyt. Her dissertation was on the art of the Holo. She has broad expertise in African art with particular concentration on the art of Congo. She spent ten years working in Belgium with the Congo Basin Research.

Hiram Yates is from just up the road, in Boulder. When not shooting photographs for Africa Direct he takes classes at the Colorado Film School. He has helped shoot many short films, several of which are film festival bound. More recently he has also begun shooting freelance work and his dreams of becoming a filmmaker are starting to unfold!

Adam came to us from Delaware by way of Ohio. He will be curating our upcoming museum exhibit of African Beads and Beadwork at the South Dakota Art Museum and is an accomplished artist in his own right, with his photo collages displayed at local galleries. His other interests include anthropology, making music and World Cup soccer. He will be cheering for Ghana’s Black Stars if they qualify for the finals next year in South Africa.

Jacob Liechty coordinates our publishing division and keeps things running at Africa Direct while Sara and Eliza are traveling. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and moved to the U.S. in 1998 to attend college in his parents’ hometown. After graduating with a B.A. in English, he tried his hand at organic farming, hiking the Appalachian Trail, writing a book, doing freelance graphic design and tutoring high school students. He has visited Swaziland and Mali and has a sister living in South Africa, so he is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with African art every day.

Shambe Abdul, our shipper, is the owner of Postal Centers, and if you are in Denver, he and his people are simply superb. You can call him at (303) 399-4156. He grew up in Uganda, of French/Kenyan parents, and is himself an African art collector.

Two of our daughters, Jessye and Sara Lee, do part-time work for us when on break from school.

In addition to our online retail business, we have also published three books: Yoruba: An Art of Life, Zulu Beadwork: Talk with Beads, and Kuba Textiles and Design. Yoruba: An Art of Life is a catalog of our extensive collection of Yoruba pieces. The collection has been exhibited at the South Dakota Art Museum, and we are in talks with the Albany Institute about a forthcoming exhibit there. Our fourth book, African Beads: Jewels of a Continent, will be released this summer.

Thanks for your interest and support of our business. Please take a moment to send us an e-mail, as we would love to get to know you better. We send out previews for African art, ethnic jewelry and trade beads and have a newsletter--let us know if you'd like to be on the mailing list. And please be sure to visit our eBay store, Africa Direct.

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Eliza, Sara, Niangi, Hiram, Adam, and Jacob