- My Suspicions (x) 2020 My Suspicions uses the decorative, curly iron armature as a narration on the way girls are presented. There is a decorative design on the oval ring that holds the circular leather with a laser engraved image of a girl looking back over her shoulder. This is the moment when a girl discovers that not everyone who adores her is protective of her. Turquoise stones further speak to her value but one has fallen into the bowl below and is encircled by skull beads. The bowl is the loss of her innocence. $4,200
- Flowering Cowrie (15”x4”) 2025 A Cowrie shell emblem is laser engraved on a hand carved black walnut wedge, adorned with a red stone flower petal and sitting atop a hammered brass bell, glass stones above three steel ovals inside the underbelly of the iron armature. This stack of elements is tribute to the cowrie shells and brass, as well as the metals and stones being used as currency Flowering Cowrie (15”x4”) 2025 A Cowrie shell emblem is laser engraved on a hand carved black walnut wedge, adorned with a red stone flower petal and sitting atop a hammered brass bell, glass stones above three steel ovals inside the underbelly of the iron armature. This stack of elements is tribute to the cowrie shells and brass, as well as the metals and stones being used as currency $800
- Good Fortune (13”x6”) 2024 A suspended hand formed ebony heartwood adorned on both sides with a laser engraved Yoruba TWINS iconography traditionally carved in wooden doors in the Nigeria region. The TWINS are encircled by a blanket ring from the Pacific Islands and adorned with raffia, leather strapping and glass beading. The tripod is decorative iron. $900
- The Boy Seer (7.5”x4”) 2025 Aged Texas Ebony wedge adorned with brass badges and a recessed image of a boy staring ahead. What does a tree remember of a boy’s touch and climbing into it. I built tree houses to our worm-infested pecan tree when I was a boy. The next year the worms were gone due to the iron of the reclaimed nails I used. I dreamt of that tree when I found this wood scrap. The base is an inverted metal cone with thick glass beads and a brass top. $400
- Sea Fish (6.5”x8”) 2024 Aged Texas Ebony wedge wood adorned with the image of a swimming fish surrounded by rolling current of the sea. Suspended on an iron armature $400
- Casting Stones (8.5”x11.5”) uses the juxtaposition of a hard, iron formed flower bed and petal armature to hide the ugliness of being pelted by envy-tinted stones. A grim-faced female image is engraved on the leather panel and is slightly askew and staring. $600
- Angles (12”x8”) 2025 A suspended, hand chiseled triangular form of walnut adorned with an engraved profile of Banda wooden comb iconography from The Central African Republic. The curved light metal stand bows outward and is draped with brown-speckled beading and orbs and an angled faux jade and brass vessel. $500
- Sun Catcher (4”x10”) 2025 Dream Catchers were the inspiration for this piece that emerged from a thought of catching the sun by using shale discs to bounce the sunlight into an orb from three sides and capping the top to keep it from bounding back into the sky. Using a brass flower below the orb gives the sunlight a resting place before it is absorbed into the cavernous block. $700
- Warrior On Cave Wall (6.5”x8”) 2024 Carved wood form adorned with recreated cavernous wall and bearing the image of a riding Warrior encircled with the rays of the sun and bridge iconography on the rear. The base is metallic with African stone beading and wood beads that represent the phases of a journey. $600
- Do No Evil Here (14”x9”) 2025 Aged Texas Ebony wedge with slanted tip adorned on both sides with Ngil mask from Gabon or Cameroon by Fang people, hanging by leather strapping within a decorative, black iron armature with iron brooms. Traditionally, it is worn with full costume in a night masquerade to settle disputes and quell misbehavior, this calm visage was terrifying to wrong-doers $850
- Hound On The Bridge (7”x5”x1.5” ) 2023 Hand carved Texas Ebony wood with a laser etched hound leaping over a bridge image from a Pacific Island totem iconography presented on a v-shaped metal tripod. $500
- A Child Sings A Morning Song (15”x9”) I created this sculpture after waking to the sound of my son singing from his baby bed. This brass armature is a living vessel and takes the hope of this idea into a constant reliving and reimagining by adjusting and angling the sand-weighted bowl. The image is free hanging and holes along the edge enumerate the days of his singing. The top armature is an echo-chamber for the imagined song emitted from the laser etched image of the singing child. Amethyst and white lava stones capture the falling echoes and store the songs in the bowl beneath. $1,100
- The Walker (7”x3.5”) 2025 Hand carved, aged Texas Ebony wedge wood, adorned with image of a Walking Man found on the wall of caves Tsibab Ravine (South-West Africa). Images on the rear are traditional basket weave images: bird and cowrie shell. Rafia grass, African necklace stone, red ochre, brown necklace stones and a flat river stone encircle on an iron armature $400
- On My Last Nerve ( x) on my last nerve uses the circular hammered armature as testament to the spirit of working thru the hard times. The worn, circular leather continues the idea of recurring endurance and is etched with a female image that grants metered patience. The base of the armature is wide, hammered and certain. Beneath the worn patch is a bowl carrying a bed of ochre beads that represents three aspects of patience: beads for prayer; beads for worry and, lastly, beads to adorn the weary. Leather strapping is a statement of enduring strength. $4,000
- The Bushmen (6”x12”x6”) 2025 A suspended hand shaped, ringed hardwood adorned with the “Hunter” rock painting from Tsibab Ravine (South-West Africa) on a ridged side of the hardwood and bearing the Common Zulu Hide Shield relief on the backside with ochre bead ring and brass elephant pendant . Leather strapping knots and flat ring stones bind the wood on three sides and thru the top. $1,300
- Come Sit With Me 2021 Come sit with me is a circular iron armature encasing the hand drawn leather image of a dreadlocked woman surrounded by the image of vessels with bronze coins, netting and feathered yarns above. A narrative poem wraps the exterior and a bronze heart floats in the bowl at the bottom. She is a Comforter within the culture. Sometimes she is called, “Mother-Sister” . $3,500
- Scratch My Scalp (7.5”x12”) pays homage to the era before the modern hair replacement culture when girls spent endless hours on porch steps and stoops in each other’s hair or scratching and oiling the scalps of elders. Braiding, plaiting, ponytails and afro-puffs were topped off with beads and other hair adornments. I am using the highly curved and ornamental armature as a statement and remembrance of awe and wonder. $500
- Clouds In The River (6”x6”) 2024 Water is said to have memory of times and moments and history that can be seen in a droplet under a microscope. This piece was created because I wondered if the water absorbed thru the roots of trees carry those memories into the rings of tree. $500
- She Is Forgetting She Is Beautiful (18”x14”) 2024 speaks to a moment of seeing a woman discarding her understanding of herself and applying society’s vision of her thru cosmetics, adornment and actions. Her amulets are alternately empty and filled with a singular static image from her remembrance. $3,700
- Ancestral Essence (17”x7”) 2025 Dogon (Mali) sculptural figure in profile, etched on leather and surrounded by essence rings and bubbles in a bronze cloth on a decorative, ringed, heavy iron armature hinting to a religious nobility. $800
- Father-Warrior & Warrior’s Hound (x) 2025 Two aged Texas Ebony wedge woods adorned with African father head and the Fanti (Ghana) scraped calabash Dog iconography and Common Zulu Hide Shield reliefs emerging from the heartwood. $700
- Ancestral Rising (x) 2019 Ancestral Rising is an allegory sculpture using the sea themed brass armature base as the final resting place of the African souls discarded during the Middle Passage. The rising spirits float atop the roiling sea and one prepares to ascend into the Spiritual Vortex that accepts each soul to their god. African souls depart the sea riding on the expelled last breath represented by black beads as their last prayer. $4,000
Jas Mardis 