Amie Krubally, popularly known as Queen Amie is one of The Gambia’s export to the United States of America. And for her, there seems to be only one goal, only one motivation: to dazzle America with her unique batik designs.
Born in Bakau, Ms. Krubally because of family ties, which stretch to Senegal and Mali, had the opportunity to travel frequently as a child. The rich cultures of Mali, Senegal, and her own country, The Gambia, had a profound influence on her during her formative years. Over the years, she developed a view of art and history that was finally brought to life when she was introduced to Batik in 1963. The state of the art, which at the time was known as "Stamp Batik," was a process where pieces of wood were carved to make patterns, which were dipped in wax and placed on fabric to make designs. The first major departure from this method in Bakau was pioneered by Amie Krubally and resulted in the expressive and painterly forms that distinguish her art from its precedents.
Amie has gained worldwide recognition for her innovation and artistry. The Gambian government granted her the title, "Queen of Batik", in recognition of her wide-reaching influence in the art of Batik. Over the past forty years, she has worked, taught, and exhibited in locations as diverse as Los Angeles, London, and Berlin. Ms. Krubally is renown not only for having led the revolution in forms and techniques of Batik but also for having used her art to tell the rich histories of her Cassamance and Gambian heritage, springing from Bintong Krubally, a Malian king and her great grandfather. Her works tell the stories of her ancestry: Sundiata Keita, slavery, motherlessness, pain, victory, life - themes that bring admiration for a woman who can boast of a Bakau Primary education and some training in the United States but who has gone on to sit with city mayors, presidents, and renown artists and dignitaries throughout the world.
Now living in Tenderloin, neighborhood of San Francisco, United States, Amie holds exhibitions and trainings which have made her gain wide popularity among the neighbourhood. Amie’s batiks have been described as a “remarkable, ambitious, and complicated melding of culture, class, and creativity.”
Queen Amie participated in a neighbourhood exhibition in September, 2009, where her designs were singled out as unique. The themes in the artwork include, among other things, human trafficking, theater, homelessness, immigrant communities, local history and architecture, and giving a voice to children shuttered by the environment.
Amie’s designs are based on her own personal stories and the folk myths from her native land. For the past several years, she has been living in the Tenderloin, unable to ply her craft due to her current living situation. However, it took the support of artists Doug Hall and John Roloff who used the Wonderland Project as a vehicle to provide Queen a much-needed studio to produce her work, and enable her to share her batik legacy and expertise through an exhibition and workshops, giving her a voice and means to share her enormous talent with a larger audience and the community.
Hall and Roloff managed to find Queen a studio space, along with equipment and materials, where Queen has been working, displaying her wares, and teaching her craft for the duration of the Wonderland exhibition. Thanks to the generosity of the clothing designer, Lily Samii,Queen Amie enjoyed the use of a dream studio; Samii donated the large ground floor of her building at 125 Hyde Street where Samii's production studios are located. Here, over the past month, Queen was able to display her artwork, create new work, and offer several batik workshops for friends and residents of the Tenderloin.
Hall and Roloff explain, "During our research [for Wonderland], we came up with numerous ideas, many of which involved procedures for interacting with and celebrating members of the community and their stories. While a couple of these excited us, they seemed, at the same time, overly abstract and perhaps self-serving in the sense that they imposed our vision onto the community rather than allowing elements within the community to come forward and to do so on their own terms and with their voices intact, which has been our intention all along." Their work with Queen, in which they acted less as "artists" and more as promoters and facilitators, turned out to be a perfect match - not merely a temporary artistic intervention in the neighborhood, but instead a collaboration with Queen and the Tenderloin community that hopefully will produce lasting effects.
This work highlighted the talent and also hardship of the local artist living in the Tenderloin. Queen conducted four workshops for adults and children living in the Tenderloin (including the Tenderloin Boys and Girls Club) imparting her knowledge and skill in this almost forgotten art form.
"Queen ran a batik factory in The Gambia, employed hundreds of people, and got an award for her exemplary leadership there," said Roloff. "When Doug and I met her, we were charmed by her spirit and immediately empathized, artist to artist - here you have this enormous potential and talent, but it's not being fulfilled." Hall and Roloff hope that after Wonderland concludes, a permanent studio can be found for Queen to continue to work and utilize her talent and craft, preserving the techniques she's developed, and allowing her to pass them on through her artistic practice. Roloff noted, "She's a living master - and such an asset to the city, to the community. Perhaps this can create a model for other people like her."
