From a Dayton Street storefront, local resident Gyamfi Gyamerah hopes to do more than sell West African art — he wants to make cultural connections.
Gyamerah Imports, owned and operated by Gyamerah, is located at 136 Dayton St., tucked inside Rose & Sal Mercantile. The shop’s offerings include statues, busts, masks, textile art and clothing sourced from or based on the diverse cultures of the continent of Africa. With personal ties to aspects of some of those cultures — Gyamerah’s father was Akan, one of the major ethnicities of Ghana — the local business owner told the News in a recent interview that one of his aims in opening Gyamerah Imports is education.
“The whole essence of my gallery is to introduce and reintroduce to all people, but specifically African Americans, the story of all these different cultures that we lost when we got here — because that story is almost gone today,” Gyamerah said.
He later added, via email: “The art I share in my gallery is an effort to bring parity to those images and instincts that we (diaspora Black people) have left behind, that are still useful into the future.”
Retired from military service and a career as a mental health professional in Columbus, Gyamerah moved to the Miami Valley nearly five years ago — though he said that wasn’t originally his plan.
“When I retired, I came here on my way out west, and I met [fellow local resident] Laura Curliss — and I’ve been here ever since,” he said, laughing.
Gyamerah is well-known by many around Yellow Springs as a drummer, having performed at Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Juneteenth celebrations and as part of the Afro-Cuban Afracanacosa group — which also includes local musicians Nathan Hardman, Teresa Misty Monée, David Diamond, Ed Knapp and Curliss — at PorchFest and elsewhere in southeast Ohio; he also leads drumming classes, teaching West African djembe and dundun and Cuban conga in the village. Before moving into the storefront, Gyamerah was also a frequent street vendor in town, selling the same types of items he now offers on Dayton Street — sometimes to high-profile buyers.
“One of my first street sales was to [musician] Questlove,” Gyamerah said. “He bought a necklace that I made myself with a Benin figure and head on it — I gave him a good deal, too!”
He added: “My first celebrity brick-and-mortar sale was to none other than the most beautiful woman in the world, [model] Naomi Campbell. She bought a Senegalese birthing chair.”
Continue reading over at Yellow Springs News.
By Lauren “Chuck” Shows
