River Goddess Inspires Nigeria's 'Mama Nike' to Empower Women Through Art

CNN
April 12, 2011

NIGERIA - Award-winning designer Nike Davies Okundaye has pioneered a global revival of Nigeria's ancestral dark blue cloth-dyeing art. Displayed in major international exhibitions, her colorful creations share the themes from her Yoruba culture with the rest of the world. After four decades, Okundaye is the proud owner of West Africa's largest art gallery in Lagos, which attracts customers from around the world. Okundaye draws her spiritual and artistic inspiration from Nigeria's river goddess Osun, who guides her work through dreams, she says. "Nobody sees the goddess face to face, but you can see her in your dream. And sometime it talks to me in my dream. "Immediately I dream and I wake up, I will quickly sketch it, because if I have to wait, it may go off my head. So the river has made a lot of impact because a lot of what I draw is about female who do the worshipping." [link to CNN Video]