SA DESCRIPTION 

“SA” is in reference to the Yoruba ritual tradition of Ifa. Ifa has a divination process in which signs determine certain aspects of a particular divination.

“Sa” is one of sixteen elemental du signs.

Sa has to do with magic and means to make a knot, “make oneself by magic, master of something.” The central image in the work is a Yoruba knot. A knot with no beginning or end, wisdom knots. Knots are generally shown in relief carvings, basketry and textiles. They hardly ever appear as stand-alone-objects. They are also associated with royalty and the court.

References to knots from ‘traditional Africa’ have been a reoccurring motif in Rozelle’s imagery for many years. The first wisdom knot was a small carved stone, made while on fellowship studying sculpture at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York in 1975. The information that led to this sculpture came from an undergraduate school investigation about West African objects and their meanings. Other carvings followed over the years and the knot motif entered the two dimensional realm of the work.