New Releases by Margaret Courtney-Clarke

This book is Margaret Courtney-Clarke''s visual ode to her home country of Namibia, and describes the bare circumstances of ordinary Namibians, of women and men forced to negotiate ravaged lives. Returning to Namibia in 2009 after decades of living abroad, Courtney-Clarke encountered a changed country in the throes of unrestrained development, the Namib Desert desecrated, and peoples migrating from rural settlements to towns in search of a better life. 0These photos are the result of Courtney-Clarke?s travels over 30,000 kilometers across dusty plains, sand dunes and salt pans, through conservancies, homelands and forgotten outposts. They evidence her passionate concern for human enterprise and failure, and for an inhospitable environment infused with remnants of apartheid as well as hope.00Exhibition: FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa (08.-10.09.2017); Stellenbosch Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery, Stellenbosch and Cape Town, South Africa (2017); National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia (2018).

As an author, poet, actress, director, and civic leader, Maya Angelou has had a profound influence on the lives of millions around the world. Closer to home, she has also profoundly influenced her many friends and family members--by counseling, encouraging, praising, and exhorting, and not least, teaching by example. One of those whose lives she touched, photographer Margaret Courtney-Clarke, offers a tribute in these pages--moving and revealing portraits of her friend. Taken over the course of a year, at bookstore signings, on stage, and at home, Courtney-Clarke''s photographs both celebrate and illuminate one of the great figures of our time. Supporting the visual story are thoughts on Angelou''s powers of friendship as interpreted by her friends, in chapters that highlight the poet''s virtues--Joy, Giving, Learning, Perseverance, Creativity, Courage, Self-Respect, Spirituality, Love, and Taking Risks. Among those represented here, all of whom count Dr. Angelou as one of the most important persons in their lives, are leaders Coretta Scott King, Reverend Barbara King, and Andrew Young; singers Ashford and Simpson; and Dr. Angelou''s son, the writer Guy Johnson. And in her touching foreword, Oprah Winfrey describes how Dr. Angelou came to be her "counsel, consultant, advisor, shoulder to cry on, Rock, Shield, Protector, Defender, Mama Bear, and Mother-Sister-Friend." Maya Angelou''s strength in the face of a difficult life, her concern for others, and the singular artistry of her writings give guidance to all who seek their own spiritual way in the world. In Courtney-Clarke''s photographs and in the words of Dr. Angelou''s closest friends, the true wisdom of her spirit emerges.

Traveling thousands of miles across vast deserts, Margaret Courtney-Clarke has photographed the remote and seldom-seen landscapes of Africa''s magnificent and delicate environment, where nature wages an ongoing struggle to survive. Places in the Sand portrays unfolding dunes blown constantly by the wind, dreamlike roads that lead nowhere, the fragile cracked ground stretching endlessly toward the horizon. Born and raised on a ranch at the edge of the Namib Desert, Courtney-Clarke''s photographic work reflects an extraordinary blend of sophisticated European and ancient African cultures as well as an innate love for and instinctive understanding of the eternal beauty of the land. In Places in the Sand, she turns a nostalgic and knowing eye to the landscape, creating evocative slivers of panoramas in which earth touches sky, poetic images of abandoned shacks engulfed by sand and time, and jewel-like shots framing textures, majestic colors, and forms.

As she has in her previous books, Ndebele: The Art of an African Tribe and African Canvas: The Art of West African Women, Margaret Courtney-Clarke turns her sensitive eye on women whose lives have seldom been observed. Her photos explore the remarkable arts and rapidly changing way of life of the Berber women of North Africa. 230 full-color photos.