Celebration of Life

The center panel pays homage to the motherland of African people throughout the Diaspora with its use of indigenous animals to represent the relationship of mother to father and earth to sky. The stool boasts an elephant base, a maternal symbol resting her tusks in protection over her young. At the very top is a lion, symbolic of the kingly sun and a paternal counterpart to the elephant. Queen Nefertiti’s profile is placed just above the comb’s tines, a reference to Egypt as the African origin of civilization.