"Speak to the Winds"

This scan features Speak to the Winds, a collection of African proverbs primarily from Ghana written by Kofi Asare Opoku and illustrated by Dindga McCannon. The proverbs address themes of wisdom and folly, truth and falsehood, human conduct, opportunity, contentment, children, and animals. McCannon described the project as a “fabulous” concept and ultimately regarded it as her strongest artistic achievement among her early books. After years of struggling with pen and ink, she felt she had finally semi-mastered the medium in this volume, producing highly intricate black-and-white illustrations that layered pattern against pattern to create depth and visual intensity. 

Although unfamiliar with the specific proverbs prior to the project, McCannon recognized parallels between them and African American cultural expressions. Her illustrations reflect an early feminist consciousness—reimagining figures traditionally depicted as male, such as the “wise elder,” as women. Visual references were informed by diasporic observation, including traditional African dress she encountered at art fairs across the United States. Despite limited marketing support from the publisher—rooted in racist assumptions about Black readership—McCannon frequently sold the books directly at art fairs, where they quickly sold out. Nearly fifty years after publication, she met Opoku in Ghana through a mutual connection.