CulturcraftLabs Has Finally Launched!

After two years with lots of learning, luck and encouragement, "The Lab" is live. The overwhelming reaction from those who have ordered CulturCubes seems to be that of surprise, and satisfaction over the quality and craftsmanship; and a sense of pride at seeing the likenesses of people like Fannie Lou Hamer, Tony Morrison, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Sonia Sanchez, and Malcolm X featured in so iconic a format as children's alphabet blocks.

There's more to come though and lots of work to do. We want to build out the website to add information about Adinka symbols, and add biographical notes to ensure our supporters know the story of Ruby Bridges, and her family's courage as she desegregated William Frantz Elementary School in 1960 for example.

In the way of new offerings, we're working on a series of CulturCube sets that pay homage to some of the giants of America's only true classical music idiom, popularly known as Jazz. The first set in the series will be a 3-block set, "Giants of the Free Jazz Horn" (aficionados of "The Music" often call the saxophone, the "horn." The legendary John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders, will be featured in this inaugural Giants of Jazz series, along with a third virtuoso yet to chosen. It's a difficult choice, given that the saxophone, in the context of the modern Jazz, has almost Biblical connotations. Evocative as it is, of the  archangel Gabriel playing his horn on that "great gettin up morning," This theme could easily morph into a set of 5 or more blocks, to include Albert Ayer and Eric Dolphy, Ornate Coleman or Arthur Blythe).

Finally, we will be expanding thematically and culturally to include pioneering women in sports and representation of indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Meso- and South American peoples and under-represented cultures more broadly. So..., lots of work to do.