My art teacher sister, Lauren, is in town for a visit, and the one thing she asked to see was the Dabls Mbad African Bead Museum. It had been on her Detroit art culture “bucket list” for years.

I met its founder, Olayami Dabls, eight years before as he was working on a public mural on Wilkins Street between St. Aubin and Orleans and got this shot of him with his stunning work in the background.

There are bead stores everywhere, but his specialty is African beads; and his inventory is amazing – something even this white guy from the suburbs could appreciate.

While Lauren feasted on the selection in the bead store, I reconnected with Dabls out on the front porch. Eight years and a pandemic has taken a lot out of us both; but there was such a quiet wisdom in his eyes as he watched the changes unfold in his neighborhood on Grand River at Dexter Ave.

A friend from the neighborhood ran an errand for him as he sat, taking in the city’s demolition of one of his buildings next door and making small talk with me. He is soft spoken, and his words come from a deep well of experience in life and art and a love for his adopted city.

His knowledge of the raw materials of his art – the beads – is astounding. The shop has thousands of samples of all shapes and materials; and more than once as we talked, his daughter came out with one bead sample or another asking about origin, material and manufacture. He was able to recall it all with encyclopedic precision.

My sister left with a sizable collection of beads and another check off her bucket list. I left having re-encountered one of the artistic treasures of our City.