[scraping sound of manual saw]
[tap, tap, tap, tap of nailing]
[scrape, scrape of wood hand planer]
- The sounds of a carpenter.
[scraping of pencil on wood]
Listen closer and you hear a family legacy.
[scrape, scrape]
Eric Adjetey Anang is a third-generation craftsman
and his art is to die for.
[laughter]
- Usually, first thing
they will be like, "What are you building?"
So, I start by answering them.
"I'm building a coffin and they'll be like, 'Oh?'"
- Eric's coffins are
one of Ghana's most unique cultural exports.
A business his grandfather started
when he merged carpentry and art.
- They were building the Kotoka International Airport in 1951.
So, it was during that time this old woman was like,
"Oh, I would love to travel in one of those planes."
But she never got to do it until she passed away.
So he built her a coffin in the form of an airplane.
- That woman was Eric's grandmother.
[scrape, scrape]
As a little boy,
he remembers his curiosity around the family business.
- Growing up as a kid in the backyard of the house,
when you point, you know, the cemetery or the coffins,
we would have to bite our fingertips.
It was something very scary to us.
- Honoring his birthright,
Eric took up the tools of the trade.
In Ghana, his design coffins can sell for $500 to $1,000
and are steeped in a rich tradition.
- So in Ghana, when somebody dies,
we have a period of three weeks to one month or more
for the ceremony.
- Sending loved ones out in style
is a fashionable way to celebrate life
and is growing in popularity.
- So, on Saturday,
when you have a crowd of between 500 to 2,000 people,
that is how the coffin becomes so important.
Because everybody wants to have a glance of it
and take a photo of it.
People would also start to ask, "Who did that?
"Who was the artist?
Where was that coffin built?"
So that is where we get our praises.
- Behind each design coffin, there's a story.
- The bumblebee also goes with
the story of the disappearance of bees.
The corn cob was a piece I built during my 5 days workshop
in Iowa State University.
- The coffins can also symbolize a hobby,
a favorite item
or a person's importance to her community.
- A coffin of that shape would be made for a chief.
- The Chazen Museum of Art in Madison
is home to Eric's eagle coffin.
It's a design reserved for people of prominence.
- Something like the eagle we have behind us.
They are symbolic coffins: the eagle, the tiger,
the stool, the chief's staff.
When I see a piece like that,
I, kind of, want to see the inside.
? ?
Sometimes people look at it
and they will say, "Oh, this is not big enough.
This cannot contain the body."
But anytime I build a piece, I build it to my size.
And the reason I do that is
I consider myself as an average human being.
- In 2018, Eric took on a project
at the Madison Public Library Bubbler.
[scrape, scrape]
In a creative space
where the smell of fresh-cut pine fills the air.
- That's knotty white pine.
I think it is the best wood I've ever used here.
- This time, his saw and hammer are pounding out a dinosaur.
[tap, tap, tap]
Bringing awareness to endangered and extinct animals.
- It's easy for me but with this,
I always have to carry the model with me
and, you know,
be thinking of how I want the shape to look like
because sometimes you might get to a point
where you need to stop and think about it.
[exhales loudly]
[taps wood]
I'm also figuring out how slope it is here on the back.
[murmuring to himself] So four, two.
[murmuring to himself] Think how this slopes.
But as soon as you get it, and it is flowing,
that is when you kind of work really fast.
[clunk of saw on table]
- And if you're wondering,
Eric has already decided on the coffin design
for his journey into the afterlife.
- I do have my coffin already.
I have it in the shape of my wooden hand plane
that I keep with me all the time.
[scrape, scrape]
That's the plane I've been working with
for a very long time.
[tap, tap]
- Design coffins are
one of the most celebrated forms of African art
and he is fiercely proud of his grandfather s legacy.
- The reason I built the airplane was
that was how he started.
I would say the airplane was his first coffin
he built for the grandma.
So, I sort of built it too.
[tap, tap, tap, tap]
This is really a dream to be here,
to share with people the story of my family
and what we do.
I mean, that's what has made me who I am today.
[clunk of wood board]