Alvey, of Utah, and Daniel, of Namibia, met in 2003 when Alvey was on a painting trip in Swakopmund, a township on the country's southwest coast. Alvey, who has traveled extensively in Africa, had set up her easel en plein air - at the edge of the sea, and in the center of town. As a white woman, she had become something of a curiosity to locals.
One day, Daniel walked up to Alvey. He didn't speak English, but still managed to convey that he was an aspiring artist. He handed her a laminated business card that read simply: "Mr. Sign Painter."
Then he walked 10 miles home and 10 miles back from his ghetto to show Alvey his high-school graduation certificate.
Daniel was making a meager living painting barbershop signs, but dreamed of attending art school. Alvey handed him a sketchbook, and the result, she says, was "an Escher-like drawing" of an ostensibly ordinary building with doors that led to unexpected places, sometimes nowhere.
On annual visits to Africa, Alvey delivered art supplies to Daniel, including a projector that enabled him to draw his signs more quickly. She also hauled back to Utah some of his works to sell - masonite paintings ranging in size from 9 by 12 to 39 by 24 inches.
In Namibia, a country that gained independence from South Africa in 1990 but still exists under a curtain of de facto apartheid, Daniel is faced daily with the Catch-22s of race.
Afrikaners, native whites, might commision signs from him, but upon completion they refused to pay him, arguing that, without a college art certificate (the equivalent of an associate's degree), he has no right to compensation.
As for Alvey, she came to realize helping Daniel selling his work was a well-meaning gesture, but merely a half-measure. "You can help somebody a little tiny bit or you can help 'em a lot, but you can't really help 'em in the middle," she says, quoting the philosophy of her writer friend Rick Bass.
A better answer would be for Daniel, 23, to attend college in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, where $3,500 per year covers tuition and room and board. There he could earn his college certificate and also study fine art. "Two years would be great," Alvey says. "Four years would be fantastic."
All of the proceeds from the show Alvey has organized of Daniel's art are slated for his college fund. "Such a wonderful idea," Daniel wrote from his home in Swalopmund via e-mail. "I'm very happy to heard you will have to exhibition. . . . I hope we will make it."
A show of Alvey's art, "A Gift to Africa," runs concurrently with Daniel's, and the artist hopes its title foreshadows a generosity of spirit toward William Daniel and all of the people of the struggling continent.
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* JULIE CHECKOWAY may be reached at jcheckoway@sltrib. com or 801-257-8611.
Art from and about Africa
* "AFRICAN BARBERSHOP ART," sign paintings by William Daniel, opens from 6 to 9 during tonight's gallery stroll at Tanner Frames suite 105, Artspace Citycenter, 230 S. 500 West, Salt Lake City.
* TRENT ALVEY'S "A Gift to Africa" opens in suite 215 in the same building and time.
* FOR MORE INFORMATION about both shows, e-mail Alvey at trentalvey@xmission.com. For further information about William Daniel's work, visit www.williamdanielart.com.
* BOTH SHOWS run through June 14.
