I began collecting African art in 2001, and like most people when they first start out collecting something I didn’t know much about it besides the fact that I was very drawn to it. A lot of people know me through my Rand African Art website which I started in 2004 as a way to share my passion with others and create an online educational space for other collectors. It’s very out of date and needs a serious updating, but it’s frozen in time because I can no longer update it. My About Me page on that website gives you a little more background on me and how I started collecting.
I started out buying anything that I found interesting and didn’t really grasp the concept of “authenticity” until a couple of years into my collecting journey. As I continued to learn more about African art and authenticity through direct mentorship, visiting Tribal art fairs, and through online discussion groups, I ended up selling a lot of the objects I collected early on and started to try to focus on collecting objects that were authentic, meaning made for use and used within the culture. I’ve gone through several stages in my collecting journey where I’ve become interested in specific types of objects, like headrests or staffs or puppets or objects from a specific culture, and I’ve built up smaller collections within my collection. My current areas of specific interest are Pende and Salampasu objects. Since my collection was (and still is) largely self-supporting, meaning I’d usually sell a piece or two in order to acquire another object I was interested in, I started to see the need for a platform to offer objects for sale from my collection that I was parting with in order to make room for new acquisitions.
In 2004 I started a website to sell a lot of the early objects I had collected, both authentic and ones made specifically for the collecting market. I phased that website out and sold it in 2013, but before that time I made a decision to separate the “made specifically for the collecting market” objects and authentic objects, and that is when Rand Tribal was developed (2007) and I originally launched it in 2008.
My “day job” is in the telecommunications industry and I work as a strategic planner doing things that are fairly technical, so photography and African art are my much needed creative outlets. I have 3 bonsais, 1 of them I’ve had for over 20 years. I also passionately collect early Dr. Seuss material from the 20’s and 30’s that he did before his children’s book career kicked off, things he did for humor magazines and things he did in his early career in advertising. I have a fairly extensive collection of this material and one day I hope to put together a website for it.
Although I never really used my last name much, some people might be asking themselves “Wait, didn’t his last name used to be Smith? When did he become Rand Ningali, and why?” Well the short answer is that I didn’t get married and take a new last name, the change was something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. Although I decided on the name in 2002, I didn’t start the process of legally changing it until 2020 when Covid put all of my travel plans on hold and any airline tickets I had were cancelled. I didn’t have to worry about having a new passport name that didn’t match an airline ticket so I started the process and finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, changed my last name and am really happy about it. It was one of the best things that the pandemic brought about.
For Rand Tribal I’m a one-man-show because I do all of my own photography, website work, correspondence, packing and shipping. I try to get back to inquiries as soon as possible, and when I sell things I try my best to get them out within 3 days of payment, depending on the complexity of the packing job needed.
I accept PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfers, checks, and I can also have people pay securely through an online invoice portal from my credit card processing company. Maybe someday I’ll accept cryptocurrency, but not yet.