Artist Appreciation Month: My Metal Art Inspiration

I first heard about Artist Appreciation Month this year from fellow artist Patience Brewster whose whimsical Christmas Ornaments I love. As part of Artist Appreciation Month activities I was asked to write about artists who inspire me. I have chosen to write about the artist who inspired me to start making metal art. 

It was Christmas over ten years ago and my sister Atsango and I were shopping for Christmas gifts. She, been a lover of art, and I been a recent returnee to Kenya we decided to go by the art gallery at the Kenya National Museum. There I saw the most stunning piece of metal art (see a photograph of it below), I felt an immediate connection to it and so did Atsango. Since I was a broke college student at the time she ended up buying the art piece for herself and one other piece by the same artist for my brother and his wife. 

African Metal Art purchased Kenya National Museum, Artist Unknown 

Unfortunately, since the artwork was not signed, I am yet to learn the name of the talented artist who created this piece, but I remain forever grateful to him/her for re-awakening my creative spirit. Should anyone know the name of this artist please get in touch with me. 

On that day over ten years ago I decided I had to learn this wonderful metal art form. Soon after as I was walking in one of the malls, I checked the notice board and saw a tiny advert for classes in hand embossed metal art. I took down the art teacher’s phone number and called her shortly thereafter. Her name was Taruna and she taught me the ancient Indian art form of embossing aluminum metal. From then on I developed my own style based loosely on the Indian art form. To this day I work primarily with metal.