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
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.
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