MURUMBI AFRICAN HERITAGE COLLECTIONS OPEN AT NAIROBI GALLERY

IMMORTALIZING JOSEPH & SHEILA MURUMBI AT NAIROBI GALLERY/// ALL photos by Margaretta

//African Heritage Pan African fashion show was highlight of official opening of Murumbi Collectionsl

Veteran artist Ancent Soi is also exhibiting at Nairobi Gallery. Joseph Murumbi, Kenya's second Vice President under Jomo Kenyatta had a huge collection of African art

Job Seda, the former African Heritage bank member with new AH bank singing his composition "A Song for Murumbi'

LUPITO NYONYO WINS BIG IN HOLLYWOOD FOR HER ROLE IN 12 YEARS A SLAVE

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kenyan-actress-Lupita-Nyong-o-bags-Hollywood-award/-/539444/2045574/-/rqlbyx/-/index.html.

THREE KENYAN THEATRE PREMIERS

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/Playwrights-shift-focus-to-females/-/1220/2038504/-/h0eohg/-/index.html../////THREE THEATRE PREMIERES BY KENYAN PLAYWRIGHTS//// BY Margaretta wa Gacheru: published early October 2013 in Saturday Nation///

Full cast of The Vagina Monologues//// Over the next two weeks, local theatre goers will have the good fortune to see no fewer than three stage premieres of original plays by Kenyan writers. Two of them premiered last night. One is John Sibi-Okumu’s brand new script entitled Elements starring the Francophone actress from Guadeloupe, Nathalie Vairac, at Alliance Francaise. The other is Walter Sitati’s Episode Two of What is your Price? which he wrote especially for his theatre company, Hearts of Art and is the long-awaited follow-up to the cliff-hanging drama (Episode One) which premiered earlier this year at Kenya National Theatre. Sibi-Okumu also wrote his play with a special plan in mind. He was thinking of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to the lovely cosmopolitan actress, Vairac, whom he wanted to give the opportunity to reveal her extraordinary acting skills to a receptive Nairobi audience. Kenyans have been seeing quite a few remarkable female actors on stage, in film and on television in recent times. But rarely have local playwrights composed compelling monologues for one specific actress, which is exactly what Sibi-Okumu did. Tonight is the only time you have to see Sibi’s new muse on stage in Elements, at least until the director-playwright and actress can select another venue. The script is actually in French but English sub-titles will be streaming right above the Alliance stage, so non-French speakers should be able to enjoy the work just as well as the French-speaking audience. Sitati also has several strong female characters in his Episode Two of What is Your Price? which is on at the Kenya National Theatre today and tomorrow. Played by Ellsey Akatch, Beatrice Wacuka and Helen Wanjala, Sitati’s women reveal a wide range of temperaments and types, the implication being that women can be complex characters with the capacity to transcend traditional gender stereotypes, just as Sibi-Okumu’s female character does. Sitati assures me that the climax of What is your Price? will come in Episode Two so we won’t have to hold our breaths again to find out what ultimately happens to his lead characters, advocates Michael (played by Sitati) and his brother Gerard (Elvis Gatere) on a third occasion. The third playwright whose script premieres next Friday, October 25th at the Michael Joseph Centre is Sitawa Namwalie Silence is a Woman was meant to premiere last month at the Storymoja Hay Festival, but due to the tragic events that unfolded at the Westgate Mall, including the demise of the Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor who was in Kenya especially to attend and speak at the Festival, the show was cancelled. Sitawa’s script is actually not a play per se, but rather a series of her poems, all of which flow from the same source and grapple with similar spell-binding themes. Sitawa is on stage with Mumbi Kaigwa and Melvin Alusa as well as with instrumentalist Willie Rama on percussion and Boaz Otieno on the single-string harp known as the orutu. It’s another show you don’t want to miss, especially if you ever saw Sitawa’s Cut off my Tongue, which followed the same sort of poetic structure and showed how powerful and provocative Sitawa’s vibrant verses are. Finally, Fanaka Arts and Friends Ensemble will be staging another comedic farce next weekend at Alliance Francaise, directed by Ellis Otieno. Husband Caught in the Net has an outstanding cast including Sam Psenjen, Wairimu Karuga, Kevin Amwoma, Maggie Karanja and Joe Kinyua among others. But it sounds like yet another show that makes fun of infidelity and is adapted from a script by an American or British playwright. But as Nairobi audiences tend to love this sort of frothy and frivolous entertainment, Friends and Fanaka are likely to well at the box office. Continuing at the Professional Centre is Phoenix Players’ latest production, Apples in the Desert, by the award-winning Israeli playwright Sayvon Liebrecht. This is yet another production which showcases the female’s condition and reveals how women are finally breaking free from constraining traditions and expressing themselves as strong, intelligent and courageous human beings.

APPLES IN THE DESERT, a powerful Israeli feminist play at Phoenix Theatre

WOMEN’S HOUR ON THE NAIROBI STAGE By margaretta wa gacheru/////Oct,2013 Patriarchy in varying degrees operates all over the world. But from the look of Phoenix Players latest production, Apples in the Desert, by the award-winning Israeli playwright Savyon Liebrecht, Orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem are among the most extreme, authoritarian and dogmatic patriarchs around.

At least that’s the way Joshua Mwai presents Reuven, the austere and autocratic father figure who’s determined to get his ebullient 18 year old daughter Rivka (Mildred Sakina) married off by hook or crook. Even if she doesn’t want to wed an old widower with three sick kids, this hard-headed dad is determined to make his recalcitrant child tow his line. Otherwise, she will shame his name in their narrow-minded orthodox community. But he won’t win. Rivka has already defied her strict dad by secretly finding a dance partner in Dooby (Claude Zatara) when their religious sect doesn’t allow its people to dance. Yet Reuven is effective in controlling his submissive wife Victoria (Esther Mundia), mainly by threatening her with both physical and psychological force, thus striking terror in her heart. It’s a tactic that bullies use and it’s one that has intimated her for years. But not Rivka. Initially, she looks timid and malleable when in fact her mother’s pain has provided her with a powerful incentive to be everything her mother is not. Plus she has an aunt, her mother’s sister Sarah (Melissa Kiplagat) who offers her an alternative role model, namely a (relatively) free-thinking spinster who isn’t easily intimidated or put down by any man. She’s genuinely happy to not be married, and while she still dresses like an orthodox woman and retains certain conservative values, she’s a libertarian by contrast to Victoria. Sarah has always encouraged Rivka to be strong, to have a mind of her own, and to not be bullied by her father. This hasn’t made her popular with Reuven, who’d like to ban Sarah from his home. But as she’s the one light in Victoria’s life, apart from her only child Rivka, Victoria ignores her husband’s rule in this one sphere. When Rivka runs away after her father insists on marrying her off, irrespective of her wish, he’s so bitter he threatens to kill her, and Mwai makes you believe he really will. When he finds out where she’s gone, having browbeaten Sarah who surprisingly gives away her niece’s secret, the suspense is intense. Is he out to kill her daughter or what? Fortunately, Sarah gets to Rivka before the old man (who’s wearing the wrong kind of Hasidic hat) does. She may be shocked to find her living with Dooby in a kibbutz, but her love for her niece supersedes her orthodox upbringing. It’s also mother-love that compels Victoria to get out from under her husband’s thumb and find her daughter. I won’t give away the climax of the play since the suspense leading up to Reuven’s also going to find his child is killing (be it literally or figuratively speaking). Besides, the ending has been criticised by some Western critics who claim it’s unrealistic. I disagree but you have to go see Apples in the Desert yourself to find out how Liebrecht resolves the problem of patriarchy in the lives of these three Israeli women. One thing that makes Apples in the Desert such an inspiring play is the ensemble work directed by Lydia Gitachu since all the actors are strong and self assured in their respective roles. However, it’s the performance of Melissa Kiplagat as Aunt Sarah that i especially enjoyed since her role was truly life saving and this new-comer to the Kenyan stage presented Sarah with a warmth, realism and strength that was truly touching. The show runs a couple more weeks. Tonight another newcomer to the Kenyan stage, Nathalie vairac, gives the premiere performance of John Sibi-Okumu’s brand new play entitled Elements. Kenya’s leading playwright says he scripted Elements especially for Natalie who’s been performing professionally in London and Paris among other theatre capitals for many years. It’s a monologue, and one that is bound to be spell-binding as it explores a wide range of tabooed topics that some audiences may find a bit too daring to discuss, but one will need to see it how sensitively the writer and his new muse explore provocative social territory.

OCTOBER nairobi theatre scene is booming

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/-October-shows-shaping-up-to-be-special/-/1220/2028542/-/qimmbv/-/index.html///OCTOBER’S THEATRE SHAPING UP TO BE SPECIAL /// BY Margaretta wa Gacheru, published early OCTOBER 2013///

John Sibi Okumu's new play ELEMENTS stars Nathalie Vairac/ October is shaping up to be a month filled with several premier performances, showcasing a number of exceptional Kenyan scriptwriters, including the veteran playwright John Sibi-Okumu and Walter Sitati, founder of Hearts of Art. We’ll also see original work by the Kenyan choreographer Kefe Oiro whose dance-drama has gone global and is now coming back to Nairobi this month.

In fact, Oiro and his Tuchangamke Group opened last night at the GoDown Art Center and will be staging a second show of his original production entitled ‘Mitumba’ tonight at the same venue. Performed in collaboration with another dancer-choreographer, Stephanie Thiersh and the German dance troupe, Company Mouvoir, Mitumba was Oiro’s inspired idea which he spawned in 2010 while doing a dance residency in Cologne, Germany, sponsored partially by the Goethe Institute of Munich and partly by the GoDown. Thiersh actually saw Oiro perform first in Dar es Salaam in 2008 and as artistic director of Company Mouvoir, she invited him to Cologne to do a solo dance project at the Company. It was there that Oiro proposed the idea of using the mitumba market concept as a metaphor for something much larger, the crazy wonderful way that Kenyans live their everyday lives. For even though mitumba refers to second hand ‘stuff’, Kenyans have the creative capacity to take other people’s cast-offs and transform them into lovely ensembles that can look beautiful and brand new. Stephanie loved the idea but the choreography wasn’t fully worked out until she came to Kenya in 2011 and explored a plethora of mitumba markets, from Ngara to Gikomba and Toy. Meanwhile, Oiro enlisted a number of Kenyan and Tanzanian dancers including Juliet Omolo, Judy Bwiri and Isaac Abeneko. Thiersch also involved several dancers from her Company Mouvoir as well. Mitumba premiered in Germany, in Cologne the same year, and it was so well received it got staged in half a dozen more cities, including Dusseldorf. Oiro and Thiersch had always planned to perform Mitumba in East Africa, so earlier this week they performed their contemporary dance-theatre in Dar es Salaam, and this weekend they’re all here in Nairobi. Meanwhile, other original productions premiering in Nairobi in two weeks’ time are John Sibi Okumu’s brand new play entitled Elements, featuring the Francophone actress from Guadeloupe, Nathalie Vairac and Hearts of Art’s episode two of What is your price? scripted by Walter Sitati and co-starring the writer together with Ellsey Akatch, Elvis Gatere, Beatrice Wacuka and several others. Sibi-Okumu, one of Kenya’s most prolific playwrights, television personalities and feature film stars (The First Grader, The Constant Gardener) actually has a day job teaching French at Hillcrest High. So it’s understandable that he’s finally scripted a play in French—with English subtitles that will be streaming simultaneously just above the Alliance Francaise stage when the show is on, the weekend of October 18th and 19th. So don’t be put off from coming if you can’t speak French fluently yourself. It would seem that Sibi-Okumu wrote Elements especially for Vairac who is a professional actress and one whose talents Sibi understood should not be wasted while she is here in Kenya with her family and may be leaving anytime. It’s a one-woman show which could only be pulled off with a professional performer like Vairac whose presence alone is quietly captivating. The same weekend, Walter Sitati’s theatre troupe, Hearts of Art makes a comeback in Episode 2 of his cliff-hanger of a play, What is your price? But even if you didn’t see the first segment of his script, it will be well worth theatre-lovers coming to see Episode 2. I thought the story was gripping and gutsy. My only grievance about it was it left us hanging and it wasn’t announced at the time that Act or episode 2 would be coming in a month. It’s one of those shows that you can catch up with easily, and it will be worth doing so, at Kenya National Theatre October 18th through 20th. Meanwhile, Festival of the Creative Arts will be in rehearsal throughout October to come back November 1st performing another outrageous comedy, the kind they do well called Do You Love Me, directed by Andrew Muthure. Finally, the final performance of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolia can be seen tonight at the Professional Centre. Directed by Nyambura Waruingi and featuring the stellar all-female cast, this is a show you don’t want to miss.

REMEMBERING WANGARI MAATHAI

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/DN2/Remembering-Wangari-Maathai-Nobel-Prize/-/957860/2033904/-/wx5mc9z/-/index.html..http://WANGARI MAATHAI: FREEDOM FIGHTER FOR MOTHER EARTH/// BY Margaretta wa Gacheru..Published October 16, 2013 in Daily Nation, DN2, Nairobi/// Professor Wangari Maathai knew from early on in her life that she was bound to make waves and lead legions of people whose concern was for freedom, social justice and peaceful protection of Mother Earth. In the documentary film Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, she recalls growing up in the lush green forests that blanketed the mountain, Mt Kenya, where her people, the Kikuyu, traditionally believed their God or Ngai stayed and where He created the first human beings, Gikuyu and Mumbi. The two were rather like Adam and Eve except they never fell from God’s good grace. Instead they were given all the land to till and to glorify their God. Thus, long before the Christians came to Kenya, the Kikuyu were praying people and the land on which they lived and farmed was sacred. One tree was especially blessed, Wangari said. The Mugumu or fig tree was sacred and was never meant to be cut. It was that sacred tree, the thick forests and pure streams of water coming down from the mountain that Wangari said had shaped her childhood vision as well as her lifelong desire to restore the forests which had been carelessly chopped down in the name of progress while she was away from Kenya studying in the United States. I met Wangari shortly before she started the Greenbelt Movement. At the time, she was still chair of the National Council of Women of Kenya, and in an interview for the local media, she told me how she’d been raised with a sense of responsibility to lead. Among the first girls in the country to go to school, her first teachers, the Catholic sisters had instilled in her a sense of duty to use the gifts given her by God wisely and selflessly. That seed of thought, implanted in her heart from a very early age, helps me understand how she went on to become such a courageous trail blazer and fearless freedom fighter not just for women but also for the rights of Mother Earth and the people of Africa. Wangari never forgot that sense of purpose and courage to lead or to speak her mind. She would become ‘the first’ in so many fields, leading both women and men to realize that they too could break ‘glass ceilings’ and debunk stereotypes that would limit human beings’ achievements. She would become one of the first Kenyan women to go on the Tom Mboya-John F. Kennedy Air Lift to the United States for university studies, the first woman Ph.D in East Africa, the first woman to head a [veterinary] science department at one of Kenya’s most prestigious universities, the University of Nairobi, the first woman to spearhead an environmental movement in Africa and also, the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize for peace. But the latter prize from the Nobel committee wasn’t just contingent on her commitment to conservation and her construction of the Greenbelt Movement, which had started humbly as a grassroot women’s initiative while she was still the NCWK chair, but then grew to become a global environmental movement responsible for the planting of millions of trees all over the planet. It’s true that she linked the concepts of reforestation, conflict resolution, peace and development so persuasively that the Swedish philanthropists could hardly reject her candidacy for the Nobel Prize in 2004. But by that time, she was also widely recognized as an avid human rights activist who battled a corrupt civilian dictator like the former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, an African ‘Big Man’ who oppressed, detained and even tortured anyone who questioned his absolute authority or sought accountability, transparency and social justice from their top politician. Wangari was one of Kenya’s most consistent, outspoken and pro-active social activists who might have been happy to remain a university professor and NCWK Chair where she had initially established what would become the Greenbelt Movement. But that was not to be. Her role as an exemplary leader of women and wife who expected both love and mutual respect in her spouse was seen as too much of a threat to most Kenyan male politicians, starting with her husband, Mwangi Maathai, who as a Member of Parliament could hardly stand his wife’s outshining him in public and also advocating gender equity when most MPs couldn’t use the terms equality and women in the same sentence. When Mwangi filed for divorce, he also accused Wangari of immorality, a claim her employer, the University of Nairobi, took seriously as grounds to fire her from her senior professorial post. It didn’t help that the UON executive council was made up of all men who seemed to bond in their desire to bash this brilliant woman whose credentials and qualifications out-shown them all. It was thereafter that she threw herself into working for NWCK which itself was largely made up of rural women groups, groups which would become the base from which she would build the Greenbelt Movement. She began to teach grassroot women how to plant tree seedlings and why it was important to their future, to future generations and to the environment. She also turned tree planting into an income generating project that women could benefit from in immediate and practical terms. Her initiative (both the tree planting and training of rural women in the whys and wherefore’s of reforestation) attracted foreign donor support. One big advantage that she had was being in Kenya where Nairobi, the country’s capital was also the international headquarters of UNEP, the United Nations Environment Program, which gave her audience and active support. Wangari would increasingly be in the limelight since the UN had recently launched the first International Women’s Decade, and her role as a grassroot women leader as well as a role model for women everywhere was exemplary. Yet it wasn’t only her credentials and her work with women that made her a rising star. Wangari had that ineffable quality called charisma, which together with her warmth, her wit and consistent commitment to the environment and to women’s active contribution to it made her a clear-cut candidate for leadership awards ranging from the Right Livelihood Prize to the Nobel. But then, living in the land of Daniel arap Moi where so many of her professional peers had either fled the country and been detained and tortured for their supposed roles in failed attempts to bring down the Moi government, had a profound impact on Wangari. She refused to flee Moi’s repressive regime even as she also rejected the notion of towing his line or joining the sycophants who gained favour with the Big Man by parroting his praise. Instead, she was one Kenyan who chose to challenge Moi’s megalomaniac practices. One of her most courageous deeds was standing up against his plan to grab public land in the heart of Nairobi. Uhuru (Freedom) Park was Kenya’s equivalent of New York City’s Central Park and Wangari couldn’t allow Moi to steal land that belonged to the Kenyan people. She had a legacy to protect, particularly as her people had fought for Independence and to win back the land taken by the British under colonialism. It took tremendous courage to challenge Moi, especially as so many of her friends were being detained and disappeared. But Moi’s plan to build a skyscraper in the city park including a monumental statue of himself at its front entrance was more than Wangari could accept. She single-handedly wrote letters to all her foreign donor friends, pleading with them to oppose Moi’s project and promise not to fund it with loans that everybody knew he would never pay back. Moi was furious with Wangari’s success in blocking his scheme. He was particularly incensed with the worldwide media attention that she got for this victory. His wounded ego wouldn’t allow him to forget what she had done, which partly explains why Wangari was nearly killed a few years later when she chose to stand with the protesting mothers of political detainees. Their peaceful protests might have easily been ignored by Moi but for the fact of Wangari’s presence. She attracted international media attention to the mothers’ just cause, the call for the release of their children from Moi’s jails. When Kenya’s must ferocious security force, the GSU, (General Service Unit), arrived at Uhuru Park where the mothers were protesting, they showed no mercy to the women or to Wangari whose head was battered so badly people feared for her life. Fortunately she survived, went on to challenge efforts by Moi’s cronies to grab still more public lands, including Karura Forest on the outskirts of Nairobi. At the same time, she was taking the Greenbelt Movement to other parts of the African region with support from UNEP. By now she was training both women and men to be conservationists and to recognize that deserts are man-made and can also be unmade through the planting of trees. It would primarily be Greenbelt that would earn her the Nobel Prize, but her human rights record also made her ripe for global recognition of this kind. By 2004, Moi had finally resigned after 24 long years and she had finally heeded women’s request of a decade before to run for high office and lead the country. She ventured into national politics and was elected an MP of her Mt Kenya constituency. But when she was appointed Assistant Minister for the Environment, her supporters were not pleased since she had already won the Nobel and they felt she deserved a senior cabinet position. But for better or worse, Wangari’s greatest acclaim and appreciation came from outside of Kenya, not from within. She’d be invited to speak about Greenbelt and the current human rights scene in Kenya everywhere from San Francisco and Stockholm to Tokyo, Toronto and even Beijing. Her autobiography, Unbowed, would become a best-seller and she became the subject of everything from children’s books to documentary films. Tragically, at some point along the way, Wangari acquired ovarian cancer and went for treatment overseas. When she returned she was still strong in spirit and fully committed to continuing her work with the Greenbelt Movement, but she had lost a lot of weight and her body weak. Still beaming with her beautiful smile, Wangari graced the front cover of one of Kenya’s leading magazines just days before she died. The irony of her passing was that the Kenya government under Mwai Kibaki gave her a grandiose state funeral, something that was traditionally reserved exclusively for heads of state. So in death she was given the respect and recognition that had deserved in her lifetime. Fortunately, her work continues with her daughter remaining behind the scenes but still serving to help steer her mother’s global movement that nobody wants to see die. Wangari wrote several outstanding books before she passed on including The Challenge for Africa, which is a comprehensive yet highly readable text about the woes of the region as well as practical prescriptions for solving Africa’s problems. And her last book that came out shortly before she died was Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World. The book itself is a remarkable reflection on the way Wangari had lived her life. For despite having become a devout Christian, the core of her spirituality had come from her forefathers and mothers who had taught her to pray to the one good God, Ngai. This wonderful woman whose integrity and principled stand for social justice, for her people and for the planet is still very much alive in the hearts and minds of Kenyans. She passed on in 2009 but her tree-planting initiatives continue to spread all over the globe and her memory is likely to grow, not diminish, since there are buildings, books, theatre production and even public art exhibitions being dedicated to her life work all the time. She’s a woman who people felt privileged to know and love. May she rest in peace. She gives us hope that Mother Earth can be replenished as long as people learn from Wangari’s example and dedicate their lives to doing the greater good as she did.

AWESOME ERMIAS EKUBE paints fellow Kuona Artists before departing for Sweden

Eritrean Artist Ermias Ekube: Special portrait exhibition at Kuona//// By Margaretta wa Gacheru | Published in Business Daily, July 26 2013 /// Ermias Ekube has only been in Kenya for a year, but in that relatively short span of time, the nomadic Eritrean artist has made a large impact on the Nairobi art world. Kuona Artists'Portraits by Ermias: Tonney Mugo, Anthony Wanjau & Meshack Oiro//// But it’s not only because he has had two substantial solo art exhibitions in that time—one at the Alliance Francaise, the other at Talisman in Karen. Nor is it because he’s also participated in several group shows—one at the Kenya Cultural Centre’s Visual Art Gallery and two at the Village Market where his portrait painting earned him a substantial second prize purse at the Manjano Nairobi County Art Competition. Nor is it simply because he has run three months’ worth of Saturday morning printmaking workshops at Kuona Trust that Ekube has left an indelible mark on the Nairobi art scene. All of these events have affected the appeal and popularity of this Addis Ababa-born artist. But the quality of his art, particularity his approach to portrait painting, definitely has shaped the public’s perception of this gifted painter who will shortly be travelling to Sweden to start a new artistic adventure over the next few months. Ironically, it is his last and most short-lived one-man exhibition of portraits that, in my view, best sums up the remarkable grace, generosity and artistic gifts of Ekube. It is ironic because it ought to be an exhibition that lasts for at least a fortnight, if not a month or more, given the content, quality and location of the show. Instead, it opened at Kuona last Friday and ends this Friday. Ekube takes responsibility for the time frame of this important show. “The Sweden trip was planned long ago, but I hadn’t expected the departure date to be moved forward as quickly as it was,” said the father of three whose children start at new schools in a new country next month. He humbly agrees with me that it would have been best for this show to run longer since it features almost the entire cast and crew of resident artists and art administrators of Kuona Trust itself. Never before has anyone taken the time and trouble to focus exclusively on the most important component of Kuona – the artists themselves. Ekube has been doing portrait painting even before he attended Addis Ababa University’s School of Fine Art and Design. But he’s never planned such an ambitious portrait series as he devised early this year when he began asking each and every artist and art administrator at Kuona to ‘sit’ for him. “The idea was to include every one of them,” said Ekube who didn’t get the chance to paint Kuona’s dynamic director Sylvia Gichia as she never seemed to have the time to sit long enough for the artist to at least create a sketch of her. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx P.S. It's just amazing that i found my story via Google, but it was on the Web under somebody else's name. Mine was there in small print but how amazing that someone can just lift my story and claim it as his own, with his byline.

CHELENGE VAN RAMPELBERG: KENYA'S FIRST FEMALE SCULPTOR

WOOD SCULPTOR GOT FIRST FEEL FOR MEDIUM FROM FIREWOOD/// BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU//PUBLISHED IN NAME ONLY oCTOBER 10, 2013 IN BUSINESS DAILY. THIS IS THE REAL UNEDITED STORY THAT I WROTE, NOT THE SUB-ESDITOR'S///

Technically speaking, Chelenge van Rampelberg never took a single art course until the early 1990s when she went for a two week workshop at Alliance Francaise where she first learned about the art of etching and wood cut printing. But realistically, Kenya’s first female sculptor was exposed to indigenous ‘material culture’ from an early age. Growing up in the rural Rift Valley when the forests were still thick, bushy and wild, Chelenge, 52, did everything a rural child was required to do. She fetched firewood, meaning she had to work with machetes, axes and knives to chop up fallen tree branches to carry home for use as fuel. The tools were some of the same ones that she works with today both to create her wonderful wood statues and woodcut etching, both of which are on display throughout October at One Off Gallery.

Back then she also learned to weave grass ‘plates’ on which her mother would serve the family ugali almost every night. “It was like child’s play for us since all little girls had to learn to weave. Nobody had store-bought plates or cups back then. We also used to create our own cups by slicing gourds in two,” the artist said. Clearly nostalgic for that bygone style of life, chelenge still dreams of those forests. “I go deep inside them and that’s where I find the gorillas, elephants and birds that I etch onto wooden plates when I’m awake,” said the 52 year old mother of three who might not have begun to produce works of art if her last born child hadn’t insisted on staying in school with his big sisters rather than come home with his mom. “it was actually out of loneliness that I first began to paint,” she confessed. “After I agreed to leave him in school (despite his being only 3), I went out and bought all colors of house paint, brushes and Americani fabric, and then got to wrok painting behind our house. After that I hid my paintings under my bed so no one would see.” It was only when her spouse Marc discovered her stash and then told her work mate at Gallery Watatu Ruth Schaffner that he’d found a treasure trove of his wife’s art work. It didn’t take long after that for all that early work to find its way to the Gallery where “it sold like hot cakes” chelenge recalls. Then shortly after that, she attended the AF etching and print-making workshop, the fruits of which are at One Off today. Having neither paper or a proper printing press of her own, Chelenge’ stunning woodcuts are filled with images from her memories and dreams. She has a special affinity for elephats and gorillas, despite her never having seen the latter in real life. Her woodcut ethchings as well as her life si\ze sculptures of both forest dwellers reveal a warmth, affection and playful intimacy that feels almost anthropomorphic. But both her sculpture and her woodcut plates—which represent a full ten years of effort—also dwell on another important dimension of her life which is the family, including a mother’s pregnancy and child birth. In fact, some of chelenge’s most powerful sculptures are of women, one heavily pregnant (even as she’s eight feet tall) and looking grand, another in which the woman has just given birth, and yet another where she and her sweetheart are slow dancing in an intimate embrace. The theme of family affection recurs in her woodcuts as well where mama gorillas play games with their children and a regal elephant mama is deemed ‘Queen Mother of the Jungle.’ Human beings also welcome visitors home their humble mud and wattle huts, homes like the ones in which chelenge grew up. Remembering an idyllic rural lifestyle that she concedes no longer exists [in the Rift Valley], Chelenge may not have gone to a formal art college, but her early years were filled with indigenous artistry. The woods she works with today are more diverse than those she carried home back then: Today she sculpts using everything from doum palm, ebony and jacaranda to avocado, sikotoi and even the man-made wood created from recycled sawdust known as … But she learned to use the most basic tools for sculpting as a child. And while the grains, colors, textures and types of wood are impressive, what’s even more inspiring about Chelenge’s first art exhibition in more than ten years (her last one was at the Italian Institute of Culture in 1998) is her artistic vision which is deeply indigenous Kenyan, at the same time as it’s dreamlike and nostalgic for a pastoral past life that’s very different from the one existing in rural Kenya today.

SAMWEL WANJAU, A TRIBUTE TO A GREAT AFRICAN SCULPTOR

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Tribute-to-one-of-Kenya-s-most-creative-sculptors/-/1248928/2027054/-/s61xap/-/index.html. Published October 10, 2013 in Business Daily Nairobi.///

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AUTHORS BUFFET OFFERS YUMMY FOOD FOR THOUGHT AT NAIROBI BOOK FAIR

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Authors-Buffet-becomes-a-favourite-for-book-lovers/-/539444/2017870/-/87ph7g/-/index.htmL....AUTHORS BUFFET GAVE FOOD FOR THOUGHT TO SCORES OF LOCAL BOOK LOVERS///// By margaretta wa gacheru. PUBLISHED OCTOBER 4, 2013 BUSINESS DAILY NAIROBI What a difference a week can make. Two Saturdays ago, Nairobi witnessed the more heinous terror attack ever seen in our fair city; but this past weekend, Westlands was abuzz with brilliant energy and intellectual activity as the second Authors Buffet took off at Sarit Centre. There had been concern that the turnout would be sparse since Sarit is a stone’s throw from Westgate. But on the contrary. The 16th Nairobi International Book Fair was full to overflowing with book publishers as well as book lovers who roamed all round the 1st floor of the mall. But for me, the place to be from 10am throughout the day was definitely the Authors Buffet where 25 published writers were expected to be on hand and seven new books were set to be launched. As it turned out, more than 35 published authors arrived to transform what had initially begun as a book signing for a single writer, Kinyanjui Kombani last May (organised by the Textbook Centre) readily became an event including more than a dozen local authors. That was the first time round for the Authors Buffet. But last Saturday, the event was even more of an inspiration as nearly three times that number arrived at the second Buffet by Saturday afternoon. That initial conversation between Kombani (author of Wangari Maathai: Mother of Trees and The Last Villains of Molo) and Textbook Centre generated so much interest among local authors that the turnout far exceeded organizers’ expectations. But it also revealed just how much the literary landscape of Kenya has changed in the last few years. Kinyanjui moderated the program which involved the launching of books by David Mulwa, Muroni Kiunga, Ephantus Achebi, Patricia Ojiambo and Bonnie Kim, all of whom were on hand for book signings and sharing a few words. At the same time, Kinyanjui took time to introduce all 25 authors present (as well as those who came trickling in unannounced), which offered a stunning sampling of our expanding literary scene. Those who arrived after the first 25 included Elizabeth Orchardson Mazrui and Arwings Otieno who in addition to being a newly published author is also the proud recipient of the Burt Award for his new book A Taste of Fame. “William Burt is a Canadian philanthropist who wants to promote Kenyan writers as well as the Kenyan reading culture, which is why the award includes a KSh1 million prize,” said Otieno, a full time language instructor at Pwani University in Kilifi who received the Burt Award together with his cash prize the night before at the Hotel Intercontinental. “The money is already in the bank,” confirmed Otieno, who says he had simply seen the call to submit manuscripts in the media online and then applied. What was one of the most positive features of the Buffet was seeing so many emerging—and established-- authors writing in a multitude of literary genres. There were non-fiction children’s books like Sibi-Okumu’s on Tom Mboya and Mulwa’s We Come in Peace. There were autobiographical books by Muthoni Likimani and Churchill Winstone. There was also a good deal of fiction (some of which has been available for some time) addressing issues pertinent to Kenyans’ everyday lives, including stories related to environmental concerns, HIV-AIDS, abortion, ethnic clashes, and even the shallow nature of celebrity ‘success’. What was also striking about the day was the number of motivational books written by Kenyans, including Bonnie KIM, Winnie Thuku and Anthony Gitonga among others. The other surprising aspect of the day was the discovery of how many Kenyan authors are currently writing full time or at least devoting themselves to advancing Kenya’s literary culture. Among them were Thuku and Gitonga, both of whom are motivational speakers as well as authors, who specialise in coaching aspiring Kenya writers. Gitonga was given time to share ideas on how one can personally advance kenya’s reading culture. “Get together with a dozen of your like-minded friends and start your own book club,” he said. The other writer who was overwhelmingly acknowledged for his role in advancing the country’s literary scene was David Mulwa, the Kenyatta University lecturer in literature and theatre arts, who may be better known as an actor on stage, in multiple TV series and in films than for his inspired approach teaching writing. But for a man who has more than 30 published titles to his name, including both plays, novels and novelettes, Mulwa has yet to receive a lifetime achievement award for his immense contribution to culture and the arts in Kenya. But undoubtedly he will. The Authors Buffet went on non-stop throughout the day as the reading public appreciated the opportunity the Buffet gave them to get authors to sign their books. It was just as the Buffet was ending that the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation book award was about to be given. The field had been quite competitive this year as Mbugua Nganga, Henry Ole Kulei and Waithaka Waihenya were all in the running to win. As it turned out, this year’s winner Ole Kulei for Vanishing Herds with Mbugua’s Different Colours came in second and Waithaka got third for The Vender. The cash prizes were not nearly as size of the Burt Award but the prestige of winning is increasing year by year,. So we congratulate all three writers for their success. We also recommend everyone go out and get copies of their books to promote and deepen writers’ incentive to write now as they might win next year.