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Kenya: Woman's Passion for Painting
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Business Daily (Nairobi)
5 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Beatrice Gachenge
It's a typical Thursday in 2004. The clock ticks 7 pm. Ms Ann Gakere has just arrived home, exhausted and hungry, but only one thing is on her mind: drawing.
Classical music is playing. She sets up her painting tools in her drawing room. At 8pm, she is in full gear, her hands full of charcoal as she begins to draw a friend's portrait for her fast approaching birthday. She stops and takes a last look at her creation. Satisfied that it is perfect, she takes a rest. It is 2pm on Friday.
"Drawing can be addictive. I drew for 18 hours non-stop and I only stopped when I was really sure that the portrait was the real deal. I don't even remember visiting the bathroom or eating anything. I only wanted to draw," said Ms Gakere, a charcoal, pastel and acrylic artist.
"When I am in that mood, the rest of the world ceases to exist."
Ms Gakere is one of the few artists in the country who use charcoal, pastel and acrylic. She says that drawing a portrait, especially of an acquaintance, is hard as one discovers a lot of detail that must all come to life.
Ms Gakere is one of the emerging artists out to cash in on a middle-class that is hunting for authentic tastes. For her, there is almost a spiritual feeling when spreading the charcoal dust and smudging it on paper and when it is done, she feels a great connection to the piece of art.
She spends hours touching their faces, watching them emerge, until they can finally return her stare.
She fell in love with the charcoal and pastel media in the 1990s while still in high school and was curious to try out various tools of art, but her savings could only afford her charcoal and she has never turned back.
The journey began early in her childhood. A class assignment at the age of four in 1979 saw her win a prize of two shillings, which was a lot of money. Being the last-born, her elder siblings were partially involved in art, but it was her father who inducted her into the world of art.
"He used drawings to explain everything to us. If he saw some nice building he would draw it for us. He elaborately drew to explain directions and, as I grew up, drawing was entrenched on my mind as a means of expression," says Ms Gakere.
But drawing has never been for commercial purposes since she believes that it is always hard for any artist to put monetary value to their work.
While a piece of art has a lot of emotional connection to the artist, to the final buyer it may be just a piece of work to match with the colour scheme of the house. This, she says, makes the life of an artist very hard especially if it is the primary source of income.
"It is very hard for people to understand and appreciate the value put to a piece of art, especially abstract art," said Ms Gakere, who established a web designing business in line with her passion for art some 10 years ago.
Her first charcoal painting - a laughing gorilla - earned her Sh1,500, while her most pricey was the Africa Queen, which went for Sh 45,000.
Some of her pieces are hard to part with while she gives away others. She explains that it is usually hard for her to part with the originals, as it feels like her best friend is moving out of town.
Drawing is a form of therapy for Ms Gakere. "I have always drawn, from as far as I can remember. Be it doodling, match stick people, or cartoon characters. I can't remember myself not trying to draw something at every stage of my life," said Ms Gakere.
She prefers to work with acrylic on canvas as it takes less than 10 minutes to dry unlike some oil-based paints that take days. However, with this medium, she has to work under pressure due to its fast drying nature, meaning there is little time to change a piece of art.
Her work is mainly influenced by Africa, her people, landscape and wildlife. Although now a director of SawaSawa.com Ltd, a web solutions company, she says one should never stop doing what they truly love .
For her, life without art is equivalent to a bowl of soup without soup.
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Now that she has learnt how to control her passion to avoid a disastrous addiction to her work, Ms Gakere has recently picked up playing violin and squash to strike a life balance. There are no rehabilitation centres for artists addicted to drawing, she says with a light touch. While her works may not be readily available in the local galleries, Ms Gakere says most of the people who know her work, know how to get her.
She is now working on a year long piece, of mix media trying to bring to life the saying, 'Hear no evil, see no evil speak no evil', which she says has never felt complete.
"The beauty of art is that it is in all of us. One does not need to draw to know they are artistic. It can be the way one dresses, organises their things, sets up their house or aligns their thoughts," said Ms Gakere.
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