Kenya with the Potters 1

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Life has been crazy busy since my latest trip... At last I have a few spare moments to shout about my latest escapade. I'm done with varsity for the year so I have a few days before the usual retail crush begins. tis the season for making money! This is the first of a few entries about my ceramic escapades in East Africa.

A few months back I escaped to Kenya with some other mud people to build a wood-fired kiln and go to a conference in Nairobi.

Kenya is warm - the people and the weather. We flew in over the Nairobi National park and already I could see the extremes of Kenya - vast open spaces right next to a busy city and large colonial era houses against simpler breeze-block dwellings. At the airport our party was welcomed by the wonderful George Vikiru - head of Fine Art at Kenyatta university. Juliet, Beth, Susie and I crammed into George's 4x4 (sans Beth's bags!!!!) and experienced Nairobi traffic - experience being a broad term.... ha ha. General mayhem with street vendors all over - fruit, spiderman kites and kitchen knives at every corner and matatus rushing along the loose shoulder of the roads.

We moved into an old Officer's house at KU. The campus used to be british military barracks. Over the course of the weekend we met all the other kiln building crew members - staff and students from university ceramics departments from all over the world. It was Nyama Choma and Kenyan beer and dancing and talking and general shenanigans. 'ma Ju' kept us nourished until our departure to Wamumu on the Monday after our arrival. Potter's kick wheels and tools, suitcases and kit bags were packed high up on a bus roof and we were off into rural Kenya for the start of our little adventure. Only one problem - Beth's bags were still nowhere to be found!

Along the way we picked up a pair of rural potters. We got a chance to have a look at their studios and marvelled at the speed and efficiency of their hand-building technique. Back on the dirt road with our two new friends and some greenware in tow.....

We arrived in Muranga at the Green Ficus Place - and green it was. This hotel was to be our home for the next week.

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Photos

On the Bus to Wamumu
Artists, students, professors and potters from Kenya and the world on their way to a kiln-building project to remember!