Kenyan Sculptor With A Pan-African Vision

Kenya Wed 12-08-2009

Kenyan Sculptor With A Pan-African Vision
By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Walking deep in the heart of Kisii Hills with one of Kenya’s most world renowned stone sculptors, I know Elkana Ong’esa is only half joking when he says, “Everyone carves around here!

The Tabaka - born sculptor, recently returned to his home area to take up the office of Chairman of the Kisii Soap Stone Carvers Cooperative, could have amended his comment by half. For according to tradition and everyday practice, it is every man and boy that learns to carve from a very early age in Tabaka.

'Kenyan Sculptor With A Pan-African Vision'

The sculptor Elkana Ong'esa

“According to our culture, the girls’ and women’s work is to sand, polish and wash the carved stones,” says Evans Ngoge, Cooperative Secretary and of course, a carver in his own right.

Take a family like Robert and Jane Mochama, who I found sitting and working recently under a shady tree with their two daughters, Rose, 14, and Mary, 12. All three females were busy washing miniatures soap stone figurines that Robert had just carved.

“I started carving when I was five years old,” said Mochama, whose father and grandfather had all been stone carvers before him. “All seven of my father’s sons are also carvers,” he adds, noting that his membership in the Stone Carvers Cooperative enabled him to build two stone houses, one of which is now used as a store for the local Bomware Chabumba Self-Help Group.

“I didn’t start carving seriously until I finished Form 4, but since 1980, I’ve been carving full-time.” Teaming up with wife Jane, Mochama only works with his girls during school holidays.

Giving a rationale for why women only sand and polish the carved stones that come from quarries spanning more than nine square kilometers of Tabaka’s South Mogirango constituency, Elkana describes the work of a stone carver as “hectic.”

‘The carver doesn’t just carve; he also goes personally to the quarry and collects the stone. Then he has to carry it up the hills to his work site, which is heavy work indeed!” he says.

In fact, carvers’ lives have been transformed in the last few years, ever since ‘piki piki boda bodas’ were introduced to Tabaka.

“Now the carver can use his cell phone to call a piki piki man to get help carrying his stone up the hills to his home,” said Charles Kombo, another carver who works closely with Ong’esa. “Before piki pikis, carvers would either carry heavy stones on their heads or hire lorries to transport their stones for them.”

^{Elkana Ong'esa (R) and Samuel Onsando at the Nyabingena quarry}

Explaining that Kisii stones come in a wide array of colours, not just the off-white hue most commonly seen in curio shops and coming from Kisii’s oldest Mosache quarry, Elkana says stones also come in red, black, pink, and even yellow.

According to the Chairman of the Quarry Owners Society, Isaac Oyaro Kanyanya, every quarry is known for a specific coloured stone. For instance, the Ogecha quarries produce pink and black stones, while the Nyaginchenche quarry mines red stones and the Etumbe quarry black ones.

Elkana first started carving with stones he collected from the Mosache and Ogecha quarries.

“It was from Ogecha that we excavated the [ten ton] stone that I carved for UNESCO in 1976 through '78',” says Ong’esa whose world-acclaimed ‘Bird of Peace' or Enyamuchera stands proudly today in Paris at the front of the UNESCO headquarters, a gift from the Kenya Government, and a testimony to the world-class creativity of Kenya and the Kenyan Ong’esa.

Ironically, as renowned as Ong’esa has become internationally thanks to the commission given him by the former Kenya Vice-President the late Joseph Murumbi, to create a gift for the Senegalese former UNESCO Secretary General M’Bow, Ong’esa himself was never paid a penny for his work!

“UNESCO was set to pay me directly, but it was blocked by the Kenya Government who claimed they would handle the matter since I was their employee,” recalls Ong’esa who was working for the Teachers Service Commission at the time, teaching art at the Kisii Teachers Training College.

“After that, I was never paid a cent,” he recalls painfully.

Ong’esa still hopes that justice will be done and he will be remunerated for his work. But in the meantime, his multi-ton sculptures stand in international arenas all over the world. They are in public spaces in China, Canada, Sweden, the United States [at multiple sites: in Manhattan, Atlanta and Houston], and of course, in France as well as in Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Uganda, and all over Kenya.

Awarded the Head of State Commendation (HSC) by President Kibaki in 2004, Ong’esa says the award was as much for his work in community development as it was for his fine art.

“We registered the [Kisii Soap Stone Carvers] Cooperative in 1980 with 69 members and our goal was not just to find markets for our carvings and obtain fair prices for our labor; it was also to generally improve the living standards of our carvers and their families,” says Ong’esa who only served in an advisory capacity until very recently when he agreed to take up the post of Chair.

Citing one example of the benefits the Cooperative struggled to obtain for its members, Ong’esa says every member today holds a National Health Insurance card which also covers family members.

But according to Stanley Mochama, the Cooperative lost steam for a myriad of reasons while Ong’esa was away in Canada, obtaining a Masters degree in Education from McGill University.

“The Cooperative didn’t pick up until 1988, after Elkana got back,” says Stanley who, with younger carvers, started up SMOL Art Self-Help Group to continue promoting soapstone handicrafts while the Cooperative was at a stalemate.

But even during the hiatus when Ong’esa was away, the Cooperative was involved in road maintenance and construction of small access roads leading to the quarries, says James Ongubo was served as Cooperative Chairman for 17 years and now works closely with Ong’esa as his vice-chair.

^{Elkana Ong'esa (R) working on the 'Dancing bird' with his team}

Today, Cooperative Chairman is just one of the many hats Ong’esa wears. Recently in Algiers attending and exhibiting at the 2nd Pan African Arts Festival, he was instrumental with 250 other African artists in forming the Pan African Association of Visual Artists and Artisans (PAVA).

“The fact is visual artists and artisans are often ill-represented during discussions of African culture and art, so we took the opportunity afforded at Algiers to organize ourselves so we can have more say in cultural policy making in our respective countries,” says Ong’esa who was unanimously elected PAVA president in July.

“With the PAVA Secretariat based in Algiers, strongly supported by the Algerian government, we expect to enhance the interests of African visual artists and artisans in all 56 African countries,” says Ong’esa who is already starting to network with artists in other African countries.

Coming from Kisii where the line between artist and artisan is seriously blurred [since practically all Kisii carvers have the capacity to go either way, but for economic reasons, many choose the route of artisan for survival’s sake], Ong’esa is pleased to see PAVA serve the interests of both.

“There is little doubt that visual artists and artisans need a regional organization, but there’s a lot of work that lay ahead,” says Ong’esa, a man who’s been concerned with issues of artists and equity for many years.

Yet apart from all these administrative roles he has taken on, Ong’esa has got an impending deadline to complete a ten ton granite stone sculpture for the American Embassy. Entitled “Dancing Birds” Ong’esa says the work is meant to represent the ongoing relationship between Kenya and the United States’ The two-stoned sculpture is scheduled to be finished before the end of the year. As such, Ong’esa works closely with a team of master carvers, including Charles Kombo, Robin Masese, and Zebedeo Obara, to meet that deadline.

“Before the sculpture is done, there will a number of other young carvers enlisted to apprentice on the piece,” says Ong’esa who sees this project as a prelude to a World Stone Sculpture Symposium he hopes to hold next year in Tabaka, using stones from the same Bomchari quarry from which he extracted the Dancing Birds granite stone.

“We plan to host ten Kenyan stone sculptures together with ten from overseas who will mutually benefit from each others’ experience and artistry,” he says. “The local firm Jiwa Shamji has kindly volunteered to help us transport stones from the quarries to the symposium.”

In the meantime, Ong’esa’s immediate task is revitalizing the Cooperative, primarily by expanding its agenda as well as its markets. “Right now we’re working on a major project aimed at recycling soapstone chips so that none of this valuable natural resource goes to waste.”

Ong’esa’s definitely a man with a vision and vitality to match. But in spite of his being the most highly educated carver in Tabaka, widely known as ‘Professor’ for his years of teaching and selfless service to his community, still Ong’esa has never lost his humility or sense of rootedness within the Kisii Hills.

“I never forget that practically all my family are master carvers and a number even better carvers than myself,” he says in all honesty. “My good fortune is that I was able to get an [advanced] education,” referring both to his undergraduate studies at Makerere University’s Margaret Trowell School of Art and his masters studies at Kenyatta University and McGill.

But clearly, the revitalizing force in Elkana Ong’esa’s life is his creative commitment to his people and to their communal gift of the stone and stone carving skills honed to perfection by this multi-talented man.

Posted By: Maggie Otieno

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Your Comments

cathal gildea: Hi I would like to contact the gentleman that made the elephant statue at Mweya safari lodge Uganda,any help would be great,regards Cathal.

henry abuya franco: nice art need more pictures please.

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