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All rights reserved. PUBLISHER & EDITORIAL DESIGNER Boaz Adhengo MANAGING EDITORAL ASSISTANT Amanda Spielberg MARKETING EXECUTIVE Lydia Jane Atieno County Coordinating Marshalls Sylvia Opondo; Marion Bundotich; John Ogola; Dorothy Olambo; Kelly Osuo; Ambrose Otieno; Risper Auma; Monicah Anyango; Linda Nyambara; Charles Otieno; Lydia Jane Andiwo Siaya County Arts Network P.O. Box 524 – 40601 Bondo [email protected] Table of Contents a. Editorial ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Boaz Adhengo 1. b. How Do You Define an Artist ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….David Grant 4 c. Retracing The Benga Rythm ……………………………………………………………………………………….Mousa Awuonda & Ketabul Music 7 d. What is An Artist …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Laurance Olivier 15 e. Book Review: Dust by Yvonne A. Owuor ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….AKoyo Beverly Ochieng 17 f. A Tale Of Grace Ogot ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Peter Ngangi 20 September, 2015 E D I T O R I A L The Quantified Artist Boaz Adhengo Mr. Boaz Adhengo is Vice President for Special Projects at Jahwar Amber Fund and founding steer member of Arterial Network Kenya. He is popular for his book “Creativity in Kenya” Pronacal Press/Amazon, 2010. Adhengo resides in his heritage home at Kapiyo hills in Bondo. Email: :[email protected] Welcome to the journalistic edition of our future magazine. SCAN will now emerge as a documentalist portfolio, to debate not only issues of art, but give guidance for culture through the collective information gathered that would rather warrant the readers own decision upon such principalities involved. It has been noted in many a times that the connotations of art, an artist and artistic has always rose eyebrows where those who claim to be professionals feel abused or invaded. To create a glimpse of such understandings is what drives the cause of this edition, dubbed ‗The Artist‘ and will be noted through its pages that a world approach to such views have been involved. Am I an artist because I write? Does the capability of having dreams qualify me a creative? Many of those who have emerged to deliver as celebrities often fail to understand the value addition chain for creative growth; misconceive the factual know that becoming an artist involves various attempts to perfect on the discovered talents within our own selves; the creative nostalgias that we shy away from sharing. The artist is simply that bold creative who has the courage to overtly display his expression. In 2011, my own personal journey into the rural began from a network of ranchers who encouraged city dwellers to glimpse a taste of the country side. Of all places, I chose the Maasai community, with understanding that their marginalization made them a safe zone against all vices. Little did I know that I was marginalizing myself by living as a minority within a marginalized community, they mistook me as the agent of aid, a person who brought hope. My creativity amused them, but their culture was different from my understanding of development. Female circumcision and traditional marriages were customary, to be practiced as activities that brought community cohesion. I thought they were just stupid and ignorant. And my dissociation earned me a violent eviction from Maasai community, yet I was a land owner. To them, I never owned anything other than some documents, that such a land belonged to the community and I was their visitor, now am chased. In this story, we entrench the cultural cohesion, the marginalization of collective selves against those who are considered progressive; hence, the habitual persistence to cling on cultural practices that basically promote unity as opposed to economic gain. What would then be the correct definition of an artist? Would it need to be pillared on culture? Everyone is rightly an artist but not everyone is professionally artistic; to which case, practicing professionals have independent self definitions i.e. performing artist or visual artist depending on what they comprehensively involve their occupation upon. For example, while growing up, I had the luxury of enjoying computers, an equipment that was expensive and rare during my childhood days; I had Siaya County Arts Network 1 not enough friends who shared in this societal class and would rather stay indoors and keep silence of owning such a machine, for beyond the gated community we resided, there were people considered not good for livelihood. I learnt of computer graphics and typing from consistent use of; developing a talent on designs and animations. At the university, I studied political science and graduated as such with masters in conflict management; but oftenly find myself indulging on issues of artistic management and general development of the artist. Such interest on art made me a pioneer author on artistic activism for Kenya. The segmentation and dissociation of our mentalities towards emerging as unique components of art, either as the best agents of representation or otherwise; all depends on association. And it was saddening when some art manager asked me what makes me an artist; I could as well answered my culture, or just the professional truth, my publishing. When we ask ―who is an artist‖, we are, as researchers, concerned with the artist as a member of a professional group. When we ask ―what is an artist‖ we are dealing with more existential or ontological problems: what are the inherent characteristics of artistic work and artist themselves. In giving such answers, the categories of definitions emerge, which envisage aesthetic meanings; thus, the need to find out what an artist is, is to reveal some special quality, capacity or gift which makes a person a true artist, a creative genius. This quality or capacity is usually linked to the artists ability – and his or her predicament – to see and interpret or reinterpret the world in a new manner. We can therefore not answer the question ‗who is an artist‘ without making the value judgment ‗what is an artist because both ways of defining an artist have a joint social function; they serve to integrate and demystify or isolate and mystify artists‘ communities from the rest of the society. The relations and interactions between these dimensions and the definitions they generate can be clarified with the following typology and its model questions: Definitions based upon practical considerations I II What are the good criteria to be used What does the artist do; how does he to define a (good) professional; relate to his work? rewarding and rejecting them/their Definitions base works Definitions based on external on internal criteria III IV How does the work of art reflect/define What is art; what is an artist; what is criteria the artist; and what kind of artist? his task or predicament? Definitions based on moral considerations Siaya County Arts Network 2 Whether art originates from the communal way of life and its moral inclinations is still an issue of self perception. Were my morning photography sessions of value to the Maa community? Would they see me as an entity on its own? Would I reject their cultural immoralities on basis of art? The Maasai who had nurtured their art of life were equally unwelcoming, not only to my taste of living but to my difference. I am not circumcised and therefore, my art of sex would be different; I don‘t speak Maa and therefore my art of expression would be different. I was different to them, not appreciated. We must note that in many attempts to dissociate art from culture, there is usually a distress against harmony, such value that makes an expression gain its meaning towards a consumer. For instance, Benga Music that is a making of the luo speaking community has gained to be appreciated and replicated to other tribal zones, yet it retains its originality. You will notice from reading the article by Mousa Awuonda of Ketabul Music that art and culture cannot be isolated, for they contribute greatly to the formation of a peoples heritage; yet, the Maasai heritage in as much as it disgusted my gut, was simply their artistic ticket to life; where they mutilated their girls and walked half naked with preferences inclined to them remaining marginalized. All in all, that is their choosing and the artist must always look for its sustainability. In this edition of SCAN Magazine, we have included elaborated definitions about the artist and its generic expressions. For instance, David Grant discusses the array of understandings that we could possibly have on ‗who is an artist‘ and ‗what is an artist‘ but elaborates in relation to such livelihoods related; while Lawrence Olivier engages on ‗what is an artist‘. Rural art is simply a process to document whatever histories that have ever transformed our development agendas. It might as well involve political activism, but most nobly expressed creatively through visual arts or narrated stories (either written or performed). The necessity to preserve rural art is what brings activities like festivals into play, which could grow to be representations of history or avenues of urbanism.